Walking
Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- lecture 1851, published 1862
- Form
- Essay
- Language
- English
- Length
- Short · 30 ppunder 120 pages
- Difficulty
- Moderate2 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendWalden, Civil Disobedience, and Other WritingsNorton Critical Editions, 2008Includes Walking with the major texts and useful critical apparatus.
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An essay grown from a lecture Thoreau gave many times from 1851 and published in the Atlantic Monthly a month after his death. He begins with the art of sauntering, which he derives from Sainte-Terre, the Holy Land, and says he needs four hours a day walking through woods and fields. He notices that his steps tend westward, and takes this as an emblem of the nation's movement toward wildness, declaring that in wildness is the preservation of the world. The Harvard Classics print it among fifteen essays by English and American writers.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns Walking are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.
