At his death in 1862, Henry Thoreau left the major part of his writings unpublished, including 47 manuscript volumes of the Journal he kept for 24 years. Although the Journal has been acknowledged to be central to Thoreau's canon, criticism of it has been peripheral until now. In this carefully considered book Sharon Cameron argues that ten years before his death Thoreau came to see the Journal as an autonomous composition-in competition with Walden-and that it was a viable work in its own right. Examining the crossed and contradictory imperative of Thoreau's discourse, Cameron opens up the Journal to public scrutiny--moving from questions of linguistic strategies and issues of the Journal's presumptive audience, to the matter of how the academy might deal with the material. She concludes that although the Journal is Thoreau's private work it is also his primary work and as such it should take precedence over the books Thoreau published in his lifetime.
- ISBN10 0195035704
- ISBN13 9780195035704
- Publish Date 14 November 1985
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 4 December 1992
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 184
- Language English