"Walden"

In 1854 Henry David Thoreau released his most famous book, "Walden." The book was written during a particular literary period, and that was the American Transcendentalism period. It was more or less a religious movement, or religious reaction, whose strongest spokesperson was Thoreau's personal friend and fellow author, Ralph Waldo Emerson.

To understand "Walden," in some way we must first understand Transcendentalism. For a wonderful site that explains this term and movement better than I am about to, please visit: http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transweb/tr-de...

Transcendentalism was a movement based on individuality in thought and essence. It explored one's own responsibility to one's self, and to become in touch with one's intuition. It rejected the idea of having to follow religious rules in order to attain understanding, but instead that each person has unlimited abilities if only they learn, and understand the world around them. They do this by opening their sense, all of them, conscious and sub-conscious, to become more aware of the world they are living in and to be able to reach a spiritual understanding. This movement was very strong, and was confined not only to spiritualism and religion, but overflowed into literature. Today we call is the Transcendental movement, much like we say the Beat Generation, or the Romantic Period. The Transcendental period was primarily during the 1840's, during which many pieces were either written, or ideas conceived that inspired later works. "Walden," released in 1854, is one of those works.

To know something of Thoreau's life we see why he might have turned to Transcendentalism. He was well educated, but suffered many tragedies in his life, including the deaths of many in his family. He had many options open to him as careers go, but he always envisioned himself a poet and philosopher. He taught for a period of time, but eventually became soured on public education after realizing no true reform was able to take place. He also worked closely in the church, until he began to reject some of the doctrines the church had, and in 1837 he met Emerson, whose Transcendental views helped transform Thoreau into the writer and person we are familiar with today.

Some people do not finish all of "Walden," some believe because they find it to be self-righteous, or "sermon-like." It was actually written as a sort of roadmap of Thoreau's progressive state of mind, and an examination of why he lived the life that he did, which he always tried to make very simple. He wrote extensively about nature, more specifically about man's relationship to it, and with it. He believed that man and nature should not be so separate, but instead bond, and be able to live in harmony with each other. He had a great respect for nature, and was never one to seek fame and fortune. From this we can see where his reluctance to settle into one permanent career never really took hold, except to continuously write. It was his writings, his philosophies and his poetry that ultimately made him the figure that he is today and that was, after, his goal, to be a philosopher and poet.

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