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{\LARGE Emerson and Thoreau: 
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Lighting Fires}
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{\Large 21.006 Paper II}
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{\large Juliet C. Bourne 
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March 23, 1989}
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Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were contemporaries and
acquaintances. Emerson is said to have had a major influence on
Thoreau and his writings.  Indeed, many similarities can be found in
their themes.  Yet, Emerson and Thoreau were completely different in
the way they approached those themes and also in the the way they
lived their lives.  Thoreau was a radical extremist while Emerson was
a solid citizen.  Thoreau's writing is often contradictory and his
style instigatory and thought-provoking, whereas Emerson's style is of
a high intellectual plane, above ordinary people.  The major
difference between the two writers is the groups of people they were
able to inspire through their writing.  Emerson had the ability to
inspire thinking men, yet Thoreau had the ability to inspire even the
most common of people to re-think and re-evaluate the way they lived
their lives.  Emerson and Thoreau had similar philosophies about how
to live life to its fullest and best.  Examining how each presented
his philosophy and the consequent effect on the audiences is a good
example to show how Emerson and Thoreau inspired different groups of
people through their different styles of and approaches to writing.

Both Emerson and Thoreau attempt to urge their readers or listeners to
think for themselves and to re-evaluate their lives.  In ``The
American Scholar,'' Emerson ``urged his audience to break with the
past and to concentrate on recognizing and developing the enormous
cultural potential of their own experience'' (Harper 443).  In
\underline{Walden}, Thoreau's main purpose is ``to force the reader to
evaluate the way he has been living and thinking'' (Norton 626).
Thus, Emerson and Thoreau attempt to accomplish similar goals, and yet
their results are quite different.

In ``The American Scholar,'' Emerson addresses his concern about the
state of the scholars in America around the mid-18th century.  He
finds that instead of truly thinking men there is only ``the
book-learned class, who value books, as such'' (Norton 359).  Books,
he says, are not to be valued in and of themselves; they are merely
for inspiration.  He states that ``books are for the scholar's idle
times.  When he can read God directly the hour is too precious to be
wasted in other mens' transcripts of their readings'' (Norton 360).
Thus, Emerson seems to suggest that the ``bookworm'' scholar is one
who ignores his own gift to ``read God,'' in favor of studying what
other scholars wrote.  In ignoring his ability to create rather than
study, the scholar is ignoring the only valuable thing in the world.
Emerson says:

{\narrower\sspace\noindent ``The one thing in the world of value, is, the
active soul, - the soul, free, sovereign, active.  This every is
entitled to; this every man contains within him, although in almost
all men, obstructed, and as yet unborn.  The soul active sees absolute
truth; and utters truth, or creates'' (Norton 359).\par}

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Emerson asserts that most scholars of his day ignore their own ability
to create and thus ignore everything of value.  He blames a good
portion of this unoriginality in the scholars' thinking on the
colleges and other such institutions.  He states that ``the book, the
college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with
some past utterance of genius. ... They look backward and not
forward'' (Norton 359).  Emerson criticizes institutions such as
colleges for ``pinning down'' scholars and making them rely on the
past rather than on themselves.  Such is society, he asserts, that it
represses or overwhelms the natural creativity of men.  He further
says that ``genius is always sufficiently the enemy of genius by
over-influence. The literature of every nation bear me witness. The
English dramatic poets have Shakespearized now for two hundred
years'' (Norton 360).  Thus, he criticizes both the rote teaching and
the over-emphasis on others' genius by colleges for repressing the
creativity of scholars.  Emerson asserts that colleges ``can only
highly serve us, when they aim not to drill, but to create; when they
gather for every ray of various genius to their hospitable halls, and,
by the concentrated fires, set the hearts of their youth on flame''
(Norton 361).

Thoreau addresses a similar concern he has about the state of the
American intellect and soul as a whole in a section of
\underline{Walden} called ``Where I Lived, and What I Lived For.''  In
this section he seeks to inspire people to ``wake up'' and not go
through life sleepwalking.  He asserts that not much can be expected
from a life if one refuses to live it:

{\narrower\sspace\noindent ``Little is to be expected of that day, if it can
be called a day, to which we are not awakened by our Genius, but by
the mechanical nudgings of some servitor, are not awakened by our own
newly-acquired force and aspirations from within'' (Norton 702).\par}

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Thoreau continues with his attack on the ``somnolence'' of men:

{\narrower\sspace\noindent ``Why is that men give so poor an account
of their day if they have not been slumbering? They are not such poor
calculators. If they had not been overcome with drowsiness they would
have performed something. ... To be awake is to be alive'' (Norton
702).\par}

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As these two excerpts from \underline{Walden} show, Thoreau sets about
to wake people up and start them thinking about their own state of
somnolence or consciousness.  He challenges all people to live their
lives the way they are capable of living it: {\em awake and performing
something}.  Thoreau presents these challenges to the intellectual
``awakeness'' of his readers in such a way so as to inspire them
instead of angering them.  For instance, mixed in with his challenges,
he has encouraging statements such as ``I know of no more encouraging
fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a
conscious endeavor'' (Norton 702-703).  These statements serve to tell
the readers that, although they are asleep, each and every one of them
has the ability to awaken himself.  He strengthens the credibility of
his arguments for necessity of waking oneself up and taking a look at
life by personl example.  In one of the most famous quotes from
\underline{Walden}, Thoreau says:

{\narrower\sspace\noindent ``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, when I came to die,
discover that I had not lived'' (Norton 703).\par}

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By bringing in personal experiences and also writing in such a way
that the reader can identify with what he is saying, Thoreau is very
effective in getting his point across and accomplishing his goals.

After examining ``The American Scholar'' and \underline{Walden}, the
difference between the styles of Emerson and Thoreau are easy to see.
Even taking into account that ``The American Scholar'' was originally
written as a speech, Emerson's style is formal, highly intellectual,
and, for most people, hard to understand at first.  In addition,
Emerson is seemingly condescending and self-righteous in places.  He
states everything as if it were an undisputable fact and often
disparages ``thinkers''.  For example, he states: ``Books are written
on [previous books] by thinkers, not by Man Thinking; by men of
talent, that is, who start wrong, not from their own sight of
principles'' (Norton 358). He is accusing thinkers of being
unoriginal and, in a sense, wrong.  Condescending and self-righteous
statements such as these have a tendency to alienate most people from
what is trying to be said, since no arguments are made to support such
statements and thus the readers have no reason to have confidence in
these statements. Thoreau, on the other hand, says exactly what he
means, with little or no formality or ``intellectualizing.''  If he
does intellectualize, he works up to it gradually, so as not to
overwhelm his readers.  The way he writes and the examples he uses to
add credence to his points make his theories more amenable than those
of Emerson.  Instead of saying, for example, that the post-office is
useless point-blank, Thoreau says, ``For my part, I could easily do
without the post-office'' (Norton 705). By making this a statement of
opinion rather than a statement of fact, Thoreau shows that he does
not think of himself as perfect, or always right.  He merely states
what he thinks and lets the reader chew on what he has proposed.
Thus, Thoreau is more understandable and convincing than Emerson for
most people.

Over the years, both Emerson and Thoreau have inspired many people.
However I find a difference in the people they inspire,
even though their general themes are the same, as shown by the
previous examples from ``The American Scholar'' and \underline
{Walden} in which they both try to tell the reader to wake up and to
create, to think, as they are capable of doing.  This difference in
the people they inspire has to do with the way they attempt to inspire
people, which is evident in their styles of writing.  Emerson has
inspired mainly intellectuals such as writers.  Indeed, ``without
Emerson's inspiration, the writings of Thoreau are all but unthinkable
and Whitman's great poetry might never have been written.  Emerson's
persisting influence upon twentieth-century American writers is
evident in astonishing permutations'' (Norton 317).  He also inspired
the group of writers and intellectuals who made up the
Transcendentalist Club.  Emerson's particular sphere of influence can
be related to his intellectual and formal style of writing.
Intellectuals and writers are able to understand and be inspired by
what Emerson says in his writings, since they think the way he writes.
Emerson's themes have their fullest impact on those who can fully
understand them and relate to them, such as writers and thinkers.
Thoreau, on the other hand, in addition to inspiring several
intellectuals, was, and still is, able to inspire the ``common
people.''  His style of writing made this possible.  Thoreau, for the
most part, speaks plainly and in language that can be understood by
all.  He uses emotions to get across his message.  Thus, he has
inspired many generations with his philosophies of leading a simpler
life and thinking for oneself.  Also, his philosphies on ``civil
disobedience'' or ``passive resistance'' have inspired men such
Mahatma Ghandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., in their struggles
against their respective countries and their countries' prejudices.
So, not only did Thoreau inspire ordinary people, he also inspired
``thinking men'' such as King and Ghandhi through his writing because
his style is compelling and appealling to all kinds of people.  

Both Emerson and Thoreau inspired generations of Americans and in some
way helped create that which is America, its culture and its
literature.  Through very different style but very similar themes,
they set the hearts and minds of their readers on flame.  They
inspired people to recognize their own ability to create, to think, to
wake up and utilize the minds and souls that were their own.  One
appealled to their intellectuality and the other to the emotions and
the simple reasoning; both challenged them to change themselves and
the nation as a whole  for the better.  Emerson and Thoreau lit  fires
under the feet of America, causing it to walk on its own feet and set
off in its own unique directions.

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