Swerve of Conscience: A Clinamen Reading of Civil Disobedience

  • Unique Paper ID: 188492
  • PageNo: 2120-2123
  • Abstract:
  • In this paper, Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau is examined through the perspective of Harold Bloom’s the first revisionary ratio, Clinamen as given in his book, Anxiety of influence: A Theory of Poetry. It uses Bloom’s concept of the swerve to present that Thoreau breaks away from past democratic and moral frameworks which he saw to be flawed and in turn re-directs those ideas toward a greater role for individual conscience. We see that Thoreau’s put forth a purposeful departure from what was handed down in political thought. Also that his shift brings out the moral defects in former democratic ideas but also at the same time puts to a larger stage the issue of conscience in relation to institutional power. Through the perspective of Clinamen we see that Thoreau transforms both the style and purpose of political writing which he does by putting personal experience into play with moral action. This act of revision is what gives Civil Disobedience its lasting influence. It is what allows the essay to still speak so powerfully to issues of ethical resistance and the role of the individual in standing up to injustice.

Copyright & License

Copyright © 2026 Authors retain the copyright of this article. This article is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

BibTeX

@article{188492,
        author = {Ramanand Jaiswal},
        title = {Swerve of Conscience: A Clinamen Reading of Civil Disobedience},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2025},
        volume = {12},
        number = {7},
        pages = {2120-2123},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=188492},
        abstract = {In this paper, Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau is examined through the perspective of Harold Bloom’s the first revisionary ratio, Clinamen as given in his book, Anxiety of influence: A Theory of Poetry.  It uses Bloom’s concept of the swerve to present that Thoreau breaks away from past democratic and moral frameworks which he saw to be flawed and in turn re-directs those ideas toward a greater role for individual conscience. We see that Thoreau’s put forth a purposeful departure from what was handed down in political thought. Also that his shift brings out the moral defects in former democratic ideas but also at the same time puts to a larger stage the issue of conscience in relation to institutional power. Through the perspective of Clinamen we see that Thoreau transforms both the style and purpose of political writing which he does by putting personal experience into play with moral action. This act of revision is what gives Civil Disobedience its lasting influence. It is what allows the essay to still speak so powerfully to issues of ethical resistance and the role of the individual in standing up to injustice.},
        keywords = {Thoreau, Civil Disobedience, Clinamen, Harold Bloom, conscience.},
        month = {December},
        }

Cite This Article

Jaiswal, R. (2025). Swerve of Conscience: A Clinamen Reading of Civil Disobedience. International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology (IJIRT). https://doi.org/doi.org/10.64643/IJIRTV12I7-188492-459

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