Reading & the Good Life
Join the conversation! Every Friday at Noon EST (Join here), Perennial Meditations readers are welcome to gather for Reading & the Good Life; a space for connection, contemplation, and conversations on the art of living! This week continues our exploration of the writings of Transcendentalists. We’re reading Henry David Thoreau’s Walden and exploring a few passages from Ralph Waldo Emerson (The Portable Emerson).
Check out our bookshelf below for previous and future reading!
What is Transcendentalism?
Transcendentalism is an American literary, philosophical, religious, and political movement of the early nineteenth century centered around Ralph Waldo Emerson. Another important transcendentalist was Henry David Thoreau. Stimulated by English and German Romanticism, the transcendentalists understood that a new era was at hand. They criticized their contemporary society for its unthinking conformity and urged that each person find, in Emerson’s words, “an original relation to the universe.” Emerson and Thoreau sought this relation in solitude amidst nature and in their writing.
***Read previous: How to Think Like a Transcendentalist, The Wisdom of Walden, and The Wisdom of Simplicity.
Who is Henry David Thoreau?
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) was an American philosopher, poet, environmental scientist, and political activist whose major work, Walden, draws upon these various identities in meditating upon the concrete problems of living in the world as a human being. He sought to revive a conception of philosophy as a way of life, not only a mode of reflective thought and discourse. An eclectic variety of sources informed Thoreau’s work. He was well-versed in classical Greek and Roman philosophy (and poetry), from pre-Socratics to Hellenistic schools. He was also an avid student of the ancient scriptures and wisdom literature of various Asian traditions.
The Wisdom of Nature
A common path to finding tranquility and connection with something larger than ourselves is through nature. Much of Thoreau’s observations consist of his surroundings. For example, Thoreau explains,
After a still winter night, I awoke with the impression that some question had been put to me, which I had been endeavoring in vain to answer in my sleep, as what—how—when—where? But there was dawning Nature, in whom all creatures live, looking in at my broad windows with a serene and satisfied face and no question on her lips. I awoke to an answered question, to Nature and daylight. … Nature puts no questions and answers, none of which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.
If nature is a source of wisdom, why do so many of us fail to experience it?
What role did nature play in Thoreau’s experience? Was it solitude itself or nature that helped him to discover insights? In the words of his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Whenever a mind is simple and receives a divine wisdom, old things pass away—means, teachers, texts, temples fall; it lives now, and absorbs past and future into the present hour.”
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