Abstract

Contemporary scholarship in rhetoric has recognized Ralph Waldo Emerson's interests in rhetorical theory. James A. Berlin, for example, who identifies Emerson's romantic rhetoric, in opposition to the rhetoric of the late eighteenth century, as a precursor of several modem tendencies, deals adequately with Emerson in his survey of nineteenth-century American writing instruction (42-57). Berlin's treatment of Emerson will be assumed here, qualified by Judy F. Parham's point that the tension between private and public in Emerson is a productive one (80). However, although he implies that Henry David Thoreau's position does not differ significantly from Emerson's, Berlin does not treat Thoreau's theoretical statements separately. Similarly, although dozens of literary scholars have investigated Thoreau's rhetorical practices, to my knowledge no analysis has been done on his rhetorical theory.l My intention is to show that Thoreau presents a theoretical version of eloquence distinct from Emerson's. Although this presentation is by no means unified in terms of a quintessential reduction, a consistent version does emerge across various works and personas, one fundamentally incompatible as well with the psychological rhetoric Thoreau studied in Richard Whately's Elements of Rhetoric and the opinions of Harvard's Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory, Edward T. Channing. Thoreau's thoughts on eloquence, I suggest, should be aligned with a much different tradition in order to highlight their unique character.