“Contact”—Mysteries that matter: Thoreau's complex pictorialism

Theron Lyle Francis, Purdue University

Abstract

Henry David Thoreau's pictorial writing made use of various modes of the picturesque, including the wilderness sublime, the ideal picturesque, and the grotesque. All of these styles prioritized nature above culture. Through visual rhetoric, his writing appeals to all the senses. Thoreau's picturesque style enhances the reader's awareness of nature's materiality. It functions partly by creating images that refer the part of a scene to whole, so that the reader can conceptualize the larger ecosystems within which a place, person, or other living thing fits. Thoreau also makes alternating and contrasting references to the rough physicality of experience and the supposedly pure realm of the realm of the imagination. In the sublime mode of "Ktaadn," Thoreau envisions a meeting with the mountain's nature deity, who compels the narrator to respond with awe and wonder over "matter" in nature. In the more ideal mode of Walden, following a pattern that Alexander Humboldt recommended, Thoreau creates a layered montage, which brings before the viewer the concept of the nature of a whole region. In the grotesque imagery of Cape Cod, Thoreau makes use of a style that more directly speaks in the vernacular of common people, living things, and the forces of nature. He makes use of what Jean Paul Richter called the "inverse sublime," in order to show readers what is high in the low and what is low in what's high.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Hughes, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Comparative literature|American studies|American literature

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