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What Is Thoreau's Approach To Transcendentalism

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Henry David Thoreau is known as one of the most relevant transcendentalist authors in America, not only thanks to his work as an author but also his ideology and activism as a normal individual. His transcendentalist way of both thinking and living was not only influenced by the fact that he lived in Concord, the cradle of transcendentalism in the US, but also by being in close touch with other great transcendentalists such as Bronson Alcott or Ralph Waldo Emerson. The latter one was probably the most influential on Thoreau’s development as a true transcendentalist, since Thoreau actually put into practice Emerson’s thought that in order to get to know who oneself truly is, you have to focus on Nature and devote yourself to it; and he captured his experience in the wonderfully descriptive and spiritual book Walden.
Thoreau’s approach to transcendentalism, as compared to other authors and thinkers …show more content…

Walden is not only a critique of the past but also a reflection on what happens in the future, since nowadays, we live in an even more capitalist and materialist society than Thoreau did. The society we are living in today only cares about money, profit, goods… and the one who supposedly has the best life is the one that has got everything, from a big house with garden to the newest car. Thoreau is encouraging us readers to be satisfied with the simple things, to value every little detail that nature offers us, and to make the most out of every new day; as he himself perfectly stated in Walden, “Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.”; only we ourselves can judge how our life has gone by, if we have lived it at its fullest or if we have failed at

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