Abstract

Henry Thoreau's art of prose composition was in large part constructed upon his understanding of the analogical, primitive, and derivative "wisdom" and potentiality of words. His systematic and wide-ranging study of literature, languages, and philology gave his prose theoretical sophistication and philosophical integrity; this dissertation is a comprehensive analysis of the central role played by Thoreau's theory and philosophy of language in his writing. This analysis affords new interpretations of Thoreau's language, artistic purposes, and Transcendentalism. ;How Thoreau developed his sophisticated and yet unorthodox philosophy of language, from first published book through his mature and final publications , forms the core of this dissertation. Other chapters study the Neo-platonic and Vedic influence upon his theory of language, his predicative style, and his threefold conception of language as ethical, germinal, and hypaethral or spiritual. Thoreau's mastery of derivation, analogy, phonology, and semantic play allowed this author philologically to "exaggerate" in every sentence he wrote, to craft a literary language of multiple and Transcendental signification