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"Terrible simplicity": Emerson's metaleptic style. (19th-century poet and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson)

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From: Style
Date: 19970322
Author:Wilson, Eric

Poet/essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson consistently strove to write dynamic poetry that was as electrically vital as nature. His highly charged writing style stemmed from Emerson's belief that strong language should be active, palpable and electric. He likened nature to a book where any language and new fact learned is a new word. It is argued that Emerson's metaleptic writing styles were learned from nature. The use of metalepsis as the major rhetorical device in Emerson's poem 'Nature' is discussed.

Emerson's style was animated by his observations of nature, from which he learned that matter is ...

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