To explore the breadth and intensity of Thoreau's work, Elizabeth Hall Witherell brings together Thoreau's work for the first time in one authoritative collection. As she writes, "America's greatest nature writer and a political thinker of worldwide impact, Henry David Thoreau crafted essays that reflect his speculative and probing cast of mind."
Beyond the Essay
Although Henry David Thoreau is most well-known for his prose works, he published poetry as well. His style ranges from "Natural History of Massachusetts and "A Winter Walk" to "Slavery in Massachusetts" and "A Plea for Captain John Brown." He never seemed afraid to voice his opinion on controversial issues.Along with the 27 collected essays, this edition features more than 200 poems. Seven of the poems in this collection are published here for the first time, while others are presented in new, previously unpublished versions.
American Transcendentalism
Thoreau is an important figure in the American Transcendental movement, well-known for his friendship with Ralph Waldo Emerson. Following his drummer, Thoreau wrote about nature, literary history, slavery, and more.In "Homer Ossian Chaucer," Thoreau writes, "It is enough if Homer but says the sun sets. He is as serene as nature, and we can hardly detect the enthusiasm of the bard. It is as if nature spoke." Thoreau further writes that Homer presents "the simplest pictures of human life, so that childhood itself can understand them, and the man must not think twice to appreciate his naturalness."
Thoreau speaks of beauty in poetry and of "a true poem." He defines a classic: "A work of genius is rough-hewn from the first, because it anticipates the lapse of time, and has an ingrained polish, which still appears when fragments are broken off..."
Applying his definition in "Thomas Carlyle and His Works," Thoreau writes, "Carlyle's works, it is true, have not the sterotyped success which we call classic. They are a rich but inexpensive entertainment... His work is not to be studied, but read with swift satisfaction."
More About Literature
Thoreau writes further about literature in "Walking" when he says, "I do not know of any poetry to quote which adequately expresses this yearning for the Wild." Only mythology comes close to expressing this "yearning." As he explains, "All other literatures endure only as the elms which overshadow our houses... for the decay of other literatures makes the soil in which it thrives."Thoreau wrote passionately about what he believed in, whether those beliefs related to the state of literature or the injustices that existed in society (with slavery, civil disobedience and John Brown). He was not well-known when he died, but since his death, his works have been distributed around the world. His words have inspired other writers, environmentalists, civil rights works, and many more. His belief in the power of nature, and his statement that "in wildness is the salvation of the world," has not been forgotten.
