Aesthetic Response to Thoreau Journals

From the first journal entry in the packet, what stands out in my mind the most is Thoreau’s incredibly strong and seemingly enraged standpoint on the topic of preaching. Making such a statement must have gotten much attention both positive and negative. Thoreau shows no signs of withholding any of his feelings from the reader, and lets everything on his mind go down onto the paper. This type of writing made a very big impression on me as I read.

When I first began reading Thoreau’s journal entry, I thought he seemed almost common and prejudiced. As I read on, I found out that his opinion was backed up by much more intelligence, and that he was someone who had a very heated point to express to his audience. I took the anger that he was able to convey and originally interpreted it as that of one with an ignorant personality. My feelings of Thoreau did change as I read deeper into the text. As far as the actual material goes, I felt unable to make an opinion of my own because of the deep level of the subject matter he wrote about.

This piece triggered many thoughts inside of me, both emotionally, and intellectually. I thought that it was very brave of Thoreau to present such a powerful statement to the public. In his journals, he shows absolutely no regret for what he is saying, but rather supports his position which yet more "controversial" statements. I was suprised that someone would say such things knowing that other people would be reading it, and that there was a great chance for people to become offended, although I thought that the way he stated his point very eloquently.