The Cimeter’s ‘Sweet’ Edge: Thoreau, Contemplation, and Violence

Abstract

Explores the tension between contemplation and heroic action that disquieted Thoreau throughout his career, especially when the slavery controversy intruded upon his thought. Claims the Bhagavad Gita affected Thoreau’s philosophy of life in multiple ways, encouraging him to arrive at the conclusion that violence could be a means of purification and enlightenment. Finds that in Walden as well as his Reform Papers, Thoreau expresses his Eastern belief that the forces of destruction are inseparable from the forces of creation and that violence is not a matter of good or evil, but rather one of several ways to advance toward spiritual reality. Notes that while his preferred approach to this Reality was to repress his passions in favor of contemplation, Thoreau could fall under the sway of savage impulses, if only rhetorically, which resulted in a greater resolve to deepen his study of Nature and approach nearer to the divine.