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09.04.2012
Stylistics
Prof. Dr. Norrick
SS 2012
Interest in style goes back to ancient
Greece
Poetry and criticism or writing about poetry
grew up together
Aristotle was the first to write objectively
about poetry
What constitutes poetry is not writing
verses (poiesis) but building a poetic
structure of events (mythos)
A poetic structure should be beautiful:
unity, symmetry
The art of making a poem
character
argument
poetic language (lexis)
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09.04.2012
Poetic language is the realm of style
The first virtue of poetic diction is to be
clear,then to maintain an elevation above
low life and language
Elevation through: archaic, foreign,
unfamiliar words, ornamental epithets, and
figures, especially metaphor
Aristotle: “The greatest thing by far is to be
a master of metaphor. . . it implies an
intuitive perception of the similarity in
dissimilars.”
Most impressive: 4-term analogical
metaphor, e.g.
the sun sheds its rays
A
sun
is to
B
rays
as
C
is to
animal
D
shedding skin
Following Aristotle
Horace Ars Poetica “decorum”
Longinus “sublime”: high, middle and low
language
Quintillian Institutio oratoria
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09.04.2012
Quintillian
Metaphor is a short simile
Metaphor expresses the same comparison
as a simile, but it omits the words like and
as
Simile
Achilles
Achilles
is like a lion in courage
is as courageous as a lion
Metaphor
Achilles is a lion (in courage)
Quintillian analyses similes and metaphors into 3 parts:
Achilles is like
a lion
in
courage
Primum
Secundum
Tertium
OBJECT
VEHICLE
TERTIUM
Achilles is
OBJECT
a lion
VEHICLE
in
courage
TERTIUM
Tertium often dropped in both simile and
metaphor:
Achilles is like a lion
Achilles is a lion
Also: Achilles raged like a lion in the battle
Or even: Achilles raged, a lion in the battle
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09.04.2012
Synechdoche
Part for whole:
roof for 'house'
Species for genus:
ten thousand things for 'many'
One for many:
the foot soldier for 'infantry'
Metonymy
Inventor for invention: Homer for 'text by
Homer' as in They read Homer daily
Possessor for possession: Neptune for 'ocean'
as in Neptune raged about the tiny ships
Container for contents: the goblet for 'gobletfull of liquid' as in Helena drank the foaming
goblet
Material for object: his steel for 'his sword'
as in Achilles drew his steel across the stone
Modern period - "What is style?"
Originally in literary theory, esp. regarding the
novel
"Jane Austen's style" vs other writers
Then "Jane Austen's early style vs her mature
style"
Lexis (word counts)
Grammar (nominal, passive etc)
Always assumes choice, as if everything could
be said some other way
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09.04.2012
"What is literature?" vs non- literature
And "What is poetry?" or at least "What is
poetic?"
Especially as poetry became less
representational, along with pictorial art:
concrete
poetry, surreal and dada-esque
"A poem should not mean but be"
New Criticism,
Intentional Fallacy,
Close Reading
Formalist theories of poetry (e.g.
Jakobson, 1960)
Jakobson
CONTEXT
MESSAGE
ADDRESSER...............................ADDRESSEE
CONTACT
CODE
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09.04.2012
Jakobson
REFERENTIAL
EMOTIVE
POETIC
PHATIC
CONATIVE
METALINGUAL
Jakobson
“The poetic function projects the principle
of equivalence from the axis of selection
into the axis of combination” (303).
(Jakobson, Roman.1967. Linguistics and poetics. Essays on the language
of literature. Ed. By S. Chatman & S. R. Levin, 296-322.)
Jakobson
combination
selection
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09.04.2012
Once linguists were involved, new questions were
asked:
"How
"How
does poetry/poetic lg differ from other lg?"
do we describe different styles linguistically?“
where style = genre, text-type, speech event etc
Linguistic distinctions were introduced:
spoken vs
written, planned vs spontaneous,
mediated,
monologic vs polyphonic,
interactive vs front-directed vs non-reciprocal
face-to-face vs
Along with linguistic notions like:
register and
speech act
Structuralist and generative transformational
linguists
poeticity as violation of grammatical rules:
A grief ago (Dylan Thomas)
Any who lived in a pretty how town (E.E.
Cummings)
Socio--linguistics brings new set of questions
Socio
"How does Style reflect social variables?"
Social class, gender, solidarity / distance /
deference
Power and dominance in interaction
This leads back to ancient Rhetoric and
Aristotle, in its concern with persuasive speech,
esp.
formal features like
and
meter, prosody, rhyme etc.
figures (metaphor, metonymy etc.)
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09.04.2012
Linguists distinguish
original vs dead metaphor: face of a clock and
moribund metaphor: cut into line
cf. knife through the line
word metaphor: the ship plowed the waves
vs phrase metaphor: she's still up in the air
about her decision
or whole sentence: chickens come home to
roost
Extended metaphor in poetry
From John Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”
Our two souls therefore, which are
one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.
And though it in the centre sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes
home.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no
show
To move, but doth, if the' other do.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end, where I
begun.
Extended metaphor in everyday talk
From The Whitehouse Transcripts
P: I think we better assume it. I think ColsonD: He is playing hard ball. He wouldn’t play hard ball
unless he were pretty confident that he could cause an
awful lot of grief.
H: Right.
P: He is playing hard ball with regard to Ehrlichman for
example, and that sort of thing. He knows what he’s got.
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09.04.2012
Metaphor as anomaly
I have measured out my life with coffee
spoons
And frightful a nightfall folded rueful a day
Metaphor as a figurative speech act
And silent was the flock in woolly fold.
At the beach, my daughter's a regular fish.
Metaphoric proverbs may be both true and
consistent in some context, but not the
one cited
The
early bird catches the worm.
Some metaphors resist paraphrase
Telecommunications
are further shrinking the
globe.
especially metaphors in science
Cyclotrons
split atoms.
Black holes absorb matter.
Paraphrases tend to produce fewer
interesting implications.
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09.04.2012
Cognitive Linguistic theories see metaphor
as basic to human cognition
Metaphors are necessary for our basic
grasp of time, evaluation, emotions:
Go
back in time in the distant future before the fall
Stocks dropped, then
Feeling lowdown
rose the Mark is above the Yen
in a black mood
their hot love cooled
We perceive things via metaphor
We cognize abstracts in terms of basics,
time
is money:
time
is precious, spend time, waste time,
run out of time
Again Metonymy
Part for whole: Get your ass over here.
Producer for product: She owns a Picasso.
Controller for controlled: Napoleon lost at
Waterloo.
Place for institution: Moscow rejected the plan.
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