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"Nothing goes by luck in composition...the best you can write will be the best you are": Style and structure in Thoreau
Abstract
In his writings, Thoreau aims to evoke transcendence in himself and others in order to live in a more perfect and harmonious relationship to the world. He does so through a recursive process of experiencing nature, experiencing transcendence, recording his experience, and re-experiencing transcendence. By structuring his writing through a variety of stylistic techniques, he leads himself and his audience from the physical experience to the spiritual experience. Each time they undergo the process, they reach a spiritual plane higher than that at the beginning of the work. Although Thoreau's prose is sometimes perceived as disorganized and unstructured, most critics see subtle but definite structural patterns which help unify it. Building on previous critical insights, this study delineates four characteristic and interrelated stylistic techniques which create a subtly patterned, and thereby unified, structure which fulfills Thoreau's literary aim. The first stylistic technique is the description of a particular phenomenon, the nature and importance of which are affirmed continually throughout the work. The second stylistic technique is naming, conveying spiritual meaning through words in order to make a more complete experience of the phenomenon possible. The third stylistic technique is the accumulation of figurative language which characterizes the phenomenon metaphorically. The fourth stylistic technique is a series of quarterly climactic analogies which use the physical phenomenon as their vehicle. The four techniques working together serve as an exegesis of the phenomenon. They structure a work so that Thoreau may put himself and others in a position to evoke transcendence by perceiving correspondence. Walden and the two natural history essays, "A Walk to Wachusett" and "Wild Apples," exemplify Thoreau's stylistic strategy throughout his career. In these works, his description, naming, and figurative language relative to a particular phenomenon culminate in quarterly climatic analogies which subtly structure and unify his prose to fulfill his aim of evoking transcendence in himself and others.
Subject Area
American literature
Recommended Citation
Beeman, Susan E, ""Nothing goes by luck in composition...the best you can write will be the best you are": Style and structure in Thoreau" (1990). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9030104.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9030104