ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Thoreau declared that if the government required people to participate in injustice by obeying “unjust laws, ” then people should “break the laws” even if they ended up in prison. “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, ” he asserted, “the true place for a just man is also a prison.”

Detailed explanation-2: -In Civil Disobedience, Thoreau’s basic premise is that a higher law than civil law demands the obedience of the individual. Human law and government are subordinate. In cases where the two are at odds with one another, the individual must follow his conscience and, if necessary, disregard human law.

Detailed explanation-3: -Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), perhaps best known as the author of Walden, was a deep believer in the demands of conscience over the demands of the state. His refusal in July 1846 to pay a tax led him to write the essay Civil Disobedience, which was to exercise a great influence on subsequent generations of thinkers.

Detailed explanation-4: -Transcendentalism is a philosophy that started in the late eighteenth century that stressed equality, intuition, nature, self-reliance, social responsibility, and the power of the individual.

Detailed explanation-5: -"Civil Disobedience, ” originally titled “Resistance to Civil Government, ” was written after Thoreau spent a night in the unsavory confines of the Concord, Massachusetts jail–an activity likely to inspire anyone to civil disobedience.