Live Deep and Suck all the Marrow of Life: H.D. Thoreau's Literary Legacy

This wide-ranging collection of essays on Henry David Thoreau is another demonstration of the validity of the saying: “Classics will never die.” In effect, these eight scholarly and perceptive essays -- that deal with various aspects of this major nineteenth-century American writer’s works -- show what a source of inspiration for contemporary artists he remains. A close friend and a student of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau was not only a literary writer, but also a philosopher, an ecologist, a critic of capitalism, an early champion of the rights of the individual vis-a-vis the government. For this reason, from movie directors to playwrights, from post-modern writers to female beat poets, from transnational authors to Freemasonry and pacifism, these essays allow us to explore the many facets of an intellectual who set his seal deeply on the culture of his country and has taught the world to respect the dignity of every human being.

Dr. Maria Cristina Giorcelli

Professor Emeritus

Roma Tre University, Italy