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Young Man Thoreau
Makes use of Eriksonian psychology and an interdisciplinary approach in arguing that Thoreau experienced a fatefully prolonged adolescence and troubled young adulthood before achieving identity at and with Walden
262 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 1977
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August 14, 2024
Like a lot of people who went to public school in America, I don’t remember a time I didn’t know the name Thoreau. Not just the name, but the vague outline of his life- a man who lived in a cabin so he could live deliberately. I knew that in elementary school like I knew the Great Lakes were Paul Bunyan’s footprints. I don’t think I read anything actually written by Thoreau until high school. I remember liking it, or wanting to like it at least but it didn’t leave a great impression. At some point, maybe in my early 20s I got into his friend and mentor, Emerson. His essays struck me as more academic, a mind that took greater flight into the frictionless realm of ideas instead of being held down to the ground like Thoreau’s naturalism. At some point I moved passed Emerson to greater appreciation of the Concord set: Fuller, Alcott, and Hawthrone. Around then there was a large public backlash against Thoreau. For some reason, those criticisms stuck to him in the public imagination. People who hadn’t read a book in years could tell you who did Thoreau’s laundry (his mom).
A lot of that has died down but it still feels like we’re at an ebb in feelings towards Thoreau. I’m surprised by this. Especially in the frantic early years of the Trump administation, any American who had some semblance of integrity was propped up as an “antidote” to Trump. In a world with a Muslim ban, mass kidnapping of immigrant children, and endless drone war, the world was ready for the thinker who brought us Civil Disobedience. It could be argued that Thoreau might be too principled to be slotted easily into today’s partisan politics. After all, Thoreau’s refusal to pay poll taxes because of its association with the institution of slavery could just as easily apply to the genocide Isreal is committing against the Palestinian people, aided and abetted by the Biden administration and our tax dollars. Thoreau asks of us only what he was willing to do, and it turns out that was more than most of us.
Through all the oscillations in his favorability, Thoreau continues to have a haunting presence in the American psyche. There is something about his life, and his idiosyncratic commitment to his principles that calls to us from nearly 200 years ago in a way few people can. I say person, and not just writing, because like the other Concord writers, there is something about the total life of the person that shines the brightest. So it is this book, Young Henry Thoreau that lets that unique auro shine the clearest. This book is a masterpiece. It has been left to languish in obscurity but should be at the top of any reading list on the Concord Set. Lebeaux brings Thoreau to life in this intimate portrait. He does the hard work of seeing an enigmatic writer, and lets us see him as well.
I’ve read many bios on Thoreau but nothing grabbed me quite like Young Henry Thoreau. I think what makes the difference is the fact that this a Psychobiography, a genre that has been thoroughly mocked and forgotten. Pioneered by Erik Erikson, Psychobigraphy uses the principles of Freudian psychology to analyze the historical character. I know, red alarm bells are going off. The concept seems unhinged and let me tell you I’ve already come across a couple of crank books (interestingly, Freud dipped into the genre with a bio on Woodrow Wilson). That being said, the overall impression has been a little weighted against the genre. The biographical facts in this volume are true and corroborated by other biographies. The analysis may be true or it may not be, but it is speculation. And speculation, with the facts in mind, may not totally get to the unconscious mental states of the subject, but overall shines an interesting light worth considering. Not dissimilar from literary theory, we can get lost hunting the elusive right answer, but can end with a great view if we take the trip. Like when you try on a suit and there’s a three-sided mirror. No one mirror will show you all the suit, but using the three of them you get a pretty good idea of the shape.
Lebeaux locates the firey core of Thoreau’s being in his complicated home life. He was prepped to greatness, and his education at Harvard was meant to be a leap forward for the entire family. He is being raised to go out and seek his fortune while also remaining close to home so he can lift them all up. A paradox. Lebeaux shrewdly sees a mirror in Thoreau’s personal crisis and the crisis of his entire generation. The world of the 1830-1850s may have been diagnosed by Emerson, but it was lived by Thoreau. He dreamed of the frontier life while also being unable to untangle himself from his network in Concord. And each move away in his 20s only tied him closer to it.
In this crisis, enter Henry’s older brother, John. Not just an older brother, but a man who seemed to be “more so” compared to Henry in every way. He was more loved by their neighbors, more cheery in disposition, more at home in the world. Even in the school the brothers ran together, the students worshiped John while they liked young Henry “just well and fine”. This made an incredible friend and mentor for Henry, but also had undercurrents of jealousy for him. Undercurrents that came swelling to the surface when they both were pitted against each other for the love of Ellen Sewall. A woman who would reject them both as Henry documents in his diary with excoriating detail. This crisis quickly rolls into the next one as, by dark and sad chance, John acidenily cuts himself on his razor and quickly develops Lock Jaw. He would die in his brother’s arms.
This is the story of a fraught young life. A life waiting in the wings with an enormous sense of destiny pressing in on him. After the conflict and then the sudden death of his beloved older brother, Thoreau life was in ruins. He felt aimless, unsure of how to redeem the frayed ends of his life. Thoreau would oscillate between despair and telling his family he felt closer to his brother than ever when he was in nature. Finally to release the pressure he goes out to the Walden Pond to live deliberately, and write down the story of the canoe trip with his brother. This would become his first classic “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”. That experience of writing out in the woods would inspire another book finished seven years later, “Walden”.
Thoreau, by going out to Walden was able to square the circle of his life- he could be both gone and at home. He could exemplify the frontier ethos of his time by staying within walking distance of his childhood home. This gave his work tremendous power, especially when the country closed its own “endless frontier” in 1890 and needed models like Thoreau to stay wild in a tamed country.
The story of Thoreau, the universal American man whose thoughts are taught to all Americans, is the story of a man who missed his beloved brother, and like an echo that came back, ran out to nature to find him. His works are the product of a man who loved John, and challenged him, and held him in the end. He’s a great man because he lived deliberately, which is say lived the best he could and consecrated it into art.
A few years ago I took a tour of Emerson’s house. I made several trips to Concord, seeing one famous house at a time. And in Emerson’s house I remember seeing in the parlor a handmade dollhouse made out of an old dresser drawer. It had been made by Thoreau for Emerson’s daughters. When I go on these old house pilgrimages I don’t know what I’m expecting. Some clarity, some way to situate the writer in the world rather than the world of ideas. Looking at that worn and loved dollhouse, I saw a person. Thoreau, friend of the Emerson family, showing love and care to these two young children. Since I was in high school I read his words out in the far flung reaches of the midwest. Now here I was in the room he lived in, seeing his small private acts of grace. It was overwhelming. And it made me feel for the first time I could see him, this stormy, afflicted young man, making his world a little better. Reading Young Henry Thoreau, I felt again like I could see him again, if only for an instant. Like a shooting star, luminous and streaking across the sky, then gone.
A lot of that has died down but it still feels like we’re at an ebb in feelings towards Thoreau. I’m surprised by this. Especially in the frantic early years of the Trump administation, any American who had some semblance of integrity was propped up as an “antidote” to Trump. In a world with a Muslim ban, mass kidnapping of immigrant children, and endless drone war, the world was ready for the thinker who brought us Civil Disobedience. It could be argued that Thoreau might be too principled to be slotted easily into today’s partisan politics. After all, Thoreau’s refusal to pay poll taxes because of its association with the institution of slavery could just as easily apply to the genocide Isreal is committing against the Palestinian people, aided and abetted by the Biden administration and our tax dollars. Thoreau asks of us only what he was willing to do, and it turns out that was more than most of us.
Through all the oscillations in his favorability, Thoreau continues to have a haunting presence in the American psyche. There is something about his life, and his idiosyncratic commitment to his principles that calls to us from nearly 200 years ago in a way few people can. I say person, and not just writing, because like the other Concord writers, there is something about the total life of the person that shines the brightest. So it is this book, Young Henry Thoreau that lets that unique auro shine the clearest. This book is a masterpiece. It has been left to languish in obscurity but should be at the top of any reading list on the Concord Set. Lebeaux brings Thoreau to life in this intimate portrait. He does the hard work of seeing an enigmatic writer, and lets us see him as well.
I’ve read many bios on Thoreau but nothing grabbed me quite like Young Henry Thoreau. I think what makes the difference is the fact that this a Psychobiography, a genre that has been thoroughly mocked and forgotten. Pioneered by Erik Erikson, Psychobigraphy uses the principles of Freudian psychology to analyze the historical character. I know, red alarm bells are going off. The concept seems unhinged and let me tell you I’ve already come across a couple of crank books (interestingly, Freud dipped into the genre with a bio on Woodrow Wilson). That being said, the overall impression has been a little weighted against the genre. The biographical facts in this volume are true and corroborated by other biographies. The analysis may be true or it may not be, but it is speculation. And speculation, with the facts in mind, may not totally get to the unconscious mental states of the subject, but overall shines an interesting light worth considering. Not dissimilar from literary theory, we can get lost hunting the elusive right answer, but can end with a great view if we take the trip. Like when you try on a suit and there’s a three-sided mirror. No one mirror will show you all the suit, but using the three of them you get a pretty good idea of the shape.
Lebeaux locates the firey core of Thoreau’s being in his complicated home life. He was prepped to greatness, and his education at Harvard was meant to be a leap forward for the entire family. He is being raised to go out and seek his fortune while also remaining close to home so he can lift them all up. A paradox. Lebeaux shrewdly sees a mirror in Thoreau’s personal crisis and the crisis of his entire generation. The world of the 1830-1850s may have been diagnosed by Emerson, but it was lived by Thoreau. He dreamed of the frontier life while also being unable to untangle himself from his network in Concord. And each move away in his 20s only tied him closer to it.
In this crisis, enter Henry’s older brother, John. Not just an older brother, but a man who seemed to be “more so” compared to Henry in every way. He was more loved by their neighbors, more cheery in disposition, more at home in the world. Even in the school the brothers ran together, the students worshiped John while they liked young Henry “just well and fine”. This made an incredible friend and mentor for Henry, but also had undercurrents of jealousy for him. Undercurrents that came swelling to the surface when they both were pitted against each other for the love of Ellen Sewall. A woman who would reject them both as Henry documents in his diary with excoriating detail. This crisis quickly rolls into the next one as, by dark and sad chance, John acidenily cuts himself on his razor and quickly develops Lock Jaw. He would die in his brother’s arms.
This is the story of a fraught young life. A life waiting in the wings with an enormous sense of destiny pressing in on him. After the conflict and then the sudden death of his beloved older brother, Thoreau life was in ruins. He felt aimless, unsure of how to redeem the frayed ends of his life. Thoreau would oscillate between despair and telling his family he felt closer to his brother than ever when he was in nature. Finally to release the pressure he goes out to the Walden Pond to live deliberately, and write down the story of the canoe trip with his brother. This would become his first classic “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”. That experience of writing out in the woods would inspire another book finished seven years later, “Walden”.
Thoreau, by going out to Walden was able to square the circle of his life- he could be both gone and at home. He could exemplify the frontier ethos of his time by staying within walking distance of his childhood home. This gave his work tremendous power, especially when the country closed its own “endless frontier” in 1890 and needed models like Thoreau to stay wild in a tamed country.
The story of Thoreau, the universal American man whose thoughts are taught to all Americans, is the story of a man who missed his beloved brother, and like an echo that came back, ran out to nature to find him. His works are the product of a man who loved John, and challenged him, and held him in the end. He’s a great man because he lived deliberately, which is say lived the best he could and consecrated it into art.
A few years ago I took a tour of Emerson’s house. I made several trips to Concord, seeing one famous house at a time. And in Emerson’s house I remember seeing in the parlor a handmade dollhouse made out of an old dresser drawer. It had been made by Thoreau for Emerson’s daughters. When I go on these old house pilgrimages I don’t know what I’m expecting. Some clarity, some way to situate the writer in the world rather than the world of ideas. Looking at that worn and loved dollhouse, I saw a person. Thoreau, friend of the Emerson family, showing love and care to these two young children. Since I was in high school I read his words out in the far flung reaches of the midwest. Now here I was in the room he lived in, seeing his small private acts of grace. It was overwhelming. And it made me feel for the first time I could see him, this stormy, afflicted young man, making his world a little better. Reading Young Henry Thoreau, I felt again like I could see him again, if only for an instant. Like a shooting star, luminous and streaking across the sky, then gone.
January 6, 2015
A tour-de-force. Lebeaux psychoanalyzes Thoreau (!) using the framework of Erik Erikson. He marshals an impressive array of documentary evidence, and his inferences and interpretations are for the most part very convincing. The book both validates Erikson's theories and adds insight to our understanding of Thoreau's motivations and inner state.
July 28, 2012
This is a pretty effective look at the aspects of Thoreau's life which influenced his move to Walden Pond, including his relationships with his mother and his brother who died unexpectedly at a young age.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews