1. Emerson, Thoreau, and the Nature of Metonymy
... opening of the "Sounds" chapter in Walden, where he suggests that "we are in danger of forgetting the language which all things and events speak without metaphor." (44) But even that very line, which for Rochelle Johnson marks Thoreau's "passion for nature beyond metaphor," speaks to a melding ... language--the amalgam of a language in things. It could be argued, of course, that the line itself, in the very figuring of "things and events speak[ing] without metaphor," trades in the kind of tropology it desires to move away from. I would argue, rather, that Thoreau's "without metaphor" is ....
- Word Count: 9971
- Approx Pages: 40
- Grade Level: Undergraduate