Henry David Thoreau’s Literary Stylein Walden

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) is a renowned American writer of transcendentalism. With his masterpiece Walden as the textual specimen, the thesis investigates Thoreau’s literary style and explores its causes with an aim to better appreciate Thoreau as a writer and Walden as a literary work.The thesis consists of six parts. In the introductory part, the thesis briefly introduces Henry David Thoreau and his masterpiece Walden, reviews previous studies on Thoreau’s literary style, and then introduces the organization of the thesis. With Walden as the textual specimen, the first three chapters characterize Thoreau’s literary style. As to Thoreau’s selection of subjects, Thoreau’s works cover a wide range of subject matters with local color and humor. As to means of expression, Thoreau often conveys meaning by symbols, combines description, narration and comments, and carefully arranges chapters. Thoreau’s language use is also of its unique style. Basically Thoreau’s language is plain and natural as reflected in his colloquial diction, loose sentences, and pithy aphorism. The use of allusion and rich vocabulary endows his language an elegant flavor. Besides, various figures of speech like metaphor, pun, and paradox are abundant in Walden. The fourth chapter explores the causes for Thoreau’s literary style, that is, Thoreau’s identity as a Concord Transcendentalist, Thoreau’s theory of style and Thoreau’s writing purposes. The conclusion summarizes the whole thesis in which the causes, the features and the importance of Thoreau’s literary style are reaffirmed.