1. Emerson, Thoreau, and the Nature of Metonymy
... a lesson in the metonymic relation between a self-registering nature and its reporting in writing. Thoreau is translating from a shared understanding of metonymic, not metaphorical, analogy or association. The passage moves from resemblance (the "spray" of thawing sand "resembling" the "forms of sappy leaves or vines") to remembrance ("reminded of coral, of leopards' paws") to relation, wherein the inward law of atoms links to the outward leaves of the earth. Like Emerson in the lecture on Goethe ... or in the lectures invoking Faraday in the materializing of mind, Thoreau observes in t...
- Word Count: 9971
- Approx Pages: 40
- Grade Level: Undergraduate