ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was an American from New England who was an author, poet, and natural philosopher. Thoreau was a leading figure in the Transcendentalist movement which held, as one of its premises, that the human connection with nature is necessary for intellectual and moral stability.

Detailed explanation-2: -“If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter-we never need read of another.”

Detailed explanation-3: -He soon joined a religious, philosophical, and literary movement called Transcendentalism. The leader of the movement was Ralph Waldo Emerson, a writer and lecturer. At first, Thoreau agreed with Emerson’s teaching that social reform begins with the individual.

Detailed explanation-4: -Thoreau’s importance as a philosophical writer was little appreciated during his lifetime, but his two most noted works, Walden; or, Life in the Woods (1854) and “Civil Disobedience” (1849), gradually developed a following, and by the latter half of the 20th century, had become classic texts in American thought.