Niia Conklin, Maggie Kennell, Juli Mora, Aubrey Stout Peters, Adanna Wolf

Have you ever looked at someone’s handwriting and thought, “Can he, himself, even read that?” Well, after attempting to read Thoreau’s handwriting on the Walden manuscripts, you will definitely be considering this question. Thoreau wrote many versions of Walden, editing each one before settling on the final copy. As a result, numerous manuscript pages exist from Walden. Through a class project, my group studied a couple of his manuscripts from “Sounds,” with help from the fluid text edition of Walden, and concluded that Thoreau ultimately edits his work for clarity, meaning he tries to weed out all unnecessary passages. First, we examined the lengthy first sentence of “Sounds” in Version A where Thoreau is trying to gather his thoughts. Afterwards, we moved on to comparing Version A to Version D where we noticed Thoreau paring down the first section for readability and clarity. Our story begins with Version A.

Version A

First Sentence

The first sentence of “Sounds” in Version A, shown above, is significantly long and–partly due to its length–has numerous edits throughout, including deletions and additions as Thoreau was figuring out what he wanted to say. Since the deletions are the most noticeable, let’s begin there.

Deletions

The first deletion is easy to understand. “Or rather the expression” is removed from “we are apt to forget the language, or rather the expression….” Simply put, using the word “language” implies communication, which is how people express themselves. Because of this, using “language” and “expression” becomes repetitive, making one unnecessary. At the bottom of the manuscript, is the second deletion: “and speech itself is partial.” This phrase is unclear and underdeveloped. The original piece reads, “for the tongue is only an accidental organ of speech even of this written language which it has helped to establish serving equally the palate, and speech itself is partial….” Adding “and speech itself is partial” does not connect to or develop the previous discussion surrounding the tongue. Instead, the phrase introduces a new point that feels out of place, so Thoreau decided to take it out. In addition, on the manuscript page the word “uttering” only has two little pencil marks at the end of it instead of a blatant strike-through, as recorded in the fluid-text version. It is hard to determine Thoreau’s intentions. When the passage is read with the word “uttering,” it reiterates the act of talking, which does fit in with the “tongue” section since “uttering” emphasizes Thoreau’s point that speaking is the precursor to writing. However, when reading the passage without the word “uttering,” the transition into the next section is more abrupt. While “and still lips” continues to fit into the mouth imagery Thoreau is writing, “uttering” serves as a reminder to that image before moving on. To continue, the next set of changes to explore are Thoreau’s pencil additions.

Pencil Additions

The pencil additions in the first sentence tend to be small changes here and there. In fact, the first three occur in the very beginning of the sentence: “Yet after all, while we are confined to books though the most select & classic and study only particular written languages which are themselves but dialects or provincialisms, we are apt to forget the language….” Based on sequential order, “select &” is the first pencil addition in the text. By affixing “select &” to “classic,” Thoreau creates a more distinguished and sophisticated feeling. This is because “select” narrows the definition of what written works are considered classics by implying that age does not automatically secure classic status. Similarly, the addition of “written” to describe “languages” simply specifies what Thoreau is talking about. Because the word languages usually refer to spoken languages, Thoreau needed to specify that he was talking about written languages here. Furthermore, adding “which are themselves but dialects” goes hand-in-hand with Thoreau’s commentary of how verbal language preceded written language. For one thing, dialects vary by region and simply demonstrate how to say the same thing but in different ways, as alluded to by Thoreau writing “dialects or provincialisms.” Essentially, Thoreau is arguing that everyone has a different writing style, meaning that their language is the same in theory but different in practice. To end, the last pencil addition is whithin this section: “which only is copious, for the tongue is only an accidental organ of speech even of this written language which it has helped to establish serving equally the palate.” Again, it appears that Thoreau is purposely stressing the written language through the pencil addition “even of this written language which it has helped to establish.” If we read the full passage without the addition, it would only imply verbal communication as it mentions “an accidental organ of speech” and “the palate.” Thus, “even of this written language which it has helped to establish” is needed for clarification. While the pencil additions tend to be small, they are plentiful and powerful in changing the meaning of Thoreau’s writing. On the flip side, there is only one pen addition in the entire first sentence.

The Pen Addition

In pen, Thoreau added a section that can stand by itself: “and still lips were the methods which it had established necessary or sufficient for the silent expression of truth by instilling us.” By including this section, Thoreau is extending his mouth imagery, written just before, by going beyond the tongue to the lips. Instead of reporting that “silence is mirrored in closed lips,” Thoreau explains this concept in a longer, more flowery section to match the tone of the mouth part. Ultimately, by putting these two sections together, Thoreau is contrasting the difference between speaking and staying silent as demonstrated by the tongue being “an accidental organ of speech” while the lips are “the silent expression of truth by instilling us.” In the end, this pen part is added to contrast the mouth section, helping Thoreau to explore this concept between written and spoken language.

Therefore, we believe that the extensive first sentence of “Sounds” in Version A has numerous deletions and additions as Thoreau was trying to figure out what to say.

However, while the changes Thoreau makes in Version A make logical sense, Version D changes dramatically–-especially considering its length–-when comparing it to Versions A, B, and C. The first example of this is the “still lips” section.

Version D

Still Lips

Nevertheless, before examining “still lips” in Version D, it must be looked at in Version A, shown above, since it is one of the largest revisions on that page. In addition, this line, which is in the middle of the first paragraph, carries over several versions: “…and still lips were the methods which it had established necessary or sufficient for the silent expression of the truth by instilling us.” Because this section is written tinily and messily, it is possibly the most difficult line to read on the physical manuscript page, which, in turn, makes it difficult to transcribe and understand what Thoreau is trying to convey. Even more confusing, he carried over this section from Version A to B to C, and finally, in Version D, this line was removed completely. Throughout “Sounds” Thoreau edits a lot; however, the jump from Version C to D shows the deletion of a large portion of material, including the omission of the “still lips” section. Furthermore, in Version D, there are no physical deletion marks of the “still lips” portion. In fact, that particualr part does not show up in this manuscript version at all. To explain this, we believe Thoreau’s goal was to make this chapter more concise and understandible for other readers, and this is why he outright deletes so much material. Replacing flowery language for straightfoward language automatically aids readers’ overall comprehension. As mentioned previously, the words “still lips” adds to the mouth imagery Thoreau was using, specifically the part where the tongue is described as an “organ of speech.” The “still lips” portion expanded on that idea artistically. Despite this, once Thoreau revised this paragraph of “Sounds” to create Version D, his goal shifted towards succinctness and clarity. Although his imagery is expressive, like “the language which the soul of a man hears rather than his ears,” in Version D Thoreau focuses more on how he can accurately portray his thoughts to his audience.

With a More Copious

“Sounds” Version A

“Sounds” Version D

This mindset definitely carried over to his subsequent changes. One of the most important changes between Version A and Version D of “Sounds” is this sentence from Version A: “With a more copious hearing or understanding of what is published, the views ever fresh which the breezes waft to us, and all things exhale the present languages and all that they express or can express will be forgotten.” There are many times throughout Thoreau’s writing that he uses verbose language. After tweaking this part in previous versions, he deleted it in Version D by surrounding the section in a box with wavy lines down it as pictured above. On the Version D manuscript, there is no indication that the section was moved or reused in a different way. Be that as it may, it appears that Thoreau could delete this section so assuredly because he already touched upon these points earlier in the passage in a way that is more to the point and easier to understand. Here is that previous passage: “Which alone is copious and standard, and an adequate expression of the meaning with which the universe is fraught.” As a result, the Version A and Version D passages explain the importance of reading comprehension, but the passage in Version D is shorter and more seriously explained. Because Thoreau already discussed the points in the “with a more copious…” section, he could confidently delete the sentence in Version D. That way his overall writing would be more understandable to his readers.

Final Thoughts

Over the course of examining Versions A and D of “Sounds” it becomes clear that Thoreau edits his writing a lot. Just by looking at the first sentence in Version A demonstrates this as Thoreau was trying to figure out what he wanted to say. Then, when comparing Versions A and D with each other, specifically the “still lips” and “with a more copious” sections, Thoreau’s editing appears to have shifted from editing ideas to editing for clarity. Therefore, throughout Thoreau’s manuscripts, it becomes clear that he ultimately edits for succinctness and clarity by deleting unnecessary passages. While completing this project, the most important takeaway for our group were the obstacles and triumphs we encountered. The first challenge was finding the chapter we wanted to focus on. Originally, we considered working on a passage from “Reading,” but “Sounds” ended up being a better fit since it had the most changes of the two, which we discovered by looking at the fluid-text edition of Walden. All in all, transcribing Thoreau’s handwriting was the hardest obstacle to overcome because his handwriting is loopy cursive that is not commonly used today. In addition, Thoreau would add sections inbetween lines, making them cluttered. From working on the transcription, we ran into another problem–the TEI file. Since we were not accustomed to its specific formatting and how to properly record Thoreau’s edits, it was difficult to complete. However, the first triumph we had was determining how to record the box with wavy lines in the TEI file, as suggested by our professor. Over everything else, our most significant triumph is how we were able to work together smoothly. To our relief we worked well together in our respective jobs, and everyone was willing to help others with any extra tasks. In this way, we were able to manage the different aspects of the project efficiently despite the growing pains along the way.