EDITORIAL NOTES
[page] page break
italic ^small caps^ greek text
A paragraph with a margin of two spaces represents
a quotation, represented in the text by a smaller
type.
A series of lines indente...
Read more
Biography EssayGenerally unrecognized in his own day or, worse, dismissed as a second-rate imitator of his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, in the twentieth century, has eme...
Read more
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was an American writer, a dissenter, and, after Emerson, the outstanding transcendentalist. He is best known for his classic book, "Walden."Though a minority of one, la...
Read more
American philosopher Henry David Thoreau "has for today a special appeal," noted Townsend Scudder in his foreword to the Modern Library edition to Walden and Other Writings of Henry David Thoreau. Scu...
Read more
Generally unrecognized in his own day or, worse, dismissed as a second-rate imitator of his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, in the twentieth century, has emerged as o...
Read more
John Aldrich Christie best captures the paradoxes and contradictions in Henry David Thoreau's treatment of travel. He characterizes Thoreau as "a man who on the one hand reiterates his disdain for tra...
Read more
In his own day, Henry David Thoreau was little known outside his hometown of Concord, Massachusetts, where he was much admired for his passionate stance on social issues, his deep knowledge of natural...
Read more
Though not a professional philosopher, Henry David Thoreau is recognized as an important contributor to the American literary and philosophical movement known as New England Transcendentalism. His ess...
Read more
In the following excerpt, Buell traces the course of A Week and explains how it displays, through “endless suggestiveness,” the Transcendentalist sensibility.
Written largely during his ...
Read more
In the following essay, Johnson contends that the quest for self‐liberation is central to A Week, a quest advanced through the cyclical representation of time.
We have forgotten that much of th...
Read more
In the following essay, Hesford interprets A Week as a call for faith in response to the incessant tragedies of nature and life.
There are studies of Henry Thoreau's A Week on the Concord and M...
Read more
In the following essay, Hutchinson contends that A Week documents Thoreau's belief in historical progress and that he sought inspiration, not eternity, in his river voyage.
A people without his...
Read more
In the following essay, Suchoff contends that Thoreau sought to understand the mystery of nature through friendship rather than language.
“It is difficult to begin without borrowing,” Th...
Read more
In the following essay, Burbick analyzes Thoreau's views concerning the treatment of history, including his disdain for historical approaches that rely on romantic and novelistic techniques.
By...
Read more
In the following excerpt, Johnson relates the troubled ten‐year history of A Week, from the river trip to initial publication.
As the above chapters indicate, the writing of A Week charts Thore...
Read more
In the following essay, Murray offers a Freudian reading of the ascent of Mt. Greylock, claiming that Thoreau was motivated by Oedipal conflicts.
We are closer than ever before to an understanding of ...
Read more
In the following essay, Fisher considers Edward Johnson's apocalyptic‐imbued history of the settlement of New England and its influence on Thoreau.
The title of Henry Thoreau's fi...
Read more
In the following excerpt, Peck analyzes Thoreau's concern with the nature of time, showing how he responded with literary techniques of temporal disorder and creative remembering.
On January 8,...
Read more
In the following excerpt, Garber argues that Thoreau inserted the Saddleback Mountain climbing episode in order to show the insufficiency of textual and temporal closures.
The logic of this study deri...
Read more
In the following essay, Rossi demonstrates that much of Thoreau's view of science can be traced to Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology.
Well‐known for its witty criticisms of A ...
Read more
In the following essay, Adams explains the teaching opportunities that arise from exploring the question of A Week's genre.
The “drama” of Sunday in Thoreau's A Week on the...
Read more
In the following essay, Wilson explores Thoreau's concept—borrowed from the philosopher Thales—of water as the fundamental principle of the cosmos.
On New Year's Day, 1851,...
Read more
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
