Journals

Abstract From the beginnings of Transcendentalism, journals were an important form of both private and public discourse. As this article states, even though the most interesting writing produced during that period was found in the journals of the major literary figures of Transcendentalism, they were difficult to define because their forms and functions were so varied. Most of the major figures associated with Transcendentalism kept journals for at least some period of their lives. An additional advantage journal writing had was that its very looseness, informality, and irregular nature gave it certain intrinsic advantages over more polished forms of expression. Despite Transcendentalist journals' diametrically opposed editorial policies, the net effect of the appearance of carefully edited editions of Emerson's and Thoreau's journals has been to heighten awareness among scholars of their importance and to bring these texts fully into scholarly discourse about Transcendentalism.