Module Description
Henry David Thoreau began drafting his most famous work, Walden, in 1846, while still living at Walden Pond. Between then and 1854, when the work was published, he revised his text over and over. In the manuscript of Walden at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, it’s possible to discern seven distinct drafts of Walden. This module will introduce you to the manuscript and its history. In addition, the module will invite you to think about the challenges a scholarly editor faces in modeling a manuscript containing multiple drafts of a work.
Outcomes/Activities
At the completion of this module you should
- Understand the history of the Walden manuscript
- Understand how a scholarly editor can model an author’s revisions based on manuscript evidence
Dates and Activities
Monday, February 16
Before class
- Read Walden, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For” (all paragraphs)
- Read the pages in the module “Meet the Walden Manuscript.”
- Leave a comment on a paragraph or part of a paragraph in “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For” responding to anything Thoreau has to say about time or place.
In class
- We’ll discuss Walden
- We’ll explore the Walden manuscript
Class work: In your folder for 2-16, share your journal file for the day with notes on our discussion of Walden and the Walden manuscript.
Wednesday, February 18
Before class
- Read Walden: A Fluid-Text Edition, “Editorial Introduction”
- Poke around in the fluid-text edtion of Walden.
- Find one or more revisions to “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For” in the fluid-text edition of Walden that interest you. Leave a comment on the revision(s) in the corresponding location in “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For” in The Readers’ Thoreau edition of Walden. Explain how/why you think the revision(s) made a difference to Thoreau’s meaning or the rhythm of his language.
In class
- We’ll explore the fluid-text edition of Walden and the Walden manuscript together.
Class work: In your folder for 2-18, share your journal file for the day with notes about the fluid-text edition and the Walden manuscript.
Friday, February 20
Before class
- Write a first draft of your first blog post as a plain text file in VS Code, using Markdown.
- Prepare any images from the Colored Conventions Project that you’ll use in your blog post for upload to the blog.
In class
- We’ll work on blog posts together and make sure everyone knows what they have to do to complete the assignment successfully.
Class work: In your folder for 2-20, share your journal file for the day with notes on any challenges you overcame or are still facing with respect to the blog assignment.