Thoreau’s Declaration of Independence from Emerson in Walden

Abstract

Explains how the friendship between Emerson and Thoreau was strained during the time Thoreau lived with his mentor. Demonstrates how in Walden, Thoreau emancipates himself from his intellectual debts to Emerson, especially in his discussions of hospitality and natural correspondence, and in his transformation of Emerson’s ideas into his own theory of ecocentricity in his discussion of nature.