An
Introduction
On July 4, 1845, Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau
embarked on a 26-month experiment in self-sufficiency.
Dismayed with the changes in Concord evinced by the
newly accessible railroad and the expansion of the
market economy, Thoreau sought "to live deliberately,
to front only the essential facts of life, and see
if I could not learn what it had to teach." He built
and moved into a primitive cabin near Walden Pond,
a small lake near Concord, Massachusetts. Thoreau's
lyrical description of his cultivation of self through
simple living--after many revisions over nine years--was
successfully published as Walden, still regarded
as a masterpiece of prose style and a critique of
American materialism.
Thoreau's reputation as an author, social critic,
philosopher, and naturalist brought him both praise
and criticism from his literary contemporaries. Nathaniel
Hawthorne once wrote to a friend that "in his
presence one feels ashamed of having any money, or
a house to live in, or so much as two coats to wear,
or having written a book that the public will read--his
own mode of life being so unsparingly a criticism
on all other modes, such as the world approves"
(Walter Harding, Thoreau As Seen by His Contemporaries,
p. 175). Close friend Ralph Waldo Emerson felt a touch
of disappointment in Thoreau's career when he eulogized:
"I so much regret the loss of his rare powers
of action, that I cannot help counting it a fault
in him that he had no ambition. Wanting that, instead
of engineering for all America, he was the captain
of a huckleberry-party" (Atlantic Monthly,
August, 1862).
Marking the sesquicentennial of the publication of
Walden; or, Life in the Woods, we invite
you to revisit Thoreau's most enduring text and to
consider its importance, historically and in contemporary
society. To offer particular insights and ways of
reading Walden, we have asked several University of
Chicago faculty members to contribute their thoughts,
online and on a faculty panel scheduled for Friday,
June 3, 2005. An online discussion group allows you
to join the conversation wherever you are, and faculty
will contribute discussion questions to stimulate
your thinking.
Walden
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