CERTIFICATE Dr. Ashok Kumar Mohapatra Professor in English Department of English Sambalpur Univresity This is to certify that Shri Ajaya Kumar Panda bearing Regd. No. 08/2006/English, Ph.D of Sambalpur University has submitted his Ph.D thesis entitled Style as Meaning: A Stylistic Analysis of W.H.Auden s Poems, which he wrote under my guidance. The work is the result of his sincere effort and it is original to the best of my knowledge and belief. Ashok Kumar Mohapatra Professor Deptt.of English Sambalpur University
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I thank Professor Dr. Ashok Kumar Mohapatra for his invaluable guidance on almost everything. I benefitted enormously from his nurturing comments and directives without which this thesis would not have been completed. The idea of writing a nuclear chapter about style and stylistic analysis of W H Auden s poems was entirely his. I am also indebted to him for his bearing with me throughout and I wish only that there were more space to go into more details about his help and perseverance. I am also grateful to the Librarian of English and Foreign Language University, Hyderabad for his kind help and cooperation in collecting study material for the purpose of giving this thesis of mine a final shape. My thanks go also to those who kindled in me the ambition and love of learning and studying since my childhood and to those who boosted and helped me throughout. Finally, my gratitude goes to my long-suffering wife Geetanjali for supporting me at every stage of my work. Ajaya Kumar Panda
TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Certificate Acknowledgment Page i ii Chapter I: Style and Meaning in Stylistic Analysis 1-27 1.1. Introduction 1 1.2. Style 1 1.3. Stylistics 8 1.4. Approaches to Stylistic Analysis 11 1.5. Levels of Stylistic Analysis 13 1.6. Elements in Stylistic Analysis 15 1.6.1. Lexico- Syntactic Pattern 15 1.6.2. Lexico Syntactic Choices 16 1.6.3. Phonological Devices 18 1.6.4. Graphological Devices 19 1.6.5. Morphological Devices 19 1.7. Stylistic Analysis and Literary Criticism 20 1.8. Pedagogical Application of Stylistics: Theoretical Issue 23 1.9. Methodology 25 1.10. Plan for the Chapters 27
Chapter II: Major Aspects of Auden s Poetry 28-68 2.1. A Brief Introduction of W.H. Auden 28 2.2. Literature Review of Auden s Poems 29 2.3. Themes of Auden s Poetry 33 2.3.1. Theme of war ` 35 2.3.2. Rejection of Convention 37 2.3.3. Human Suffering 38 2.3.4. Religious Themes 41 2.3.5. Auden s Love for Art 45 2.3.6. Significance of Love 46 2.3.7. Loss of Human Values 50 2.3.8. Theme of Death 50 2.4. The Style of Auden 53 2.4.1. Components of Auden s Style 55 2.4.1.1. Diction 55 2.4.1.2. Imagery 56 2.4.1.3. Symbols 61 2.4.1.4. Rhetorical Devices 64 2.4.1.5. Traditional Verse from-meters/subjects, People and Places 64 2.4.1.6. Allegorical Devices 66 2.4.1.7. Use of Adjectives 66 2.5. Conclusion 67
Chapter III: Lexis As Style 69-105 3.1. Introduction 69 3.2. An Overview on the Lexis as Style in Poems by W.H.Auden 72 3.2.1. The Use of Adjectives 73 3.2.2. Use of Archaic Words 73 3.2.3. Use of Rhetorical Device 74 3.3. Lexical Analysis of Auden s Poems 75 3.3.1. O Where Are You Going? 75 3.3.2. Who s Who 80 3.3.3. Funeral Blues 85 3.3.4. Mundus et Infans 89 3.3.5. As I Walked out One Evening 94 3.3.6. Canzone 100 Chapter IV: Sound Pattern As Style 106-157 4.1. Introduction 106 4.2. An Overview on the Sound Pattern as Style in Poem by W.H. Auden 118 4.3. Analysis of Sound Pattern 124 4.3.1.O Where are You Going? 124 4.3.2. On This Island 126 4.3.3. Musee des Beaux Arts 129 4.3.4. The cross Roads 133 4.3.5. Refugee Blues 136 4.3.6. If I Could Tell You 141 4.3.7 The More Loving One 146 4.3.8. River Profile 150
Chapter V: Syntax As Style 158-206 5.1 Introduction 158 5.2 Syntactical Analysis 165 5.2.1 That Night When Joy Began 165 5.2.2 Spain -1937 170 5.2.3 In Memory of W.B. Yeats 179 5.2.4 The Unknown Citizen 185 5.2.5 If I Could Tell You 192 5.2.6 The Shield of Achilles 197 Conclusion 207
Select Bibliography 208 222 Style and Meaning in Stylistic Analysis 1.1 Introduction Despite centuries of valiant intellectual effort, style has remained an elusive concept. It is, as Enkvist puts it, as common as it is elusive. Most of us speak about it even lovingly, though few of us are willing to say precisely what it means (1973:11). Every age, and every school of criticism, has tried to understand and define the problem of style within its own parameters, ranging from viewing it as the moulding of the message, to identifying it with th e author, to rejecting it in part and in toto, to regarding it as a choice and a substantial determiner and component of meaning, but as Chatman and Levin point out, it has been impossible to define in a way that would command it Universal assent (1967:337). 1.2 Style
Some of the earliest significant treatment of style occurs in the discussion of classical rhetoric in writings of Aristotle and Quintilian. This tradition views style as persuasion, as a set of devices to be used according to the occasion and the subject of discourse to produce the right kind of effect on the listener or the reader. Another classical assumption regarding style is that it is an ornament of dress of thought. The theoretical assumption underlying this view is that form and content are separable, and that style consists in giving a pre-existing thought, an elegant verbal shape. This split between form and content was opposed by people like Coleridge who held the view that in a work of art both form and content were fused into an invisible organic unity. Another view which has exercised a strong influence on the modern mind is the theory of style as meaning advanced by W. K. Wimsatt. For him style is a function of the selection and arrangement of words, and since words are units of meaning, style and meaning become inseparable. According to Wimsatt style is the furthest elaboration of the one concept that is the centre (1967:235). The problem with all these traditional definitions of style is that they are either too diffused or vague and consequently of not much practical use in the study of style. Further, all these definitions, in relation to classical notion of style, underscore conformity with established principles of genre, modes of narration, imagery, phonic patterns and so on. We know of Attic, Doric, Ionic literary styles of literary communication in classical Greek literature in the western tradition and Gandhara, Lati, Panchala styles of literary communication in the ancient Sanskrit tradition. These designate style as a taxonomic category of collective norm, in conformity with which literary compositions were to be carried out. However, style as a concept of the distinctiveness of expression, unique creative power of an individual is a relatively modern. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, the 18 th century French naturalist and mathematician is one of the earliest proponents of style in
its modern sense when he said before the Académie Française in 1753 in his Discours sur le style ("Discourse on Style") that the style is the man himself" ("le style c'est l'homme même"). He said that style consisting in one s writing expresses the writer s individuality of thinking and expression, and his soul and taste as well. In the modern sense style becomes less a taxonomic, and normative idea entailing conformity and more an idea of an individual s distinctiveness in conceptualizing and executing an art form that involves deviation from the norm. It is the distinctiveness of language and culture and a synchronic study of them which became the focus of Structuralism. In tandem with structuralist theories of language and culture more adequate models of linguistic description, and analytical tools of structure were developed by structural linguistics, with greater attempt made to place the study of style in a more objective basis through the use of certain analytical techniques. In this new approach the influence exercised by the textual criticism of I.A. Richards and New Criticism of Ransom, Empson, Allen Tate and Cleanth Brooks have been of paramount importance. The New critics believed that a poem should be interpreted only in terms of its formal features, the verbal clues that the text provides. It is in its insistence on the primacy of the text, on a close reading of the linguistic features, that New Criticism anticipated the scientific nature of modern stylistics and paved the way for its emergence. The most significant thing about modern stylistics is that the new, analytical methods of linguistics have been adopted with a view to provide a precise and adequate description of the language of a given text. The discipline of stylistics assumes that style is a function of the textual features. What a reader senses as style is the effect created by the linguistic structures used by the writer and their deployment within the work. Therefore, an analysis of formal features will yield interesting facts about a writer s style. It is in the analysis of the formal features of the text that linguistics comes to the help of stylistics. To understand what a writer is doing with language, we need a description of the system itself by reference to which we may identify and
understand an individual s use of language. Linguistics provides stylistics with the theoretical framework and analytical tools it needs for studying a writer s style. The application of linguistics to stylistic studies is stressed by Sol Saporta when he says that stylistics is in some way dependant on linguistics, since style can not be clearly defined without reference to grammar (1960:93). Literature, whatever it may be, is language first; therefore the methods of linguistics may be advantageously used to understand the formal patterning of language. Though stylistics helps to arrive at an objective description of the literary use of language, it can not be said that stylistics has solved all the problems of literary analysis. Far from it, for there are still many unsolved problems. No universally acceptable definition of style has yet been evolved and in actual practice objectivity is sometimes compromised for the sake of interpretation. While all this is true, it can not be denied that stylistics has provided the student of literature with the theoretical framework and analytical tools he needs for studying a writer s style. Stylistics came to be accepted as a discipline in its own right more or less after the publication of the book Style in Language (1960). New definitions of style have been formulated which are formal in nature and permit an objective analysis of textual features. Of all the modern approaches to the study of style, the theory of style as choice has made a farreaching impact in the field of stylistics. The problem of style and the logic of applying Transformational Generative Grammar (T.G.G.) to the study of style have been succinctly stated by Richard Ohmann. He writes, The idea of style implies that words on a page might have been different or differently arranged without a corresponding difference in substance. Another writer would have said it another way. For the idea of style to apply, in short, writing must involve choice of verbal formulation (1970:264). Using the model developed by Chomsky, wherein a sentence is captured at two levels, namely the deep structure and the surface structure, it has been suggested that a writer s style is constituted by the optional
transformations he consistently and characteristically favours. Richard Ohmann also views style in more or less similar terms, but he has added a dimension of philosophical depth by defining style as epistemic choice (1972:43). Patterns of language reflect pattern of thought; stylistic preferences are cognitive preferences. A writer s style will, therefore, reflect his attitudes and ideas the way he seeks to order and organize experience. Ohmann s stylistic study of Shaw is a pioneering effort in this direction. Through his study of Shaw and Victorian prose writers, Ohmann has found in the notion of optional transformation an effective way to formalize the notion of style as choice. Along with the notion of style as choice, the theory of style as deviation is one of the most popular approaches to the study of style. An author s style is said to be deviant when it differs from the ordinary use of language in certain ways. A message is considered deviant when it violates the rules of language or when it shows features not found else where. In poetry, linguistic deviation is the most significant part of the message, which the reader interprets by measuring (it) against the expected patterns of language. Dylan Thomas s a grief ago (1972:49) is a classical example of deviation. Here a noun denoting a psychological condition is filled in a slot which is normally occupied by a temporal world. The concept of style as deviation from the norm is similar to the concept of foregrounding developed by Jan Mukarovsky in famous essay Standard Language and Poetic Language (1970:40). By foregrounding he means deviation from linguistic or other socially accepted norms. According to him poetic language is an aesthetically purposeful distortion of standard language. The violation of the norm of the standard, its systematic violation, is what makes possible the poetic utilization of language, without this there would be no poetry (Ibid: 42). He goes on to say, the function of poetic language consists in the maximum of foregrounding of the utterance (Ibid: 42). The difficulty with this approach, however, is that it is impossible to establish in quantitative terms the precise boundaries
between what is normal and what is deviant. The probability of establishing norms, which are final and irrevocable, in a natural language seems dim, because as language keeps on changing, what is a norm in one century and one period may cease to be a norm in another century and another period. The theory of style as poetic function or convergence of textual pattern has stemmed in large part from Roman Jacobson s famous dictum given in his closing statement of the 1958 Indiana Conference on style. The poetic function projects the principles of equivalence from the axis of selection into the axis of combination (1960:358). The statement implies that poetic language systematically exploits in its syntagmatic chain the properties that belong to the members of a paradigmatic group. That is, the literary artist exploits the principles of equivalence in sound, syntactic position and meaning in his selection of words at different levels at different places in the syntagmatic chain. Samuel Levin s work Linguistic Structures in Poetry, in which he makes an attempt to characterize the peculiar unity of language, is based on Jacobson s comment. Using the framework of Transformational Generative Grammar, Levin asserted that the concept of coupling is crucial to poetic language. By coupling he means the convergence of a pair of semantically related elements and a pair of syntagmatic patterns (1970:13). In his discussion of extracts from Pope and of a Shakespearean sonnet, Levin demonstrates how the pattern of semantically related words occurring in similar syntactic position is consistently repeated to achieve poetic unity. The notion of style being largely dependent on textual cohesion is found in the work of M.A.K. Halliday and Geoffrey Leech. Halliday has characterized cohesion as a grouping of descriptive categories organized around the lexical and grammatical means of unifying a literary text through a network of sequential relationship. Geoffrey Leech s analysis of Dylan Thomas s This bread I break emphasizes cohesion the lexical and grammatical means
which the poet draws from standard language to unify the poem. Another significant contribution of this school to the study of style is the note on lexical sets and collocations. According to Spencer and Gregory, the notion of collocation is set up to account for the tendency of certain items of language to occur close to each other. Foe example, the item economy is likely to occur in the same linguistic environment as items such as affairs, policy, plan, programme, disaster (1970:78). They define a lexical set as a grouping of items which have a similar range of collocation. This is an important concept in the study of style because the creative writer often achieves some of his effects through the interaction between usual and unusual collocations, and through the creation of new and therefore stylistically significant collocations. Spencer and Gregory quote examples from Dylan Thomas, such as, a grief ago, all the Sun long and the heart print of man as instances of new collocation. The statistical approach to the study of style is based on the assumption that style is a probabilistic concept (1969:10). This theory which is derived from the information theory and modern mathematics considers each linguistic unit as a sign, and on the basis of a mathematical count based on a sample text predicts the probability of occurrence of a linguistic item in the whole text. Statistical studies have proved most helpful and rewarding in determining the question of unknown or disputed authorship. In her book Style and Proportion, Josphine Miles, who was the first to use the counting technique on an extensive scale, used the concept of the relative proportion of nouns, verbs and adjectives in a test for characterizing style. In the book Linguistic Perspectives on Literature edited by Ching, Haley and Lunsford, (1980:85) we find there is grouping of the articles regarding style: 1) Style as choice: those that emphasize content as a constant and form as a variable which alters only the effects and not the essence of content
2) Style as meaning: those that emphasize the contributions of form to content or which believe that form changes or even creates content. 3) Style as tension between meaning and form: those that emphasize the special meaning or effect of style arising as a new synthesis from the dialect of form/content interaction. Thus we see that different scholars have defined the term Style differently in their own way. So it is difficult to arrive at a conclusion for a common definition. Therefore, it would be wise on our part to use several theories and concepts, in so far as they suit our purpose. Now I will move on to discuss stylistics and different approaches to stylistic analysis. 1.3 Stylistics Many attempts have been made by different scholars to define stylistics. To Freeman (1971:1) stylistics is a sub-discipline which started in the second half of the 20th century. It can be seen as a logical extension of moves within literary criticism early in the 20th century to concentrate on studying texts, rather than authors. To Leech and Short (1981:13) Stylistics is simply defined as the (linguistic) study of style, is rarely undertaken for its own sake, simply as an exercise in describing what use is made of language. They are also of the view that we normally study style because we want to explain something, and in general, literary stylistics has, implicitly or explicitly, the goal of explaining the relation between language and artistic function. Short and Candlin are of the view that stylistics is a linguistic approach to the study of the literary texts. It thus embodies one essential part of the general course - philosophy; that of combining language and literary study (1989:183).
Widdowson defines stylistics as the study of literary discourse from a linguistic orientation (1975:3). He holds the view that what distinguishes stylistics from literary criticism on the one hand and linguistics on the other is that it is a means of linking the two. He also proposes that stylistics occupies the middle ground between linguistics and literary criticism and its function is to mediate between the two. In this role, its concerns necessarily overlap with those of the two disciplines. Carter is of the same view with Widdowson. He also believes that stylistics is essentially a bridge discipline between linguistics and literature and there are always arguments about the design of the bridge, its purpose, the nature of the materials and about the side it should be built from (1988:161). Stylistics, the study of the devices in languages (such as rhetorical figures and syntactical patterns) is considered to produce expressive or literary style. Stylistics is, therefore, a field or study that combines both literary criticism on the one hand and linguistics on the other as its morphological make-up suggests: the style component relating it to literary criticism and the istics component to linguistics. Widdowson (1975:3) claims that stylistics can serve as a means whereby literature and language as subjects can, by a process of gradual approximation, move towards both linguistics and literary criticism, and also a means whereby these disciplines can be pedagogically treated to yield different subjects. He further suggests that stylistics can provide for the progression of a pupil from either language or literature towards either literary criticism or linguistics. Carter (1988: 4) proposes that practical stylistics is a process of literary text analysis which starts from a basic assumption that the primary interpretative procedures used in the reading of a literary text are linguistic procedures. He added that stylistics analysis can provide the means whereby the
study of literature can relate a piece of literary writing to his own experience of language and so can extend that experience. Carter (1988:10) sub-categorized it into 5 sections: 1. Linguistic Stylistics In several respects, linguistic stylistics is the purest form of stylistics in that its practitioners attempt to derive from the study of style and language variation some refinement of models for the analysis of language and thus contribute to the development of linguistic theory. 2. Literary Stylistics A distinguishing feature here is the provision of a basis for fuller understanding, appreciation and interpretation of avowedly literary texts. Although a precision of analysis mode available by stylistic methods offers a challenge to established methods of close reading or practical criticism of texts, the procedures of literary stylistics remain traditional in character in spite of developments in literary theory which challenge assumptions about the role of language in depicting literary realities. 3. Style and Discourse Work in stylistics within this category acknowledges that style is not an exclusively literary phenomenon and addresses itself to the description and characterization of stylistic effects in a wide range of discourse types. Fowler (1986) calls it linguistic criticism. 4. Pedagogical Stylistics There are a number of issues deriving from deep-rooted divisions between linguistic and literary critics but which still require to be considered; which emerge in the context of debates concerning the pedagogical relevance of stylistics.
5. Stylistics and the foreign language learner Perhaps because questions of language and learning are more widely addressed in the domain of foreign language learning than in the no less important area of mother tongue language development, issues of pedagogy in relation to stylistics, literature and language study can be more easily surveyed. However, there is a growing recognition that integration of language and literature can be of mutual benefit in the context of foreign or second language education and that a situation of literary education; conducted by exposure to a canon of texts in English literature mainly through a method of lecture may be in need of modification on a number of counts. 1.4 Approaches to Stylistic Analysis There are different approaches to the analysis of styles of texts i.e there are various ways/perspectives from which we can account for the analysis of texts. Lawal (1997) in his own view identifies these factors as approaches while Babajide (2000) on his own part defines them as concepts. The two of them however give similar points: 1. Style as personality/individuality Style is a relational term: we talk about the style of x referring through style to characteristics of language use, and correlating these with some extralinguistic x Leech and Short believe that traditionally, an intimate connection has been seen between style and an author s personality (1981:11). Deriving largely from idiolect this largely prove that every individual or person is unique in one way or the other. 2. Style as Choice from Variants This approach is backed with the fact that every phenomenon has many possible alternatives that form the variants. It constitutes selection from a total linguistic repertoire. Each individual has the right to choose from the available possibilities that which is appropriate and fits in to his work. This
approach is usually prominent in paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations among linguistic elements. 3. Style as deviation from the norm Language is a behavior governed by rules and norms. When something is done in a quite different way from how it is usually done, then that is said to be a deviation from the norm. This is achieved by reconstruction from the structural resource of language to extend the frontiers of current usages. This concept is most common at both the lexical and the syntactic level and used mostly for effective communication. 4. Style as situation or relationship between message and medium Language use does not occur in a vacuum, the message and medium are always of importance. The medium can be formal or informal, spoken or written and so on. Different language use is determined by the different context of operation. In other words, there are variations in language use. For example, the kind of language used in the court room will be different from the one used in the classroom and so on. By and large it is obvious that the concept of medium and message is indispensable in stylistics. 5. Style as a temporal phenomenon According to Babajide (2000) style changes as nothing in life is static abreast of time. Therefore style can be referred to as being old or new, in or out of vogue, modern or ancient. There are features for certain periods, thus language style changes according to time, and style is recognized by the predominant features of the period. In the language world, there are Chaucerian and classical time, differentiated by features. Old English, Middle English and Modern English periods, Elizabethan, Victorian and Renaissance age with peculiar features (literary and linguistic).
Using any of these approaches explained above, stylistic analysis could be conducted by means of the levels of analysis. I, therefore, explain briefly the levels of stylistic analysis and the elements under them. 1.5 Levels of Stylistic Analysis The levels of stylistics analysis are identified as: 1. Graphology- According to Crystal and Davy, as cited in Alabi (2007: 170), Graphology is the analogous study of a languages writing system or orthography as seen in the various kinds of handwriting or topography (1969:18). Leech believes that graphology transcends orthography. It refers to the whole writing system: punctuation and paragraphing as well as spacing (1969:39). Alabi (2007:170) added that a graphological discussion of style among other features entails the foregrounding of quotation marks, ellipses periods, hyphens, contracted forms, special structures, the full stop, the colon, the comma, the semicolon, the question mark, the dash, lower case letters, gothic and bold prints, capitalization, small print, spacing, italics etc. 2. Phonology Ofuya is of the view that phonology describes the ways in which speech sounds are organized in English into a system (2007:14). Lodge believes that phonology is the study of linguistic systems, specifically the way in which sound represents differences of meaning in a language (2009:8). Phonology in stylistics usually deals with analyzing sound patterns in a piece, the systemic use of sounds to form words and utterances in language. Phonological devices are obtained through the repetition exhibited, for example, in rhyme, elements of alliteration, consonance, assonance and phonaesthesia etc. 3. Morphology Mark and Kirsten say Morphology refers to the mental system involved in word formation or to the branch of linguistics that deals with words, their internal structure, and how they are formed (2005:1). Morphological level of analysis is concerned with word formation processes subjected to specific conditions
and rules of the processes of affixation the prefix, suffix and the root words, coining, back formation etc. 4. Lexico-Syntax This is a word formed by the combination of two different words Lexis and syntax. Lexis is the total vocabularies that make up a language or the body of words known and used by a particular person. Syntax, according to Tallerman, means Sentence construction: how words group together to make phrases and sentences (1998:1). It is also used to mean the study of the syntactic properties of languages; in this sense it is used in the same way as we use stylistics to mean the study of literary style. Lexico-Syntactic patterns may be obtained through various means which include unusual or inverted word order, omission of words and repetition. Lexico-Syntactic choices are obtained through devices such as piling of usual collocates, unusual collocates, archaic words, particular parts of speech, metaphor, simile, oxymoron etc. 1.6 Elements in Stylistic Analysis The elements under each of the levels of analysis mentioned above are discussed briefly below: 1.6.1 Lexico-Syntactic Patterns Lexici-syntatic patterns include: 1. Anastrophe Alabi says anastrophe is the inversion of the natural or usual word order (2007:163). The use of anastrophe secures emphasis and focuses the readers /hearers attention. 2. Parenthesis According to Alabi, it entails the insertion of some verbal unit (extra information, and after thought or a comment) in a position that interrupts the normal syntactical glow of the sentence (2007:163).
3. Ellipsis Alabi cites that Ellipsis entails the deliberate omission of a word or words, which are readily implied by the content: It is used to create brevity reemphasis or ambiguity (2007:163). 4. Asyndeton This is the deliberate omission of conjunctions between a series of related clauses. Asyndeton produces a hurried rhythm in the sentence. Corbett cites Aristotle s observation that asyndeton was especially appropriate for the conclusion of a discourse, because there, perhaps more than in other places in the discourse, we may want to produce the emotional reaction that can be stirred by, among other means, rhythm (1971:470). 5. Anaphora Alabi cites that it entails the repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginnings of successive stages of the chosen pattern (2007:164). The repetition of the words helps to establish a marked rhythm in the sequence of clauses, this scheme is usually reserved for those passages where the author wants to produce a strong emotional effects. 6. Epizeuxis According to Alabi, epizeuxis repeats a word or phrase without any break at all (2007:165). 1.6.2 Lexico-Syntactic Choices Lexico- syntactic choices include: 7. Pun- Alabi says that Pun is the genetic name for the figures which play on words (2007:167). It is a figurative expression in which a speaker plays on a word or phrase to suggest double meanings. A speaker may also play on two or more semantically different but orthographically or phonologically similar words to construct a thought provoking statement. It is often employed to display linguistic process or verbal dexterity and ultimately entertain the audience.
8. Anthimeria In the words of Alabi this is the substitution of one part of speech for another i.e. employing a part of speech in a sentence or a group of words instead of another (2007:168). 9. Periphrasis (antonomasia) Alabi (2007:168) says This is the substitution of a descriptive word or a phrase for a proper name or of a proper name for a quality associated with the name. It can also be described as an expression in which a celebrated person, event or place is used to represent another person, place or event as a result of a similar quality present in them. 10. Hyperbole Alabi cites, this is the use of exaggerated words, a figurative expression in which a fact or a situation is blown out of proportion (2007:168). It is an overstatement of a fact in the course of emphasizing it or as a result of over enthusiasm for it. Hyperbole gives emphasis or produces humour. 11. Personification This invests abstractions or inanimate object with human qualities. In other words, a quality associated with man is given to a nonliving phenomenon thereby making it look like a person. It is also called prosopoeia and personification stirs the emotion. 12. Paradox Alabi says, This is a seemingly contradictory statement, which happens to be true (2007:168). Paradox is a kind of expanded oxymoron. It is also an expression which is obviously absurd or unreasonable but will become logical or reasonable on a closer look or a deeper thought. 13. Synecdoche Alabi (2007:167) believes that this is the employment of a part of the referent to stand for the whole or vice versa. 14. Oxymoron According to Alabi (2007:168), This is a figure of speech in which two contradicting words are placed side by side in a statement thereby making it sound self contradicting. In other words oxymoron yokes two terms which are ordinarily contradictory.
15. Simile and Metaphor Alabi (2007:167) believes that both the metaphor and the simile are related to the topic of similarity, for although the comparison is made between two words of unlike nature. Metaphor gives clearness and liveliness to words. 16. Archaic or difficult words Alabi (2007:166) says This is used to show level of education or social accomplishment, they are attention focusing. 17. Synonyms, hyponyms are part of lexical means of achieving cohesion in discourse. They are means of unifying the discourse. 18. Parts of Speech The deliberate preponderant choice of particular parts of speech in discourse sometimes give precise and accurate descriptions, precision and intensify meaning. They are means of achieving cohesion in discourse. 1.6.3 Phonological Devices Phonological devices include: 19. Rhyme elements According to Abrams, the Standard English rhyme consists in rhyming words, of the last stressed vowel and of all the speech sounds following that vowel (1981:163). End rhymes occur at the end of a verse-line while internal rhymes occur within a verse-line. 20. Alliteration This is generally taken to be the repetition of the initial consonant in two or more adjacent words. 21. Consonance Consonance is a half rhyme in which final consonants are repeated but with different preceding vowels. 22. Assonance Assonance is also a half rhyme realized by repeating the same (stressed) vowel but with different final consonant in a sequence of nearby words.
23. Phonaesthesia (secondary onomatopoeia) are those sounds, which are felt to be appropriate to the meaning of their words. The repetition of sounds of words helps in linking related words to reinforce meaning. It provides tone and musical colour and it aids memorability 1.6.4 Graphological Devices Graphological devices include: 24. Punctuation These are marks used in writing that divide sentences and phrases. It is also the system of using the punctuation marks. 25. Paragraphing Paragraph involve a section of a piece of writing, usually consisting of several sentences dealing with a single subject. The first sentence of a paragraph starts on a new line. 1.6.5 Morphological devices Morphological devices include: 26. Compounding In the works of Osundare (1983:28), cited in Alabi (2007:166), he asserts that Soyinka employs compounds in a way that boosts the baffling compactness of his work. What Soyinka collapses into compounds i.e. simple compounds (Unhyphenated or hyphenated) or multiple compounds are shown to be potentially longer expressions and structures. 27. Affixes This is a process of forming new words by putting certain morphemes before some words, while adding certain morphemes after some others i.e. prefix and suffix respectively. We have two popular types of morphological operations (affixation) in English which are inflection and derivational. Inflected forms of English words are variants of one and the same word. Inflecting a word does not
necessarily cause it to change its category. A derivational suffix is a morpheme that usually changes the class of a word to which it is added. 28. Coinages These are words created from existing word. It is a process of forming new words through the already existing ones. The above discussed elements will form the basis of the analysis in the next chapters. Now I will move on to discuss the relation between stylistic analysis and literary criticism. 1.7 Stylistic Analysis and Literary Criticism Peter Verdonk (2002:6) in the analysis of the headline found that style does not arise out of a vacuum but that its production, purpose, and effect are deeply embedded in the particular context in which both the writer and the reader of the headline play their distinctive roles. He also says that we should distinguish between two types of context: linguistic and non-linguistic context. Linguistic context refers to the surrounding features of language inside a text, like the typography, sounds, words, phrases, and sentences, which are relevant to the interpretation of other such linguistic elements. Furthermore, he believes that the nonlinguistic context is a much more complex notion since it may include any number of textexternal features influencing the language and style of a text. Analysis in stylistics, therefore involves a range of general language qualities, which include diction, sentence patterns, structure and variety, paragraph structure, imagery, repetition, emphasis, arrangement of ideas and other cohesive devices. Stylistics, Literary Criticism and Practical Criticism have certain things in common. Stylistics studies and describes the formal features of the text, that is, the levels of expression vis-à-vis the content, thus bringing out their functional significance for the interpretation of the work. The stylistician may rely on his intuition and interpretative skills just as the literary critic, but the former tries to keep at bay, vague and impressionistic judgment (Chukwuma Nnadi2010: 35).According to what is mentioned above, it can be concluded that both subjective and objective evidences are used by the
stylistician. Subjective evidence relates to the stylistician s intuitions and interpretive skills (in this aspect, as mentioned above, there is a similarity between a literary critic and stylistician).objective evidence comes from investigating the form of the language in a text and here there is no room for intuition and this objective evidence can be considered a basis which prevents from vague and incorrect interpretations.here, the confusion between the terms linguistic stylistics and literary stylistics should be removed. A definition of these terms provided by Chukwuma Nnadi can remove this confusion: Stylistics is the scientific study of style. Any such study that leans heavily on external correlates with none or just a smattering of attention to the rules guiding the operation of the language can be regarded as literary stylistics. The converse of this premise (i.e. a study that relies heavily on the rules guiding the operation of the language in the explication of a literary text) is what we regard here as linguistic stylistics.(2010:36) Therefore, we have two types of stylistics: literary and linguistic stylistics. To make a judgment about something, we need different evidences. As far as a literary text is concerned, two evidences, internal and external evidence, can help us to come to an appropriate interpretation of a text. Therefore, to interpret a text stylistically both external and internal evidence are needed. According to the definition provided above by Chukwuma Nnadi, the literary stylistics can take the form of external evidence and the linguistics study can take the form of internal evidence.in sum, both literary and linguistic stylistics should be considered for the process of stylistic analysis to come to a stylistically appropriate interpretation. Furthermore, Enkvist (1973: 92) observes that linguistic stylistics differs from literary criticism where brilliant intuitions and elegant, often metaphoric, verbalizations of subjective responses are at a premium.
Stanley E. Fish s article What is Stylistics and why are they Saying such Terrible Things about it? in Essays in Modern Stylistics (1981) says: Stylistics was born of a reaction to the subjectivity and imprecision of literary studies. For the appreciative raptures of the impressionistic critic, stylisticians purport to substitute precise and rigorous linguistic descriptions, and to proceed from those descriptions to interpretations for which they claim a measure of objectivity. Stylistics, in short, is an attempt to put criticism on a scientific basis. (33) Generally speaking, both linguistic stylistics and literary criticism are concerned with the quest for matter and manner in a literary work of art. Like literary criticism, stylistics is interested in the message of the work, and how effectively it is delivered. Both linguistic stylistics and literary criticism rigorously analyze and synthesize a work of art with a common aim of presenting both the merits and the demerits of the work, and in so doing, elucidate the work. In spite of such common factor existing between linguistic stylistics and literary criticism, one finds that there lies a difference in their modus operandi, and consequently a difference in their evaluations. Whereas linguistic stylistics begins and concludes its analysis and synthesis from the literary text itself, rigorously examining how a special configuration of language has been used in the realization of a particular subject matter, quantifying all the linguistic means (including imagery) that coalesced to achieve a special aesthetic purpose; literary criticism does not suffer that restriction to the work of art under analysis. In its own analysis, it intermittently works on the text, but occasionally wanders off and brings in extra-linguistic, extra-textual material (may be from philosophy, psychology, biography, social history, etc.) to bear on the work. The result is that, whereas linguistic stylistics comes up with a somewhat objective evaluation, based on realistic criteria; literary criticism comes up with that which is generally imaginative, speculative, subjective, and impressionistic ( Chukwuma Nnadi 2010:30).
Finally, here lies the major difference between linguistic stylistics and literary criticism a point more lucidly corroborated by Leech and Short (1995) while discussing Style, Text and Frequency : Aesthetic terms used in the discussion of style (urbane, curt, exuberant, florid, lucid, plain, vigorous, etc.) are not directly referable to any observable linguistic features of texts, and one of the long-term aims of stylistics must be to see how far such descriptions can be justified in terms of descriptions of a more linguistic kind. The more a critic wishes to substantiate what he says about style, the more he will need to point to the linguistic evidence of texts; and linguistic evidence, to be firm, must be couched in terms of numerical frequency. So, quantitative stylistics on the one hand may provide confirmation for the hunches or insights we have about style. On the other, it may bring to light significant features of style which would otherwise have been overloaded, and so lead to further insights; but only in a limited sense does it provide an objective measurement of style. Moreover, the role of quantification depends on how necessary it is to prove one s point intuition has a respectable place both in linguistics and criticism. ( 46-47) 1.8 Pedagogical Application of Stylistics: Theoretical Issues The aim of the application of stylistics, the language-based approach, in teaching literary texts for the non-native students is multiple. A central issue is to help students to develop their response to these texts, for response is the cornerstone of making anything at all from them. This target is put forwards by stylisticians like Widdowson, Brumfit, Carter, Short, Trengove Candlin and others. It is by developing the students' abilities to respond effectively that they can have a genuine access to what they read and will be able to enjoy it and gain knowledge and experience from it.
Another principal objective of teaching literary texts is to develop the students' literary competence to assist them in achieving more positive response to, and effective interaction with texts. The third vital goal of this kind of teaching is to develop the students' skills and capacities of experiencing the world created by and within the literary text. It is a development of all kinds of their potential abilities necessary for them to read, understand and respond to literary works via language. The fourth aim is to further and sharpen the students' awareness of the stylistic patterning of language, which they will put to extended use in non-literary texts. This will be helpful in the gradual and simultaneous elimination of their prejudices against non-literary language and of their elevation of literary language. It is a fact that the non-native students rate literary language highly more than the native students. The result of that is the inevitable demotion and misconception of the non-literary by regarding it as incompatible with the literary. This, what may be called Polarisation Fallacy, has proved to be insufficient, as many contemporary stylisticians like Fish, Leech, Nash, Carter, Fowler, Short and several others have confirmed. Unfortunately, this fallacy has so far been given a short shrift in non-native students' classes. I, therefore, would urge teachers of literary stylistics overseas to give it more attention than they are doing now. Its potential peril is the widening of the gap between the literary and the non-literary by making them rivals, which harms the process of teaching and response. The fifth and last, but by no means the least, objective of teaching English literary material in terms of a stylistic approach is the tightening of links between students and literature, making reading literary texts their unwavering practice, or, as Brumfit and Carter (1986: introd. ) put it, making them into serious readers. And that is a very important aim, for without having serious readers, literary texts will be thrown into the dark. We do not want
them to be transformed into dull textbooks, serving a cheap, commercial academic end of granting school and university qualifications. So what we must do, as Brumfit declares, is to try to make students retain a close constant contact with literature, which goes beyond the academic purposes and school and university days (In Brumfit and Carter, op. cit. 237,260). 1.9 Methodology The difficulty with all the trends outlined above, as with the traditional approaches to the study of style, is that they focus on one aspect while neglecting the other. The difficulty with the theory of style as choice is that it has no method for handling lexical choices and the symbolic dimension of language. When style becomes a matter of choice, it restricts the readers from getting maximum pleasure out of the work. The poem becomes a rigid fact thrown at the readers. Reader s participation is negligible in case of style as choice as there is a clear demarcation between syntax and semantics. The problem with the style as deviation theory is that it is capable of explaining only one aspect of style. In case of style as tension between meaning and form, an alien world is created beyond the reach of maximum readers. In short, each theory has its own advantages and disadvantages. However, the available theoretical apparatus does help one to gain new insights into the study and interpretation of literary texts. Therefore, in the fluid state of the present day stylistics the right thing, perhaps, would be to make a pragmatic approach to the stylistic analysis in hand. Although this introductory chapter offers taxonomic and theoretical information about stylistics that does not mean that all the categorical features of syntax, lexis and phonetics with regard to Auden s poems have to be described. Stylistics is interpretive, not descriptive. As the title makes it amply clear, style is an interpretive clue, which can be followed at various levels of language. The task in hand is to interpret Auden s poems and mediate between linguistic analysis and literary interpretation. In pursuance of this objective, I have chosen to take those poems of Auden that are significant both from the critical point of view
as well as stylistic point of view. For example, poems containing significant syntactic features that seem to contain interpretive clues have been chosen for syntactic analysis. Similarly, the poems for lexical analysis and phonetic analysis have been chosen because these have relatively important lexical and phonetic features. For analysis care has also been taken to choose poems that represent different phases of Auden s poetry, given the fact that his career spanned a little less than half a century (1927-1973) Since the objective of the dissertation is to interpret and also evaluate Auden s poetry, it becomes imperative that the poems that are stylistically significant ought to be representatives of his literary themes, stanza forms, meter etc. However, much is missed in the process. Out of 400 poems, which Auden wrote, not to mention his operas and plays, I have only taken 20, which is a very small sample of a huge corpus. And yet, sampling is all about choosing a few objects as data out of so many for analysis, and it is a standard principle of the process of knowledge production. I have been thoughtfully selective about my data, adopting the criteria I mentioned just now. In order to keep in diachronic perspective the rich poetic output of Auden I have sequenced the poems for analysis in chronological order. Such ordering helps one understand the broad patterns of change in the poetic forms and themes of Auden. Thus, the analysis that follows has been based on a close reading of the text, without any reference to extraneous factors such as the poet s biography or background. 1.10. Plan for the Chapters The prominent linguistic items of the poems have been examined under the heads of Lexis, Syntax and Sound Pattern (Phonetics). The poems that have been chosen for stylistic analysis under the heads of Lexis, Syntax and Sound pattern are well thought out.
In this work of mine, I have divided the whole thesis into five chapters. Chapter I is an introduction to style and stylistics. It has been entitled Style and Meaning in Stylistic Analysis. Chapter II bears the title Major Aspects of Auden s Poetry. Here, with a brief introduction to Auden and review of related literature, I shall move on to highlight the major themes of Auden s poetry. In Chapter III, Lexis as Style, I shall analyze the lexis of six poems of Auden. Here I shall show how lexis structures poetic meaning. Chapter IV, under the title Sound Pattern as Style, is based on sound patterns and how different supra- segmental sound features of metrical arrangements, line formations, and rhythm inform the structural meaning. Bearing the title Syntax as Style, Chapter V focuses on the phrasal and clausal aspects of Auden s poetry and analyses features of syntactic inversion, parallelism and deviation in so far as these contribute to and explicate meaning of the poems. ***