The Many Paths of Thoreau’s Writing: A Response to Buranelli’s Critique

Henry David Thoreau, a transcendentalist famous for his writings and poetry, lived and wrote during the mid-nineteenth century. Some of his most enduring works include his memoir-like book Walden, which documents his experience living remotely in nature as well as his essay Civil Disobedience, which offers his critiques of society and the government. The scholar Vincent Buranelli, who lived roughly a century after Thoreau, wrote “The Case Against Thoreau” in 1957. His essay criticized, among other aspects, the hyperbole and complexity in Thoreau’s writing and his anarchistic urgings. However, analyzing Thoreau’s works and their context, and consulting the works of other scholars, offers a defense of Thoreau. Such an informed reading reveals Thoreau to value three things in his life, individualism, nature, and writing, all of which drive his works. While his writings might not appeal to every reader, one should not approach his works without the context of his life and values. And though his writing might be complex, he writes in a style that is as complex as the nature he observed and the inner self he analyzed