Henry David Thoreau: The Great Conservationist, Visionary, And Humanist
He spent his life in voluntary poverty, enthralled by the study of
nature. Two years, in the prime of his life, were spent living in a shack
in the woods near a pond. Who would choose a life like this? Henry David
Thoreau did, and he enjoyed it. Who was Henry David Thoreau, what did he
do, and what did others think of his work?
Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts on July 12,
1817 ("Thoreau" 96), on his grandmother's farm. Thoreau, who was of
French-Huguenot and Scottish-Quaker ancestry, was baptized as David Henry
Thoreau, but at the age of twenty he legally changed his name to Henry
David. Thoreau was raised with his older sister Helen, older brother ...
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Helen, who had begun to teach, and his aunts offered to help. With
the assistance of his family and the beneficiary funds of Harvard he went
to Cambridge in August 1833 and entered Harvard on September first. "He
[Thoreau] stood close to the top of his class, but he went his own way too
much to reach the top" (5).
In December 1835, Thoreau decided to leave Harvard and attempt to
earn a living by teaching, but that only lasted about a month and a half
(8). He returned to college in the fall of 1836 and graduated on August 16,
1837 (12). Thoreau's years at Harvard University gave him one great gift,
an introduction to the world of books.
Upon his return from college, Thoreau's family found him to be less
likely to accept opinions as facts, more argumentative, and inordinately
prone to shock people with his own independent and unconventional opinions.
During this time he discovered his secret desire to be a poet (Derleth 14),
but most of all he wanted to live ...
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(Derleth 18). On April 11, 1838, not long after their first meeting
Thoreau, with Emerson's help, delivered his first lecture, "Society" (21).
Ralph Waldo Emerson was probably the single most portentous person
in Henry David Thoreau's life. From 1841 to 1843 and again between 1847
and 1848 Thoreau lived as a member of Emerson's household, and during this
time he came to know Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller, and many other
members of the "Transcendental Club" ("Thoreau" 696).
On August 31, 1839 Henry David and his elder brother, John, left
Concord on a boat trip down the Concord River, onto the Middlesex Canal,
into the Merrimack River and into the state of ...
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Henry David Thoreau: The Great Conservationist, Visionary, And Humanist. (2008, April 26). Retrieved November 22, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Henry-David-Thoreau-Great-Conservationist-Visionary/82674
"Henry David Thoreau: The Great Conservationist, Visionary, And Humanist." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 26 Apr. 2008. Web. 22 Nov. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Henry-David-Thoreau-Great-Conservationist-Visionary/82674>
"Henry David Thoreau: The Great Conservationist, Visionary, And Humanist." Essayworld.com. April 26, 2008. Accessed November 22, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Henry-David-Thoreau-Great-Conservationist-Visionary/82674.
"Henry David Thoreau: The Great Conservationist, Visionary, And Humanist." Essayworld.com. April 26, 2008. Accessed November 22, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Henry-David-Thoreau-Great-Conservationist-Visionary/82674.
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