Henry David Thoreau’s Individualism Revealed Through His Confucius And Mencius Quotes In Walden And Civil Disobedience

Henry David Thoreau is a key figure among transcendentalist thinkers in the mid-19th century of the United States. As an American, Thoreau reads richly into Oriental scriptures. Moreover, he used in abundance quotations from his reading. The relationship between Thoreau, his thought and Oriental culture has thus long been an issue in the study of Thoreau. The Western academia often equals Oriental culture in Thoreau’s writing to his reading of Hindu scriptures, whereas Chinese scholars have endeavored to find out the connection between Thoreau and sages in ancient China, such as Confucius, Mencius and Lao-tsu.Through examining two representative works of Thoreau, Walden and Civil Disobedience, this paper intends to examine the original meaning of the quotations selected by Thoreau from Confucius and Mencius, what Thoreau attempts to convey using the quotations, and how Thoreau’s thoughts coincide or differ from those of Confucius and Mencius. With a comprehensive textual analysis, it is found that quotations of Confucius/Mencius selected by Thoreau are mostly cut off from their meaning in the original context and applied creatively in the new text. His purpose is to use the inspiring Oriental thought as an agent to his own argument. Thoreau adopts interpretive application of Confucius/Mencius teachings to illustrate his central view on fierce individualism, particularly in individual moral cultivation, individual life style of simplicity, individual political freedom, man and Nature as One, and good and evil coexistence of individual humanity.