Ornamental Aesthetics: The Poetry of Attending in Thoreau, Dickinson, and WhitmanOrnamental Aesthetics offers a theory of ornamentation as a manner of marking out objects for notice, attention, praise, and a means of exploring qualities of mental engagement other than interpretation and representation. Although Thoreau, Dickinson, and Whitman were hostile to the overdecorated rooms and poems of nineteenth century culture, their writings are full of references to chandeliers, butterflies, diamonds, and banners which indicate their