Henry David Thoreau: The Founder of Transcendentalism

Labelled as the father of American nature-writing, and through his arcadian experience and pithy writing style in Walden, Henry David Thoreau had ipso facto established the very foundations of transcendentalism. Thoreau stayed on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts for two years and two months. During that period of time, he lived alone in the woods, a mile away from any civilized sight, and he survived through the labor of his own hands. Walden reflects upon the writer s personal critique of America s economy, lifestyle, and environmentality. Thoreau evaded the city primarily, so as to affirm his own belief and experience. "Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion" (Thoreau 9). And that "Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new" (10). Thoreau initiates his book via overtly castigating the American modus vivendi and the excess related to private property and consumerism. He believes that most of our comforts of life stand against the progress of humankind. "My purpose in going to Walden Pond was not to live cheaply nor to live dearly there, but to transact some private business with the fewest obstacles-;- to be hindered from accomplishing which for want of a little common sense, a little enterprise and business talent, appeared not so sad foolish" (18). Thoreau goes on a pithy jeremiad lamenting and criticizing the superfluous and apotheosized economy under which he lives. He maintains that people are turned into institutions and individualism is imbibed and contracted. He is convinced that life on Earth is a pastime, only by living simply and wisely. The marrow of life, as he calls it, was his animus to enter the woods. "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear-;- nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary" (68-69). Thoreau also draws on the impact of ideology:
Let us settle us ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe, through Paris and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, through church and state, through poetry and philosophy and religion, till we become to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality, and say, this is, and no mistake--;-- (73)
Nature s watchmen, the fox, the skunk, and the rabbit, search the fields and prey. In his regard, they embody the chain which link animated life. They are his sole and true companions. As he opines that "society is commonly too cheap" (102), he regards abstemiousness, solitude, and reading as substantial factors leading to serenity and repose beyond all the squalor and circumspection that the city engenders. Such a kindredship can be found merely in the depth of nature. As sequestered as the place was, man s traces there were ineffable. There was only water washing against the shore as it did for thousands of years. Thoreau s perception of transcendentalism includes elements of persona, God, and natural peacefulness:
It is no dream of mine,
To ornament a line-;-
I cannot come nearer to God and Heaven
Than I live Walden even.
I am its stony shore,
And the breeze that passes o er-;-
In the hollow of my hand
Are its water and its sand,
And its deepest resort
Lies high in my thought.
Nature is not adulated by human inhabitants. The animals and the birds live in harmony with trees and saplings. Yet, what share do humans have with the rapt beauty of nature. "She flourishes most alone, far from the towns where they reside. Talk of heaven! Ye disgrace earth" (149). Nature is our congratulation. Its our most perilous and resplendent experiences. Chastity, valor, and nobleness are in nature. It all begins with a return to the body, to the material, and to worship God via his natural design. "Heaven is under our feet as well as above our heads" (211). Nature has a myriad of profiles, but one form only. It s up to humans to cherish its existence and purport. It s up to him to open new ways, not of economy, but of thinking. I could not find words any better to finalize this section:
Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes´-or-friends. Turn the old--;-- return to them. Things do not change--;-- we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do not want society. If I were confined to a corner of a garret all my days, like a spider, the world would be just as large to while I had thoughts about me. (244)

Sources
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. Macmillan Collector s Library, 2016.

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