I find Thoreau’s descriptions of the winter evening sounds here intriguing because I think most people associate winter, particularly winter nights, with silence. We always hear about quiet snowfall, and the only […]

 [O Baker Farm!]We can see in the Fluid Text Edition of Walden that this poem, by Ellery Channing, is not included in any of the earlier editions.  These earlier versions, like this one, use paragraph six to focus […]

Hannah, I agree that these lines are particularly loaded with meaning – and scary at that! It certainly feels to me like Thoreau is challenging us to do something bigger, to find our own Walden Pond and search for […]

[It is not enough even to be able to speak the language of that nation by which they are written…]

Thoreau seems to feel that written language is not as easily accessible to the masses, as we do not tune into […]