Thoreau

            Henry David Thoreau is one of the most read and most influential American authors; his writings have been reprinted countless times, both in English and in translation into many foreign languages. Thoreau's strong individualism, rejection of the conventions of society, and philosophical idealism all distanced him from others.  He had no desire to meet external expectations if they varied from his own sense of how to live his life.

            His contemporary literary reputation began with the publication between 1840 and 1844 of some of his poetry, essays, and translations in the Transcendentalist periodical The Dial. Publication in The Dial identified Thoreau as a member of the Transcendental circle, however, it did not do much to establish a reputation beyond those directly involved with the magazine. The esoteric Dial had a very limited circulation.

            Thoreau reached a broader audience through the more popular magazines that proliferated during the nineteenth century.  Titles directed at the general reader such as Godey's, Graham's, Harper's Monthly, Harper's Weekly, Knickerbocker, and The United States Magazine and Democratic Review gave considerable exposure to the work of many writers, Thoreau included.  In 1843, Thoreau published "A Walk to Wachusett" in the Boston Miscellany and two pieces in The United States Magazine and Democratic Review. His article "Thomas Carlyle and His Works" was published in Graham's Magazine in 1847.  

            Having delivered lyceum lectures based on his travels to various places, Thoreau knew that the popular appeal of such material was far greater than that of more abstract subjects.  He consequently adapted his experience in the lecture hall to the literary world and submitted travel pieces to periodicals likely to publish them. His "Ktaadn and the Maine Woods" (initially presented in lecture form) appeared in The Union Magazine in 1848.  Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune, whom Thoreau had met in New York in 1843, had taken a special interest in him and helped Thoreau to find a publisher for the piece. "Excursions to Canada" appeared in Putnam's Monthly Magazine in 1853, "Cape Cod" in Putnam's in 1855, and "Chesuncook" in Atlantic Monthly in 1858. Although the appearance of these pieces did not create great demand for Thoreau's work, the general magazines provided a venue that allowed him to write with reasonable expectation of seeing at least some of his material brought before an audience.

            Although Thoreau sometimes complained in his journals of the level of comprehension of his lecture audiences, he nevertheless continued to lecture and to work lecture material into publishable form. In the late 1840s and early 1850s, he was presenting material that would be incorporated into Walden (1854). In 1852, he published "The Iron Horse" and "A Poet Buying a Farm" — both of them parts of Walden — in two issues of Sartain's Union Magazine. When it finally appeared, then, Walden had already received what amounted to significant advance publicity.

            The book was published in an edition of two thousand copies in August of 1854 by the Boston firm of Ticknor and Fields.  As the premier literary publisher in America in the mid-nineteenth century, the company was in a position to see that Thoreau's work was well promoted and distributed.  A sufficient number of notices and reviews appeared to assure broad interest in the book, which sold well.  Walden was praised not only by those who knew Thoreau and his writings, but also in a variety of newspapers and magazines around the United States and in England.   This reception of the book gave Thoreau greater recognition as an author between 1854 and his death in 1862 than his earlier literary efforts had brought him.

            In "Civil Disobedience," Thoreau presented his ideas about the individual's responsibilities in relation to government.  In the twentieth century, this work powerfully affected Mohandas Gandhi, who applied the principle of nonviolent resistance in the struggle for independence in India, and Dr. Martin Luther King, in his leadership of the American civil rights movement.

            Thoreau’s contribution affected Unity and me in that in his writings he exhorts his reader to begin a new, higher life.  He points out that we restrict ourselves and our view of the universe by accepting externally imposed limits, and urges us to make life's journey deliberately, to look inward and to make the interior voyage of discovery.  According to Thoreau our proper business is to seek the reality the absolute beyond what we think we know. This higher truth may be sought in the here and now in the world we inhabit.  Our existence forms a part of time, which flows into eternity, and affords access to the universal.  Thoreau points out that if we attain a greater closeness to nature and the divine, we will not require physical proximity to others.    He comments on man's dual nature as a physical entity and as an intellectual spectator within his own body, which separates a person from himself and adds further perspective to his distance from others.  Thoreau urges us to face life as it is, to reject materialism, to embrace simplicity, serenely to cultivate self, and to understand the difference between the temporal and the permanent. He ends Walden with an affirmation of resurrection and immortality through the quest for higher truth.