Thoreau, Henry David

Abstract

Henry David Thoreau shared with Ralph Waldo Emerson and other transcendentalists an ideal of manhood grounded in scholarly activity, self-awareness, and self-reliance. More radical in his advocacy of dissent, Thoreau espoused an environmentally conscious definition of manhood that encompassed, at least in part, the tenets of capitalism. Whereas Emerson initially eschewed market capitalism, only to embrace it whole-heartedly after 1860, Thoreau accepted market exchange, but rejected the exploitation of both labor and nature.