Collected Essays and Poems

by Henry David Thoreau, Elizabeth Hall Witherell (Editor)

America's greatest nature writer and a political thinker of worldwide impact, Henry David Thoreau's remarkable essays reflect his speculative and probing cast of mind. In his poems, he gave voice to his private sentiments and spiritual aspirations in the plain style of New England speech. Now, The Library of America brings together these indispensable works in one authoritative volume.Spanning his entire career, the 27 essays gathered here vary in style from the ambling rhythm of "Natural History of Massachusetts" and "A Winter Walk" to the concentrated moral outrage of "Slavery in Massachusetts" and "A Plea for Captain John Brown". Included are "Civil Disobedience", Thoreau's great exploration of the conflict between individual conscience and state power that continues to influence political thinkers and activists; "Walking", a meditation on wildness and civilization; and "Life Without Principle", a passionate critique of American materialism and conformity. Also here are literary essays, including pieces on Homer, Chaucer, and Carlyle; the travel essay "A Yankee in Canada"; the three speeches in defense of John Brown; and essays such as "Autumnal Tints", "Wild Fruits", and "Huckleberries" that explore natural phenomena around Concord.

Seven poems are published here for the first time, and others are presented in new, previously unpublished versions based on Thoreau's manuscripts.

Genres: Poetry, Essays, Philosophy, Classics, Literature, Nonfiction, American

703 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1920

About the author

Henry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau) was an American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, development critic, philosopher, and abolitionist who is best known for Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.

Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism.

In 1817, Henry David Thoreau was born in Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University in 1837, taught briefly, then turned to writing and lecturing. Becoming a Transcendentalist and good friend of Emerson, Thoreau lived the life of simplicity he advocated in his writings. His two-year experience in a hut in Walden, on land owned by Emerson, resulted in the classic, Walden: Life in the Woods (1854). During his sojourn there, Thoreau refused to pay a poll tax in protest of slavery and the Mexican war, for which he was jailed overnight. His activist convictions were expressed in the groundbreaking On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849). In a diary he noted his disapproval of attempts to convert the Algonquins "from their own superstitions to new ones." In a journal he noted dryly that it is appropriate for a church to be the ugliest building in a village, "because it is the one in which human nature stoops to the lowest and is the most disgraced." (Cited by James A. Haught in 2000 Years of Disbelief.) When Parker Pillsbury sought to talk about religion with Thoreau as he was dying from tuberculosis, Thoreau replied: "One world at a time."

Thoreau's philosophy of nonviolent resistance influenced the political thoughts and actions of such later figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. D. 1862.

More: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/tho...

http://thoreau.eserver.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Da...

http://transcendentalism-legacy.tamu....

http://www.biography.com/people/henry...

Reviews

[Brian Willis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a complete collection of briefer works, it goes without saying that this is for a completist. For somebody with such humble roots, Thoreau writes with erudition and knowledge of both the natural world as well as the literary antecedents of the burgeoning Transcendentalist movement. One can also see an awakening sense of political justice when Thoreau writes in defense of John Brown, whom he once met in Concord. Several poems are also collected, many of which look fragmentary rather than finished.

This book is certainly for those who want further engagement with Thoreau's mind, most likely after reading Walden. "Civil Disobedience" is collected here, as well as equally brilliant explorations on various topics, highlights for me which include essays on apples and huckleberries, as well as a longer essay on Thomas Carlyle, written during the famous two years at Walden Pond. Probably for Thoreau enthusiasts, readers of nature writing, and completists only, but certainly rewards deeper reading, especially since Thoreau left us too soon.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of this collection I read Civil Disobedience, Walking, and a few of his poems. Of these, and of what I've read of Thoreau, I enjoyed Walking the most.

Thoreau speaks about his thoughts and experiences he has while walking in the country and in the woods. He sees not only the physical, but the spiritual world better when he has been out among that which is natural.

Here are some excerpts from Walking:

"How near to good is what is wild!"

"Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet subdued to man, its presence refreshes him. One who pressed forward incessantly and never rested from his labors who grew fast and made infinite demands on life, would always find himself in a new country or wilderness, and surrounded by the raw material of life."

"Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps."

"Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present...Unless our philosophy hears the cock crow in every barn-yard within our horizon, it is belated...the merit of this bird’s strain is in its freedom from all plaintiveness. The singer can easily move us to tears or to laughter, but where is he who can excite in us a pure mourning joy?"

[After describing a sunset] It was such a light as we could not have imagined a moment before, and the air also was so warm and serene that nothing was wanting to make a paradise of that meadow. When we reflected that this was not a solitary phenomenon, never to happen again, but that it would happen forever and ever an infinite number of evenings, and cheer and reassure the latest child that walked there, it was more glorious still.

"...so we saunter [which comes from the phrase "holy walker"] toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine more brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bank-side in autumn."
------------------------------
In Civil Disobedience, what is important to Thoreau is the individual's ability to be an individual. To live a free life. He looks back in another essay to the free life of the Greeks, and the true humanity that is found in Greek poetry. He believes that there is a need to stand for principles, but using the government for that is the wrong venue. I think he would probably be classed with the libertarians today.

Here are some excerpts from Civil Disobedience:

If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth,--certainly the machine will wear out...Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.

"[Those in government] take too much time, and a man’s life will be gone. I have other affairs to attend to. I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. A man has not everything to do, but something"

"For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever. But we love better to talk about it: that we say is our mission. Reform keeps many scores of newspapers in its service, but not one man."

"The rich man...is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue; for money comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him…thus his moral ground is taken from under his feet."

"It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State, than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case...when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the one does not remain inert to make way for the other, but both obey their own laws, and spring and grow and flourish as best they can, till one, perchance, overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man."

"[Those involved with government] speak of moving society, but have no resting-place without it…They are wont to forget that the world is not governed by policy and expediency…the [Politician] is always strong, original, and, above all, practical. Still his quality is not wisdom, but prudence. The lawyer’s truth is not Truth, but consistency, or a consistent expediency."

"...where is the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent enough to avail himself of the light which [the New Testament] sheds on the science of legislation?"

"[Government] can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it."

What is important to Thoreau is the individual's ability to be an individual. To live a free life. He looks back in another essay to the free life of the Greeks, and the true humanity that is found in Greek poetry. He believes that there is a need to stand for principles, but using the government for that is the wrong venue. I think he would probably be classed with the libertarians today.

[Mientras Leo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me ha durado seis meses. Un placer

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was early in the afternoon when we stepped ashore. With a single companion, I soon found my way to the church of Notre Dame. I saw that it was of great size and signified something. It is said to be the largest ecclesiastical structure in North America, and can seat ten thousand. It is two hundred and fifty-five and a half feet long, and the groined ceiling is eighty feet above your head. The Catholic are the only churches which I have seen worth remembering, which are not almost wholly profane. I do not speak only of the rich and splendid like this, but of the humblest of them as well. Coming from the hurrahing mob and the rattling carriages, we pushed aside the listed door of this church, and found ourselves instantly in an atmosphere which might be sacred to thought and religion, if one had any. There sat one or two women who had stolen a moment from the concerns of the day, as they were passing; but, if there had been fifty people there, it would still have been the most solitary place imaginable. They did not look up at us, nor did one regard another. We walked softly down the broad-aisle with our hats in our hands. Presently came in a troop of Canadians, in their home-spun, who had come to the city in the boat with us, and one and all kneeled down in the aisle before the high altar to their devotions, somewhat awkwardly, as cattle prepared to lie down, and there we left them. As if you were to catch some farmer's sons from Marlboro, come to cattle-show, silently kneeling in Concord meeting-house some Wednesday! Would there not soon be a mob peeping in at the windows? It is true, these Roman Catholics, priests and all, impress me as a people who have fallen far behind the significance of their symbols. It is as if an ox had strayed into a church and were trying to bethink himself. Nevertheless, they are capable of reverence; but we Yankees are a people in whom this sentiment has nearly died out, and in this respect we cannot bethink ourselves even as oxen. I did not mind the pictures nor the candles, whether tallow or tin. Those of the former which I looked at appeared tawdry. It matters little to me whether the pictures are by a neophyte of the Algonquin or the Italian tribe. But I was impressed by the quiet religious atmosphere of the place. It was a great cave in the midst of a city; and what were the altars and the tinsel but the sparkling stalactics, into which you entered in a moment, and where the still atmosphere and the sombre light disposed to serious and profitable thought? Such a cave at hand, which you can enter any day, is worth a thousand of our churches which are open only Sundays, -- hardly long enough for an airing, -- and then filled with a bustling congregation, -- a church where the priest is the least part, where you do your own preaching, where the universe preaches to you and can be heard. I am not sure but this Catholic religion would be an admirable one if the priest were quite omitted. I think that I might go to church myself sometimes some Monday, if I lived in a city where there was such a one to go to. In Concord, to be sure, we do not need such. Our forests are such a church, far grander and more sacred. We dare not leave our meeting-houses open for fear they would be profaned. Such a cave, such a shrine, in one of our groves, for instance, how long would it be respected? for what purposes would it be entered, by such baboons as we are? I think of its value not only to religion, but to philosophy and to poetry; besides a reading-room, to have a thinking-room in every city! Perchance the time will come when every house even will have not only its sleeping-rooms, and dining-room, and talking-room or parlor, but its thinking-room also, and the architects will put it into their plans. Let it be furnished and ornamented with whatever conduces to serious and creative thought. I should not object to the holy water, or any other simple symbol, if it were consecrated by the imagination of the worshippers.

[Sharon Goforth · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. The essays were excellent; the poetry, not so much.

[Tom Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

"With a little more deliberation in the choice of their pursuits,
all men would perhaps become essentially students and observers, for
certainly their nature and destiny are interesting to all alike."

- Henry David Thoreau, Reading

Henry David Thoreau is a keystone in American thinking, perhaps greater in influence than in practice. What kind of man is he? He's the every man; he' any man or woman willing to take upon themselves a journey. While my reading was focused on Walden, I found that his account is merely of another man, and therefore loaded with his own biases, contradictions, convoluted and flowery ideas and almost pointless scenes so panned out that they become a sight that slowly lulls you to sleep. But stay awake! Do not be a sleeper!

While being a name that might as well be composed of granite instead of letters, Thoreau is still a person whom I took to task many times. However, I had to finish. As his contemporary, Ralph Waldo Emerson, put it "“Life is a journey, not a destination.” I immediately wanted to throw it down half-way through the first essay Economy, and again when I got to Reading. I enjoy my contemporary literature as much as my classics, and sometimes find them even more engaging. When Thoreau stated that we should only reading the classics and in Latin nonetheless. Questions that were on my mind? Wouldn't that make literature less accessible? What about your precious Vedas, Thoreau? Where do you get off?

However, I read Walden as a journey more than a manifesto. He starts as a severe dictator laying his own laws, scrutinizing the surrounding community for their superfluity while praising his own frugality. He seemed to want to be a stoic hermit. However, later on, he seems relieved and excited about heading to town to hear the chatter and news. The undercurrent of this was not political and a social critique, but a statement on Thoreau's own thoughts and sensibility.

Thoreau's sensibility, his idea of the journey, is to find the rock bottom foundation of The Real. Poetry, religion, and other prefabricated institutions aside, Thoreau attempts to return to a more natural and original terminus that had been forgotten in the stratum of traditions. Walden came off as a book of seasons, one that I'll go back and find something new, something telling of my own journey.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Walking is the most therapeutic and eerily familiar essays I have ever read. It hovers over me every afternoon while I walk my dogs for as long as I am able.

I can't say I relate to and love every piece in this book, partly because some have not stuck with me and partly because I have not read the book all the way through.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an admirable training is science for the more active warfare of life!

-Henry David Thoreau (A Natural History of Massachusetts)


Standing quite alone, far in the forest, while the wind is shaking down snow from the trees, and leaving the only human tracks behind us, we find our reflections of a richer variety than the life of cities.

-Henry David Thoreau (A Winter Walk)


Shall we out-wear the year
In our pavilions on its dusty plain
And yet no signal hear
To strike our tents and take the road again?

-Henry David Thoreau (from: My Friends, Why Should We Live)


Between the traveler and the setting sun,
Upon some Drifting sand heap of the shore,
A hound stands o'er the carcass of a man.

-Henry David Thoreau


Each more melodious note I hear
Brings this reproach to me,
That I alone afford the ear,
Who would the music be.

-Henry David Thoreau


My life more civil is and free
Than any civil polity,

Ye princes keep your realms
and circumscribed power,
Not wide as are my dreams,
Nor rich as is this hour.

What can ye give which I have not?
What can ye take which I have got?
Can ye defend the dangerless?
Can ye inherit nakedness?

-Henry David Thoreau (from: Independence)


And here I bloom for a short hour unseen,
Drinking my juices up,
With no root in the land
To keep my branches green,
But stand
In a bare cup.
But now I see I was not plucked for naught,
And after in life's vase
Of glass set while I might survive,
But by a kind hand brought
Alive
To a strange place.
That stock thus thinned will soon redeem its hours,
And by another year,
Such as God knows, with freer air,
More fruits and fairer flowers
Will bear,
While I droop here.

-Henry David Thoreau (from: I am a Parcel of Vain Strivings Tied)


I walk in nature still alone
And know no one
Discern no lineament nor feature
Of any creature.

Though all the firmament
Is o'er me bent,
Yet still I miss the grace
Of an intelligent and kindred face.

-Henry David Thoreau (from: Great Friend)


I Knew a Man by Sight

I knew a man by sight,
A blameless wight,
Who, for a year or more,
Had daily passed my door,
Yet converse none had had with him.

I met him in a lane,
Him and his cane,
About three miles from home,
Where I had chanced to roam,
And volumes stared at him, and he at me.

In a more distant place
I glimpsed his face,
And bowed instinctively;
Starting he bowed to me,
Bowed simultaneously, and passed along.

Next, in a foreign land
I grasped his hand,
And had a social chat,
About this thing and that,
As I had known him well a thousand years.

Late in a wilderness
I shared his mess,
For he had hardships seen,
And I a wanderer been;
He was my bosom friend, and I was his.
And as, methinks, shall all
Both great and small,
That ever lived on earth,
Early or late their birth,
Stranger and foe, one day each other know.

-Henry David Thoreau

[S.D. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Many of Thoreau’s essays were lectures first, and retain an exacerbating amount of rhetorical flourish that probably sounded better than it reads. This oratorical style often undermines the content of the political essays. After reading “Civil Disobedience,” I felt as if I’d attended a populist gathering, of the “tea party” sort currently infesting the U.S.; a shame, since Thoreau’s often firebrand rhetoric turns his subject against the issue it should address: the right of the people to protest their government for better, not less, government. Thoreau’s subjectivity is better suited for his travel & nature essays; in particular “Walking,” which delivers a stark, but not overbearing, reminder of how much of nature we’ve lost, and what we’ve lost because of it.

[James Henderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An American original, Henry David Thoreau is an indefinable thinker. He cultivated a classically trained and in-tune-with-nature persona through Walden, his poetry, essays, and personal journals.While closely allied with the transcendental movement, his humanistic writings and deeply held beliefs stand out as unique among nineteenth-century thinkers.

[Rob]

the poems are not so good!

the essay on winter is marvelous crazy. i like to imagine he just walks up to me one day on the street and starts talking to me about ice.

[Willard Brickey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoreau's poetry deserves better than the obscurity to which it has been relegated.
His prose has the beauty and density of poetry. Civil Disobedience is, of course, a masterpiece.