From Seybold:
Thoreau revised endlessly to clarify his thoughts and experiences in his own mind, reducing them to their essence, and to eliminate rather than to achieve style. He reduced the communication to essentials.
Thoreau valued compactness and clarity, which he achieved through numerous revisions. He used words accurately.
He was a clever imitator of individual styles.
On Thoreau’s writing (from Walls)
In 1850, Thoreau set his life and writing into a new pattern.
Thoreau’s artistry was guided by the assumption that if he arranged his materials correctly, nature would speak through him in a voice that even ordinary people could be convinced to stop, listen, and hear something higher and beyond themselves.
Thoreau used science to see the cosmos in ordinary places. He used poetry to show other why this mattered.
In late 1849, Thoreau started reading scientific explorations. He performed what these explorers did in his locale (i.e., home-cosmography), traveling and writing about the earth as a planet whose smallest and most local features illuminated, and were illuminated by, the Cosmos itself. By November 1850 he has found his method and captured it in a phrase in September 1851: “A writer a man writing is the scribe of all nature—he is the corn & the grass & the atmosphere writing.”
(Enter here your journal entry on Thoreau and walking)
Thoreau was a hermit at home. His solitude translated to abundant creativity particularly in his Journal. He intentionally cleared his schedule to be in solitude. For example, from May 1852 to the fall of 1854, we avoided doing lectures. His inner life was extravagant and inventive because his outer life was disciplined. He had a contented homelife. He kept his needs simple and avoided debt.
Thoreau has likened writing to farming.
Related
- the literary excursion was the favorite literary form of thoreau
- thoreau cycles between observation and speculation
- the travel writing of thoreau
- literary excursion
- thoreau prioritized vision over literary structure
References
Seybold, Ethel. “Proteus.” Thoreau: The Quest and the Classics, Yale University Press, 1951, pp. 1–21.