1. Emerson, Thoreau, and the Nature of Metonymy
... thinking, and life itself. Emerson's "metonymy," I argue, figures a more empirical, if not ecological, way of thinking about writing and writing about thinking. In this way, "metonymy" names or anticipates that sort of "radical empiricism" that emerges later in the philosophy of William James, a blending of science and metaphysics, matter and mind, that critics such as Steven Meyer and Joan Richardson have linked back ... give the imagination keen pleasure." (18) In "Poetry and Imagination," the aging Emerson (with editorial help from his literary executor James Elliot Cabot) seems mere...
- Word Count: 9971
- Approx Pages: 40
- Grade Level: Undergraduate