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  • Comment on Solitude by Ricky Noel
    Posted in: Thoreau-Harding Project Thoreau’s diction here is an absolutely brilliant introduction to the chapter. The sensory images he evokes through his appropriately economical use of language, from sounds like “the bullfrogs trump[ing] to usher in the night” and “the note of the whippoorwill”, to visuals: “the fluttering alder and poplar leaves”, to the sensation […]
  • Comment on The Bean-Field 9-17 by Stephen Siperstein
    Posted in: Choate RH 2019 Refers to Henry Coleman (note that the misspelling is not Thoreau's fault but the people who digitized the text), who was the State Commissioner for the Agricultural Survey of Massachusetts when Thoreau was writing this.
  • Comment on Economy 15-29 by Stephen Siperstein
    Posted in: Choate RH 2019 I do think Thoreau wanted to approach every moment as if it were the dawn--that is, to treat every moment with the attention to detail as if it were the dawning of the world, the first moments of creation (as the very ending of the book seems to intimate).  However, […]
  • Comment on Economy 15-29 by Sunny Sun
    Posted in: Choate RH 2019 I feel like "assisted the sun materially in his rising" and "only to be present at it" are the same thing here as Thoreau uses it. He did not necessarily need to be physically present at the moment of dawn, because it could be dawn whenever he is awake (?)
  • Comment on Spring 14-26 by Stephen Siperstein
    Posted in: Choate RH 2019 Great question -- yes, scholars have generally been able to do that because one can compare the book Walden to the journal entries that Thoreau composed while he was actually living at the pond.

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