A Collection of Works from Emerson, Thoreau and Whitman

The American Transcendentalists

It was the kind of shameless self-promotion that the shy, aloof Thoreau would never even consider. He led his visitors up the narrow stairs to the attic room he shared with his retarded brother Eddy. It was a mess—the bed unmade, the chamber pot visible, books piled haphazardly. Pasted on an unpainted wall were three pictures—Hercules, Bacchus and a satyr. Garrulous, particularly when talking about himself, Whitman informed his visitors that he liked to bathe in the river even in winter, that he loved opera and enjoyed the company of the men who drove busses on Broadway.

The Role of Nature in Transcendental Poetry: Emerson, Thoreau & Whitman

Love of manly bus drivers was a recurrent theme in his art—and his life. Whitman escorted his visitors to the parlor downstairs, where he continued talking about himself.

Alcott tried to lure Thoreau into direct discussion with Whitman, but without much success. But one topic did provoke an argument. That touched off a debate about the common man. The exact words are lost to history but the topic seems to be an inevitable area of disagreement: Whitman had written endless odes to common folk while Thoreau had chided them for their foolishness.

Still, the two men parted on friendly terms and Whitman gave Thoreau a copy of the second edition of Leaves of Grass , which contained 20 new poems. He may turn out the least of a braggart of all, having a better right to be confident. He is a great fellow. His dying does not seem to have hurt him a bit: One thing about Thoreau keeps him very near to me.

Henry David Thoreau, best remembered for his stay at Walden Pond, was one of the Concord school of writers, a transcendentalist, and a naturalist. The standard edition of Thoreau's works is the Walden edition, but it is being superseded by the new, controversial Princeton edition, to run to twenty-five volumes Earning a living at odd jobs, teaching, lecturing, pencil making, and surveying, Thoreau never realized the success of his writing, dying of tuberculosis at age forty-four.

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An ardent admirer of nature, Thoreau devoted much of his time to sauntering through its domain and closely observing its inhabitants. Composed initially to explain his two-year stay at Walden Pond while composing the memorial to his brother John A Week , Walden is regarded as America's best example of nature writing. A critic of American life and politics, Thoreau infused Walden with biting commentary on the mundane life, and in "Civil Disobedience" he argued for the individual's right to resist government when it runs counter to higher laws.

Though "Civil Disobedience" has been one of his most influential pieces, making an impact on the politics of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Thoreau was already familiar with Whitman's poetry, having a copy of the edition of Leaves of Grass in his library and having sent a copy to Thomas Cholmondeley.

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The visit made an impression on him, as his letter to Harrison Blake attests 19 November He describes Whitman as "the greatest democrat the world has seen" but feels himself "somewhat in a quandary about him.