Find 10 facts about either Thoreau or Emerson. (The author depends on your side of the room).

Post the facts on your blog with the author and website where you got the information.

Read a post of another student in the class about the author you didn't do. Copy and paste 10 facts on your blog about the other author.

THOREAU

1. Thoreau wanted to get the most from his life by determining what was really important, and he did that by removing himself somewhat from the normal life of Concord, Massachusetts in the 1840's.

2. In the autumn of 1837 he obtained a position as a teacher at the Center School in Concord.

3. Thoreau's CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE (1849) influenced Gandhi in his passive resistance campaigns,Martin Luther King, Jr., and at one time the politics of the British Labour Party.

4. Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) was born at Concord, Massachusetts. He was educated at Harvard, and started out as a teacher.

5. Both Thoreau's Transcendental philosophy and his scientific knowledge contributed to his love of nature.

6. In 1847 Thoreau was imprisoned briefly for refusing to pay a tax while the government supported a war he considered unjust. He was also strongly opposed to slavery.

7. Widely read himself, he is very allusive, particularly to classical literature, and is one of America's most inveterate punsters. 8. From 1841-1843, Thoreau lived in the house of Ralph Waldo Emerson and was introduced to the philosophy known as transcendentalism.

9. In school, he was so serious his friends called him "Judge." Later, at Harvard, he amassed 5,000 pages of notes and soon, at age 20, started keep the diary that eventually comprised 30 volumes.

10. He wrote strongly-worded attacks on the Fugitive Slave Law ("Slavery in Massachusetts") and on the execution of John Brown.

Thanks Alisa :]

EMERSON

1. An American essayist, philosopher, poet, and leader of the transcendentalist movement in the early 19th century. His teachings directly influenced the growing New Thought New describes a set of religious ideas that developed in the United States during the late 19th century, originating... movement of the mid 1800s.

2. Considered one of the great orators of the time, Emerson's enthusiasm and respect for his audience enraptured crowds.

3. In the 1840s Emerson was hospitable to Nathaniel Hawthorne and his family, and appears to have heavily influenced Hawthorne during these three years.

4. Emerson lived a financially conservative lifestyle. He had inherited some wealth after his wife's death, though he brought a lawsuit against the Tucker family in 1836 to get it. He did, however, pay the rent of his neighbor Bronson Alcott.

5. "A masterpiece of art has in the mind a fixed place in the chain of being, as much as a plant or a crystal."

6. Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Most of his ancestors were clergymen as his father. He was educated in Boston and Harvard, like his father, and graduated in 1821.

7. His essays have speech like character and a prophetic tone, a sermon like quality, often linked to his practice as an Unitarian minister. Emerson's aim was not merely to charm his readers, but encourage them to cultivate 'self-trust', to become what they ought to be, and to be open to the intuitive world of experience.

8. In his essay 'Books' Emerson advised to avoid mediocrities.

9. Many of his phrases have long since passed into common English parlance: 'a minority of one', 'the devil's attorney', 'a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds'.

10. Eventually Emerson's controversial views caused his resignation.