“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined” (Thoreau). This is a quote said by Henry David Thoreau, who is one of the famous people who helped compose the new era of American literature, Transcendentalism. Transcendentalism is an idealistic philosophy and a social movement that developed in New England around 1836. Henry David Thoreau was a communal man, but in the process of his experiment, at Walden, he discovered life's simplicities and he refused to perform labor. Thoreau befriended Ralph Waldo Emerson which in turn exposed to transcendentalism. Thoreau accompanied Emerson in the creation of a new era of American literature. Thoreau builds a small and simple house on Walden pond. This pond was owned …show more content…
Though Thoreau voices sharp criticisms of civilized life, the pond is wrong, alleging that he doesn't care about “other humanity”. In all reality Thoreau did care about humanity in fact, he welcomed people to visit Walden, had friendly chats, and generally visited Concord. Thoreau’s decision in staying at Walden was not a lifestyle choice, it was a simple experiment in alternative living. Thoreau is a social person and his living at Walden was a mere social experiment. Thoreau states that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation” (Walden) what he is saying sums up the side of Thoreau that most people forgot; he was deeply social and a morally inspired writer. Thoreau is saying that he naturally enjoyed exploring by stating this “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die discover that I had not lived” (Walden) he is trying to say that he went into the woods to see what he could learn. Its substantiate that it was an experiment to see what he could learn. “A field of water betrays the spirit is in the air. It is continually receiving new life and motion from above. It is intermediate between land and sky” (Walden) he observes the different parts of nature, he was curious and naturally during an experiment he got