The Majesty of Nature

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Walden: The Majesty of Nature

Henry David Thoreau is among the greatest Romantic composers of his time. He shares with us in Walden his appreciation for nature and how it is the single most important aspect of a man’s life. Thoreau highlights his experiences at Walden Pond, offering to his nineteenth-century reader what it is like to live within the openness of nature rather than the confines of the city or town. He reveres nature and believes that we can never have enough of it. Thoreau comes from a time of unprecedented destruction and abuse of nature; railroads run through plains, forests are cleared by the millions of acres, and the very earth is dug up to manipulate water for man’s selfish interests. In Walden, Thoreau shows his gratitude for nature’s intricacies to enlighten those who have not wholly experienced them yet.

Thoreau’s reverential tone towards nature is evident throughout the short excerpt of Walden, showing that he understands the importance of nature. His recognition is also in line with elements of Romanticism in that he, the author and creator, understands what we, the read and unenlightened, do not about nature. Thoreau’s first act of appreciation begins with him saying, “like a ripple and tumbling a rod or two over and over, showing the underside of its wings, which gleamed like a stain ribbon in the sun, or like the early inside of a shell,” to describe the majestic eagle in the sky. The complex sentence contains both riveting visual imagery and a masterful simile, both of which serve to show his appreciation for nature. Thoreau is apathetic to the name of the bird, Merlin, and instead focuses on the intrinsic qualities of the bird taking flight. He saw the magnificence of the Merlin’s routine flig...

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...synthesis of paradoxes. He recognizes that there is no new life without death in nature, and to that he adds “I love to see that Nature is so rife with life that myriads can be afforded to be sacrificed and suffered to prey on one another.” This sentence has rhythm and rhyme to emphasize how nature is free flowing with life and death, similar to how his sentence flows freely. Thoreau wholeheartedly welcomes death because it is apart of nature.
At Walden Pond, David Thoreau explores himself and nature. He learns from this experience that nature is medicine to man, and that man should release themselves from the shackles of the city and town in order to see the beauty of nature. In writing this description of Walden Pond at springtime, he illustrates nature at its peak. His readers learn from him, the enlightened, the majesty of nature and its inconceivable paradoxes.

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