Style in Language

Edited by Thomas A. Sebeok

PUBLISHED JOINTLY BY The Technology Press of Massacltusetts Institute of Techtology and John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York . London Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics 351 structural features of their plot are preserved despite the disappearance of their verbal shape. The question whether Blake's illustrations to the - Divina Comnwdia are or are not adequate is a proof that different arts are Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics comparable. The problems of baroque or any other historical style transgress the frame of a single art. When handling the surrealistic ROMAN JAKOBSON metaphor, we could hardly pass by Max Ernst7s pictures or Luis Buiiuelk films, The Andalusian Dog and Tlze.Golden Age. In short, many poetic? features belong not only to the science of language but to the whole '{ Fortunately, scholarly and political conferenceshavenothing in common. theory of signs, that is, to general semiotics. This statement, however, is j The success .of a political convention depends on the general agreement valid not only for verbal art but also for all varieties of language since \ of the majority or totality of its participants. The use of votes and vetoes, language shares many properties with some other systems of signs or cvcn j however, is alien to scholarly discussion where disagreement generally with all of them (pansemiotic features). proves to be more productive than agreement. Disagreement discloses Likewise a second objection contains nothing that would be specific for antinomics and tensions within the field discussed and calls for,novel literature: the question of relations betwecn the word and the world / exploration. Not political confcrences but rather exploratory activities in concerns not only verbal art but actually all kinds of discourse. Linguistics Antarctica present an analogy to scholarly meetings: international experts is likely to explore all possible problems of relation between discourse and in various disciplines attcmpt to map an unknown region and find out the "universe of discourse": what of this universe is yq,&z%d-by-a given *' where the greatest obstacles for the explorer are, the insurmountable peaks discourse and bqw-isi: verbalized. The truth values, however, as far as and precipices. Such a mapping scenis to have been the chief task of our they are-to say with the logicians-"~truguistic ew*obviously I conference, and in this respect its work has been quite successful. Have we exceed the bounds of poetics and of linguistics in general. not realized what problems are the most crucial and the most contro- p Sometimes we hear that poctics, in contradistinction to linguistics, is versial? Have we not also learned how to switch our codes, what terms to concerned with evaluation. This separation of the two fields from each expound or even to avoid in order to prevent misunderstandings with other is based on a current but crroneous interpretation of the contrast ,: L1

people using different departmental jargon? Such questions, I believe, for between the structure of poetry and other types of verbal structure: the ').,- most of thc membcrs of this confcrencc, if not for all of them, are some- latter are said to be opposed by their "casual," designless nature to the , what clearer today than they were three days ago. ''n~ncasual,~'purposeful character of poetic language. In point of fact, any x " 1 have been asked for summary remarks about poetics in its relation to verbal behavior is goal-directed, but the aims are different and the con- linguistics. Poetics deals with the question, What ri~akesa formity of the means used to the effect aimed at is a problem that evermore zvrhal rrrcssqc a ~orkof art? Because the main subject of poetics is the preoccupies inquirers into the diverse kinds of verbal communication. t : tlifffrentiaspec~$ca of verbal art in relation to other arts and in relation to There is a close eorrcspondence, much closer than critics believe, between other kinds of verbal behavior, poetics is entitled to the leading place in the question of linguistic phenomena expanding in space and time and the literary studies. r spatial and temporal spread of literary models. Even such discontinuous Poetics deals with problems of verbal structure, just as the analysis of expansion as the resurrection of neglected or forgotten poets-for instance, 1 painting is concerned with pictorial structure. Since linguistics is the the posthumous discovery and subsequent canonization of Gerard Manley :global scicncc of verbal structure, poetics may be regarded as an integral Hopkins (d. 1889), the tardy fame of LautrCamont (d. 1870) among part of linguistics. surrealist poets, and the salient influence of the hitherto ignored Cyprian Arguments against such a claim must be thoroughly discussed. It is Nonvid (d. 1883) on Polish modern poetry-find a parallel in the history cvidcnt that n~nnydevicds studied by poctics arc not confined to verbal of standard lan~uageswhich are prone to revive outdated models, some- art. We can refer to the possibility of transposing Wutllerir1,q Heights into times long forgotten, as was the case in literary Czech which toward thc . a motion picture, medieval legends into frcscocs and miniatures, or beginning of the nineteenth century lcaned to sixteenth-century modcls. L'qwi.s-riiitli tl'rrrr fazrrlc into music, ballet, and graphic art. However Unfortunately t'he terminological confusion of "literary studies" with ludicrous may appear the idca of the Iliad and OtQssey in con~ics,ccrtain "criticism" tcmpts thc student of literature to rcplace the description of 320

Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics 355 354 Retrospects and Prospects I' / Moscovite listeners. May I add that all such emotive cues easily undergo? -". The so-called EMOTIVE or ''expressive" function, focused on the ' linguistic analysis. ,J ADDRESSER, aims a direct expression of the speaker's attitude toward what -F Orientation toward the ADDRESSEE, the CONATIVE function, finds its he is speaking about. It tends to produce an impression of a certain emo- purest grammatical expression in the vocative and imperative, which tion whether true or feigned ; therefore, the term "emotive," launched and syntactically, morphologically, and often even phonemically deviate from ,advocated by Marty (269) has proved to be preferable to "emotional." other nominal and verbal categories. The imperative sentences cardinally The purely emotive stratum in language is presented by the interjections. differ from declarative sentences: the latter are and the former are not 'They differ from the means of referential language both by their sound liable to a truth test. When in O'Neill's play The Fountain, Nano, "(in a pattern (peculiar sound sequences or even sounds elsewhere unusual) fierce tone of command)," says "Drink!"-the imperative cannot be and by their syntactic role (they are not components but equivalents of challenged by the question "is it true or not?'which may be, however, sentences). "Tut! Tut! said McGinty": the complete utterance of Conan perfectly well asked after such sentences as "one drank," "one will drink," Doyle's character consists of two suction c1icks.l The emotive function, "one would drink." In contradistinction to the imperative sentences, the laid bare in thediiteilectlo@, flavors to some extent all our utterances, declarative sentences are convertible into interrogative sentences: "did on their phonic, grammatical, and lexical level. 1 If we analyze language one diink?'"will one drink?"'would one drink?" ' from the standpoint of the information it carries, we cannot restrict the r- The traditional model of language as elucidated particular y-by. Biihler notion of information to the cognitive aspect of language./ man, using (51) was confined to these three functions emotive, onat9 and expressive features to indicate hisan~ryor ironic-attitude, conveys -L A-1 C (referential-and.--- the three apexes of this model-the first person of the ostensible information, and evidently this verbal behavior cannot be addresser,-. the second ,person of the addressee, and the "third person," likened to such nonsemiotic, nutritive activities as "eating grapefruit" properly-someone 02 something spoken of. Certain additional verbal (despite Chatman's bold simile). khe difference between [big] and the functions can be easily inferred from this triadic model. Thus the magic, emphatic prolongation of the vowel [bi:g] is a conveniional, coded incantatory function is chiefly some kind of convcrsion of an absent or linguistic rcature like the difference between tlic short and long vowel in inanimate "third person" into an addressee of a conative message. "May such Czech pairs as [vi] 'you' and [vi:] 'knows,' but in the latter pair the this sty dry up, tjiu, fu, $1, tjiu" (Lithuanian spell: 266, p. 69). "Water, differential information is phoncmic and in the former emotive. As long qucen river, daybreak! Send grief beyond the blue sea, to the sea-bottom, as we are interested in phonemic invariants, the English /i/ and /i:/ appear like a grey stone never to rise from the sea-bottom, may grief never cobe to be mere variants of one and the same phoneme, but if we are concerned to burden the light heart of God's servant, may grief be removed and sin6 with emotive units, the relation between the invariant and variants is away." (North Russian incantation: 343, p. 217f.). "Sun, stand thou still, reversed: length and shortness are invariants implemented by variable upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Aj-a-Ion. And the sun ..! phonemes. Saporta's surmise that emotive difference is a nonlinguistic stood still, and the moon stayed . . . " (Josh. 10.12). We observe, however, feature, "attributnble to tlic dclivcry of themessage andnotto themessage," three further constitutive factors of verbal communication and three arbitrarily reduces the inrormational capacity of messages. corresponding functions of Ianguagc. ; A former actor of Stanislavskij's Moscow Theater told me how at his %Thereare messages primarily serving to establish, to prolong, or to dis- ' audition lie was asked by the famous director to make fnrtsdifferent continue communication, to check whether the channel works ("Hello, do messages from the phrase Segorlnja aeferoni 'This evening,' by diversifying you hear me?'), to attract the attention of the interlocutor or toconfirm his its expressive tint. He made a list of some forty emotional situations, then continued attention ("Are you listening?'or in Shakespearean diction, emittcd tlic givcn plirasc in xcordnncc with. cach or thcsc situations, "Lend me your ears!"-and on the other end of the wire "Um-hum!"). which his audicncc had to rccognizc only from the changes in the sound This setlfor=-~q-, or in Malinowsks-terms PHATIC_ ._ function_ - (264). shape of the same two words. For our rcscnrch work in tlic description may be displayed by a profuse exchange of ritualized formulas, by entire and analysis of conrcmporary Stnndard Russian (under the auspices of the dialogues with the mere purport of prolonging communication. Dorothy Rockefeller Foundation) this actor was asked to repeat Stanislavskij's Parker caught eloquent examples: " 'Well!' thc young man said. 'Well!' test. He wrote down some fifty situations framing, the same clliptic she'said. 'Wcll, here we are,' he said. 'Here we are,' she said, 'Aren't we?' scntencc and madc of it fifty corresponding messages for a tape record. '1 should say we were,' he said, 'Eeyop! Here we are.' 'Well!' she said. !!Most of the mcssagcs were correctly mid circumstantially decoded by -156 Retrospects and Prospects Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics , 'Well!' he said, 'well.' " Thc endeavor to start and sustain communication Do you prefcr Joan to her twin sister?"'Not at all, it just sounds is typical of talking birds; thus tlic pliatic function of language is the only . smoother." In a sequence of two coordinate names, as far as no rank : i ' / one they sliarc with human beings. It is also the first verbal function problems interfere, the precedence of the shorter name suits the speaker, , i acquired by infants ; thcy arc prone to communicate before being able to unaccountably for him, as a well-ordered shapc of the message. ) ; send or rcccivc infornlative communication. A girl used to talk about "the horrible Harry." "Why horrible?" , % A distinction has bccn made in modern logic bctween two levels of "Becausc I hate him." "But why not r/reall/irl, terrible, jir(ql~,lirl, dis- j gusting?" "I don't know why, but horrible fits him bett5r." Without , % languagc, "bbjcct language;" spcaking of objccts and ~"mctalanguage" spcaking of lan@qc: B3t mctalanguage is not only a ncccssir~~~ienfidc realizing it, she clung to the poetic device of paronomasia. . tool utilized by logicicus and lin~iiists; it plays also an important role in The political slogan "I like Ike" lay layk aykl, succinctly structured, corisists of three monosyllables and counts threc diphthon~slay/, each of .ourcvcrday . languagc. Likc MoliCrc's Jourdain who uscd prosc without knowing it, wc practicc mctalanguagc without rcalizing the _mctalingual. thcm symmetrically followcd by onc consonantal phoncmc, /. .I.. k.. k/. character or our opcrations. Whcncvcr thc addrcsscr and/or the addressee The make-up of the three words presents a variation: no consonantal nccd to clwck up wlicthcr thcy use the samc cotlc. spcccl~is fo~uscdon thc phoncmcs in thc first word, twoaround thctliphthongin thcsccond, and onc cow: it performs :I MI

! means) a .sL~coII(I-)~c~~I~SIII(IL'II~.'' All thcsc equational scntenccs COIIVCY this clcctional catch phrase reinforces its imprcssivencss and cliicacy. i information mcrcly about tlic lcsical code of English; thcir function is K As we said, thcQ Ing study of the po tic function must overstcp thc \ 1 strictly mctnlingunl. Any proccss of language learning, in particular child hits of poctry, and, on thc orhcr hand, th~.&. 1;nguistic scrutiny of poctry . -, acquisition of rhc ritotlicr tonguc, makes wide usc of sucli n~ct;~lingual cannot limit itsclf to thc poctic function. The particularitics of divcrsc opcrations; and aphasia may often be dcfincd'as n loss of ability for poctic gcnrcs imply a dilTcrcntly ranked participation of tlic otl~crvcrbal .mctalingual opcrations. functions along with the dominant poetic function. Epic poctry, focused Wc havc brought up all thc six f;lctors involvcd in vcrbal comn~unication on thc third person, strongly involvcs the rcfcrcntial function of language; @.' cxcept the nicss;~~~it self. Tlic set (Ei~istell~,r~,~)toward the MESSAGE as the lyric, oriented toward thc first pcrson, is intimately linked with the _---_-. )sucll, focus on t11c mcss:lgc for its own S;I~C, is t~icIW~T~I~LII~~~~O)~ of cmotive function; poctry of the second pcrson is imbued with the conative language. This function cannot be productively studied out of touch with function and is cithcr supplicatory or cxhortativc, dcpcnding on whether the the general problems of language, and, on thc othcr hand, the scrutiny of Erst person is subordinated to the second one or the second to the first. language requires a thorough consideration of its poetic function. Any Fow that our cursory description of the six basic functions of vcrbal. attempt to rcducc the sphcre of poctic function to poctry or to confine communication is more or less complete, we may complement our scheme of poctry to poctic function woulti bc n dclusivc ovcrsimplilication. Poctic the fundamental factors by a corresponding scheme of the functions: function is not thc solc function of vcrbal ait but only its dominant, dctcrmining function, whcrcas in all othcr vcrbal activities it acts as a REFERENTIAL subsidiary, accessory constitncnt. This function, by promoting the palpability or signs, dccpcns the fundamental dichotdmy of signs and .I EMOTIVE POETIC CONATIVE objccts. I-lcncc, whcn tlcnling with poctic function, linguistics cannot PHATlC limit itsclf to the licld of poctry. "Why do you always say Jom atrtl Mor;ycry, yct ncvcr Mqyeq*aldJonlt ? METALINGUAL Closing Statement: Linguistics and ~oetics 359 358 Retrospects and Prospects i . What is the empirical linguistic criterion of the poetic function? In sound" (179). Hopkins' subsequent question, "but is all verse poetry?" fi -particular, what is tlic indispensable feqture inherent in any piece of poetry? can be definitely answered as soon as poetic function ceases to be arbi- To answer this question we must recall the_two basic modes of arrangement trarily confined to the domain of poetry. Mnemonic lines cited by-! used in verbal behavior,(srleition and corttbinatiinl\ If "child" is the topic of Hopkins (like "Thirty days hath September"), modern advertising ' the message, the speaker selccts one among the extant, more or less similar, jingles, and versified medieval laws, mentioned by Lotz, or finally Sanscrit ' I scientific treatises in verse which in Indic tradition are strictly distinguished : nouns like child, kid, youngster, tot, all of them equhaleg in a certain I rcspcct, and then, to commcnt on this topic, hc may select one of the 1 from true poetry (kdvya)-all these metrical texts make use of poetic semantically cognate verbs-slccps, dozcs, nods, naps. Both clioscn words function without, however, assigning to this function the coercing, combine in the speech chain. The selection is produced on the base of delermining role it carries in poetry. Thus verse actually exceeds the- equivalence, similarity and dissimilarity, synonymity and antonymity, limits of poetry, but at the same time verse always implies poetic function. And apparently no human culture ignores versemaking, whereas there are while the combination, the build up of the sequence, is based on(c6~tiguity:~=-- many cultural patterns without "applied" verse; and even in such , Tlir poetic $rtiction projects the principle of rquicalence from the axis of '-1' selection into the axis of cor~il~ination.Equivalcncc is promoted to the culturcs which posscss both pure andapplicd verses, the lattera~ocar. to bc a constitutive dcvicc of the scqucnce. In poctry one syllablc is equalized I secondary, unquestionably- derived -pilenomenon. The adaptation of with any othcr syllablc of thc same sequencc; word strcss is assumcd to poetic means for some heterogeneous purposc does not conceal their equal word strcss, as unstrcss cquals unstress; prosodic long is matched primary essence, just as elements of emotive language, when utilized-in with long. and short with short; word boundary equals word boundary, I poetry, still maintain their emotive tinge. A filibusterer ma(;$tl no boundary cquals no boundary; syntactic pausc cquals syntactic pause, Hiawatka because it is long, yet pocticalncss still remains the prlmary no pause cquals no pausc. Syllables are converted into units of measure, I intent of this text itself. Self-evidently, the existence of versified, musical, and pictorial commercials does not separate the questions of verse or of :~ndSO arc mor:lc or strcsscs. It may bc objcctcd that rnctalanguagc :~lsomakcs a scqucntinl usc of music:ll ant1 piclori;~lTorm Trom thc study of poctry, music, and linc arts. equivalcnt units whcn combining synonymic cxprcssions into an cqua- x To sum up, the analysis of verse is entirely within the competcnce of tional scntcncc: A = A ("Mare is the fhak of die horse"). Poctry and poetics, and tlie Iattcr may be defincd as that part of linguistics which / metalanguage, however, arc in diametrical opposition to each other: in treats the poetic function in its relationship to the othcr functions of i mctalanguagc the sequence is used to build an equation, whereas in poetry language. Poetics in the wider sense of the word deals with the poetic tlie equation is used to build a sequence. function not only in poetry, where this function is superimposed upon the In poetry, and to a ccrtain cxtcnt in latent manifestations of poetic other functions of language, but also outside of poetry, when some other function, scqucnccs delimited by word boundarics bccome cornmcn- function is supcrimposcd upon the poetic function. "Joan and The reiterative "figure of sound,:,which Hopkins saw to be the consti- sur:~hlc whcthcr thcy arc scnscd as isochronic or graded. \-- Margcry" showcd us thc poclic principle of syll;~blcgr:ltl;ltion, thc samc tutive principle of vcrs;, cancfurthcr specified. Such a figure always .a- chizcs at least one (or more than onc) binary contrast of a rcliltivcly principle which in the closes of Serbian folk epics has been raised to I conlpulsory law (cf. 268). Without its two dactylic words thc combination I .$. high and relatively low prominence cffccted by the diflercnt sections of the phonemic scqucncc. "innoccnr bystanrlcr" would hardly have bccomc a hackncyed plirasc.j " The symmetry of tlirec disyllabic verbs with an identical initial consonant Within a syllable the more prominent, nuclear, syllabic part, consti- and identical final vowcl acldcd splcndor to thc laconic victory message of tuting the peak of the syllable, is opposed to the less prominent, marginal, Caesar: " Veni, ridi, iiici." nonsyllabic phonemes. Any syllable contains a syllabic honem me. and the . , % Measurc of scqucnccs is a dcvicc which, outside of poetic function, finds interval bctwccn two succcssi~csyllabics is in soklan$uagcs always and no application in Innguagc. Only in poctry with its regular reiteration of ' in others overwhelmingly carried out by marginal, nonsyllabic phonemes. I equivalent units is the timc of thepech flow cxper~ien~ccd,as it is-to J In thc so-called syllabic versification thc number of syllabics in a metrically cite anotlicr scmiolic pattcrn-with , musical timc. , Gerard anl ley delimited chain (time scrics) is a constant, whereas the presence of a IAopkins, an outstanding searcher in the sciente"of poctic language, norlsyllabic plioncmc or clustcr bctwccn cvcry two syllabics of a metrical defined verse as "spccch wholly or partially repeating thc snmc figurc of chain is a constant only in languages with an indispensable occurrence of . I 360 Retrospects and Prospects Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics 36 1 nonsyllabics bctwccn syllabics and, furthcrmorc, in those vcrse systems syllables to short ones, so that verse is bascd on the opposition of lcngth where hiatus is proliibitcd. Anothcr manifcstation of a tendcncy toward a and shortness. uniform syllabic modcl is the avoidancc of closed syllables at the end of the Joseph Greenberg brought to my attention another varicty of toncmic line, obscrvablc, for instance, in Scrbian epic songs. The Italian syllabic versification-the verse of Efik riddles bascd on the level feature. In the vcrsc shows a tendency to treat a sequence of vowels unseparated by conso- sample cited by Simmons (379, p. 228), the query and the response form nantal phoncrncs as one singlc mctrical syllable (cf. 247a, secs. VIII-IX). two octosyllables with an alike distribution of h(igh)- and /(ow)-tone In sonlc pattcrns of vcrsilication the syllable is the only constant unit syllabics; in each hemistich, moreover, the last three of the four syllablcs of vcrsc mcasurc. and a gmm~nnticrillimit is the only constant linc of present an identical tonemic pattern: /ltlt//hlrAl~~/l~kl/I~ItI~I~/.Whereas demarcation bctwccn nicasurcd scqucnccs, whcrcas in othcr pattcrns Chincsc versification appears as a pcculiar varicty of thc quantitative syllables in turn are dicliotomizcd into morc and less proniinent, and/or verse, the verse of the Efic riddles is linked with the usual accentual verse two levels of grammatical limits arc distinguished in their metrical by an opposition of two degrees of prominence (strength or height) of the function, word boundaries and syntactic pauscs. vocal tone. Thus a metrical system of versification can be bascd only on Exccpt thc varictics of tlic so-callcd vcrs librc that arc bascd on con- the opposition of syllabic peaks and slopes (syllabic vcrse), on the relative jugate intonations and pauscs only, any meter uses the syllable as a unit level of the peaks (accentual verse), and on the relative length of the syllabic of mcasurc at least in ccrtain sections of tlic verse. Thus in thc purely . peaks or entire syllables (quantitative verse). ncccntual vcrsc ("sprung rhythm" in Hopkins' vocabulary), tlic numbcr of In tcxtbooks of litcraturc we sometimes encountcr a superstitious syllablcs in tlic upbeat (c;~llcd"sl;~ck" by Hopkins) may vary, but the contraposition of syllabism as a mcre mechanical count of syllablcs to the downbcat (ictus) constantly contains onc singlc syllablc. lively pulsation of acccntual vcrse. If we cxaminc, howevcr, thc binary In any acccntual vcrsc tlic contrast bctwccn higher and lowcr prominence meters of the strictly syllabic and at the same time, accentual versification, is acliicvcd by syllrtblcs undcr strcss versus unstrcsscd syllablcs. Most wc obscrvc two homogeneous succcssions of wavclikc pcaks and vallcys. :icccntual patterns opcrntc primarily with the contrast of syllablcs with Of thcsc two undulatory curvcs, thc syllabic onc carries nuclcar phoncmes and without word strcss, but some varieties of acccntual vcrsc dcal with in the crest and usually marginal phonemes in the bottom. As a rule the syntactic, phrasal strcsscs, tliosc which Wimsat t and Bcardslcy cite as "tlic accentual curve superposcd upon tlic syllabic curve alternates stresscd and major strcsscs of the major words" and which arc opposed as proniincnt unstressed syllables in the crests and bottoms respectively. to syllables without such major, syntactic strcss. For comparison with the English meters which we havc lengthily In the quanlitativc ("chroncmic") vcrsc. long and short syllablcs arc discussed, I bring to your attcntion thc similar Russian binary vcrsc forms mutually opposcd ns more and lcss proniincnt. This contrast is usually which for the last fifty years have verily undergone an exhaustive investi- carried out by syllable nuclei, plioncmically long nntl short. But in gation (scc particularly 407). Tlic structurc of tlic vcrsc can bc vcry mctricnl patterns likc Ancicnt Grcck and Arabic, which cqunlizc lcngth thoroughly dcscribcd and interpreted in tcrlns of enchained probabilitics. "by pwition" with Icngtli "by n:~turc." tlic ~liinim;llsyll;~hlc.; conristin_~ or Bcsidcsr tlic conipulsory word boundary bctwccn tlic lincs, which is an a conson:~ntal plioncmc and one mora vowel arc opposcd to syllables with inv:trialit throughout 1111 Russi:~n mctcrs, in thc clnssic patlcrn of Russian a surplus (a sccond morn or a closing consonant) as sinipler and lcss promi- syllabic accentual verse ("syllabo-tonic" in native nomcnclaturc) we ncnt syllablcs opposed to tliosc that arc morc coniplcx and prornincnt. observe the following constants: (I) the number of syllablcs in the line The question still rcniains opcn wlicthcr, besides the acccntual and the from its beginning to the last downbeat is stable; (2) this vcry last down- chroncmic vcrsc, thcrc exists a "toncmic" typc of vcrsification in languages beat always carries a word stress; (3) a stresscd syllablc cannot fall on the wlicrc difkrcnccs of syllabic intonntions arc hscd to distillguisli word upbcat if a downbcat is fulfilled by an unstrcssed syllable of tlic samc mcnnings (198). In classicalCliincscpoctry(29a).syllablcswitli modulations word unit (so that a word strcss can coincidc with an upbcat only as far as (in Cliincsc ISC. 'clcllcctcd toncs') arc opposccl to tlic nonmodulated it belongs to a monosyllabic word unit). syllablcs (l)'irig, 'lcvcl toncs'), but apparently a clironc~iiicpriticiplc undcr- Along with tlicsc clinractcristics compulsory for any linc composcd in lics this opposition. as was suspcctcd by Polivanov (31%) and kccnly a givcn mctcr, thcrc arc fcaturcs that shown high probability of occurrcncc intcrprcted by Wang Li (43th); in tlic Chincsc mctricnl tradition tlic lcvcl without bcing constantly prcscnt. Bcsidcs signals ccrtain to occur ("proba- toncs prow to be opposcd to the tlcllcctctl toncs as lo~lgton:il pci~ksor bility onc"), signals likely to occur ("probabilitics lcss than onc") cntcr 3 62 Retrospects and Prospects Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics 363 into the notion of mctcr. Using Clicrry's description of human communi- probability to meet a word stress in any even syllable of iambic lines, but cation (62). wc could say thnt thc rondcr of poctry obviously "may be at the very beginning of Pasternak's quatrain the fourth and, one foot unable to attach numerical frcqucncies" to the constituents of the meter, further, the sixth syllable, both in the first and in the following linc, but as far as he conccivcs the verse shapc, he unwittingly gets an inkling of present- him with a frustrated expectation. The degree of such a "frus- their "rank order." tration" is higher when the stress is lacking in a strong downbeat and ! In the Russian binary meters all odd syllables counting back from the becomes particularly outstanding when two successive downbeats are last downbeat-briefly, all the upbeats-are usually fulfilled by unstressed syllables, except some vcry low percentage of stressed monosyllables. All even syllables, again counting back from the last downbeat, show a sizable preference for syllables under word stress, but the probabilities of their occurrence are unequally distributed among the successive downbeats of the line. The higher the relative frequency of word stresses in a given down- beat, the lower the ratio shown by the preceding downbeat. Since the last downbeat is constantly stressed, the next to last gives the lowest percentage of word stresses; in the preceding downbeat their amount is again higher, without attaining the maximum, displayed by the final downbeat; one downbeat further toward the beginning of the line, the amount of the stresses sinks once more, without reaching the minimum of the next-to- last downbeat; and so on. Thus the distribution of word stresses among the downbeats within the line, the split into strong and weak downbeats, creates a regressire undulatory curre superposed upon the wavy alterna- tion of downbeats and upbeats. Incidentally, there is a captivating ques- tion of the relationship between the strong downbeats and phrasal carrying unstressed syllables. The stresslessness of two adjacent down- stresses. I beats is the less probable and the most striking when it embraces a whole The Russian binary nieters revcal a stratified arrangement of three hemistich as in a later line of the same poem: "Ctoby za gorodskjbu grin' undulatory curves: (I) alternation of syllabic nuclei and margins; (11) I ju" [stabyzagarackbju grin'ju]. The expectation depends on the treatment division of syllabic nuclei into alternating downbeats and upbeats; and of a given downbeat in the poem and more generally in the whole extant (Ill) alternation of strong and weak downbeats. For cxamplc, Russian metrical tradition. In the last downbeat but one, unstrcss may, however, masculine iambic tetrameter of thc nineteenth and present centuries may outweigh the stress. Thus in this poem only 17 of 41 lines have a word be represented by Figurc 1. and a siniilar triadic pattern appears in the .tress on their sixth syllable. Yet in such a case the inertia of thc stressed corresponding English forms. 'iven syllables alternating with the unstressed odd syllables prompts Three of five downbcats are dcprived,of word stress in Shelley's iambic some expectancy of stress also for the sixth syllable of the iambic line "LaughI wiih in incxtihguish~blclau~htcr." Sevcn of sixteen downbeats tetrameter. are strcsslcss in thc following quatrain from Pastcrnak's recent iambic i Quite naturally it was Edgar Allan Poe, the poet and theoretician of tctrametcr Zcrriljn ("Earth"): defeated anticipation, who metrically and psychologically appraised the human sense of gratification for the unexpected arising from expectedness, I lilica za panibrlita both of them unthinkable without the opposite, "as evil cannot exist S okbnniccj podslepov;itoj, without good" (316). Here we could easily apply Robert Frost's formula I bdoj n6i.i i znkitu from "The Figure A Poem Makes": "The figure is the same as for Nc razrninut'sja u rcki. love" (128). Since the ovcrwhclming majority of downbeats concur with word stresses, The so-called shifts of word stress in polysyllabic words from the the listcncr or rcadcr of Russian vcrscs is prcparcd with a high dcgrcc of downbeat to the upbeat ("reversed feet"), which are unknown to the 364 Retrospects and Prospects Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics 365 standard forms of Russian vcrsc, appcar quitc usually in English poctry pcrccptible by thc car. Thc analysis of Scrbian cpic songs phonographic- after a metrical and/or syntactic pause. A noticeable example is the ally'rccorded proves that there are no compulsory audible clucs to the rhythmical variation of tlic samc adjcctive in Milton's "lnf nite wrath and break, and yet any attempt to abolish the word boundary before the fifth infinitc despair." In thc linc "Ncarcr, my God, to Thcc, ncarcr to Thcc," syllablc by a mcrc insignificant changc in word ordcr is immcdiatcly the stressed syllable of onc and the same word occurs twice in the upbeat, condemned by the narrator. The grammatical fact that the fourth and fifth first at tlic bcginning of tlic linc and a second time at the bcginning of a syllablcs pertain to two different word units is sufficient for thc appraisal phnlsc. This liccnsc, discussed by Jcspcrscn (212) and current in many of the brcak. Thus vcrsc design gocs Tar beyond the questions of shcer languages, is cntirely explainable by the particular import of the relation sound shape; it is a much wider linguistic phenomenon, and it yields to no bctwccn an upbcat and tlic immcdiatcly prcccding downbcat. Whcre such isolating phonetic trcatment. an immediate prccedencc is impedcd by an inserted pause, the upbeat 1 say "linguistic phenomenon" even though Chatman states that "the becomes a kind of syllaba anceps. meter exists as a system outside the language." Yes, meter appears also in Besides the rulcs which underlie the compulsory features of verse, the other arts dealing with time sequence. There are many linguistic problems rules governing its optional traits also pertain to meter. We are inclined to -for instance, syntax-which likewise overstep the limit of language and designate such phenomena as unstress in the downbeats and stress in arc common to different semiotic systems. We may speak evcn about the upbeats as deviations, but it must be remembered that these are allowed grammar of trafic signals. There exists a signal code, where a yellow light oscillations, departurcs within the limits of the law. In British parliament- when combined with pen warns that free passage is close to being ary terms, it is not an opposition to its majesty the meter but an opposition stopped and when combincd with red announces the approaching of its majesty. As to the actual infringements of metrical laws, the dis- cessation of the stoppage; such a yellow signal offcrs a close analogue to cussion of such violations recalls Osip Brik, perhaps the keenest of Russian the verbal completive aspect. Poetic metcr, however, has so many formalists, who uscd to say that political conspirators arc tried and intrinsically linguistic particularitics that it is most convenient to describe condcmncd only for unsucccssful attcmpts at a forciblc uphcaval, bccausc it from n purcly linguistic point of vicw. in the casc of a successful coup it is the conspirators who assume the role Let us add that no linguistic property of thc versc dcsign should be of judges and prosecutors. If the violences against the metcr take root, disregarded. Thus, for example, it would be an unfortunate mistake to they thcmselvcs bccomc mctrical rulcs. deny the constitutive value of intonation in English meters. Not even Far from being an abstract, thcorctical schcme, meter-or in more speaking about its fundamental rolc in the mcters of such a mastcr of explicit terms, verse (/es(qn--undcrlics the structure of any singlc line-or, English free vcrsc as Whitman, it is impossible to ignore thc metrical in logical terminolo~y,any singlc re instance. Design and instancc are significance of pausal intonation ("final juncture"), whcther "cadence" correlative concepts. The vcrsc dcsign determines thc invariant fcaturcs or "anticadcncc" (223), in poems like "Thc Rape of The Lock" with its of tlic vcrsc instanccs and scts up thc limits of variations. A Scrbian intcntional avoidancc of cnjambmcnts. Yct cvcn a vchcmcnt accumu- pcasant rccitcr of cpic poctry mcmorizcs, performs, and. to a high cxtcnt, lation of enjambmcnts never hidcs thcir digrcssivc, variational status; iniproviscs thousands, somctimcs tcns of thousands of lincs, and thcir /they always set omthc normal coincidcncc of synhctic pousc end pausal metcr is alive in his mind. Unablc to abstract its rulcs, he nonetheless intonation with the mctrical limit. Whatcvcr is the reciter's way of reading, noticcs and repudiatcs cvcn the slightcst infringement of thesc rulcs. Any the intonational constraint of the poem rcmains valid. Thc intonational linc of Scrbian cpics contains prcciscly ten syllablcs and is followcd by a contour inhcrcnt to a pocn~,to a poct, to a poctic school is onc of thc most syntactic pause. Thcrc is furthermore a compulsory word boundary notable topics brought to discussion by the Russian formalists (108, 461). bcfore thc fifth syllable and a co~npulsoryabsence of word boundary The verse design is embodied in vcrse instanccs. Usually the frcc varia- bcforc thc fourth and tcnth syllablc. The vcrse has, moreover, significant tion of these instances is denoted by the somewhat equivocal label "rhythm." quantitative and accentual characteristics (cf. 199, 200). A variation of versc instances within a given pocm must be strictly dis- This Scrbian cpic brcak, along with many similar cxamplcs prcscntcd by tinguished from the variable delivery instances. The intcntion "to dcscribc comparative metrics, is a pcrsuasive warning apinst the erroneous the verse line as it is actually performed" is of lesser use for the synchronic idcntification of a brcak with :I syntactic pausc. Tlic obliptory word and historical analysis of poetry than it is for thc study of its recitation in boundary must not bc combincd with pausc and is not cvcn mcant to be the prcscnt and the past. Meanwhile thc truth is simple and clear: "There 366 Retrospects and Prospects Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics 367 are many performances of the same poem-differing among themselves between delivery design and delivery instance) or by an erroneous identi- in many ways. A performance is an event, but the poem itself, if there is fication of delivery instance and delivery design with the verse instance and any poem, must be some kind of enduring object." This sage memento vcrse design. of Wimsatt and Beardslcy bclongs indeed to the cssentials of modern "But tell me, child, your choice; what shall 1 buy metrics. You-?"-"Father, what you buy me I like best." In Shakespeare's verses the second, stressed syllable of the word These two lines from "The Handsome Heart" by Hopkins contain a heavy "absurd" usually falls on thc downbeat, but once in the third act of enjambment which puts a verse boundary before the concluding mono- I I-ianllet it falls on the upbeat: "No, let the candied tongue lick absurd syllable of a phrase, of a sentence, of an utterance. The recitation of these pomp." The reciter may scan the word "absurd" in this line with an pentameters may be strictly metrical with a manifest pause betwcen "buy" initial stress on the first syllable or observe the final word stress in accord- and "you" and a suppressed pause after the pronoun. Or, on the contrary, ance with the standard accentuation. He may also subordinate the word there may be displayed a prose-oriented manner without any separation stress of the adjective in favor of the strong syntactic stress of the following of the words "buy you" and with a marked pausal intonation at the end head word, as suggested by Hill: "N6, l'et t11E cindkd t6ngue lkk Zbsird of the question. None of these ways of recitation may, however, hide the intentional discrepancy between the metrical and syntactic division. The p6mp" (174), as in Hopkins' conception of English antispasts-"regrGt I verse shape of a poem remains completely independent of its variable n&Y' (179). There is finally a possibility of emphatic modifications either delivery, whereby I do not intend to nullify the alluring question of through a "fluctuating accentuation" (sclr~vebenrlcBeronung) embracing Auforenleser and Selbstleser launched by Sievers (376). both syllables or through an exclamational reinforcement of the first No doubt, verse is primarily a recurrent "figure of sound." Primarily, syllable [ib-shd]. But whatever solution the reciter chooses, the shift of always, but never uniquely. Any attempts to confine such poetic conven- the word stress from the downbeat to the upbeat with no antecedent pause tions as meter, alliteration, or rhyme to the sound level are speculative is still arresting and thc moment of frustrated expectation stays viable. reasonings without any empirical justification. The projection of the Wherever the reciter put the accent, the discrepancy between the English equational principle into the sequence'has a much deeper and wider word stress on the second syllable of "absurd" and the downbeat attached significance. Valtry's view of poetry as "hesitation between the sound to the first syllable persists as a constitutive fcaturc of the verse instance. I and the sense" (cf. 426) is much more realistic and scientific than any bias The tension bctwccn tlic ictus and the usual word stress is inherent in this of phonetic isolationism. line independently of its different implementations by various actors and Although rhyme by definition is based on a regular recurrence of readers. As Gerard Manley Hopkins observes, in the preface to his poems, equivalent phonemes or phonemic groups, it would be an unsound "two rhythms arc in some manner running at once" (180). His description oversimplification to treat rhyme merely from the standpoint of sound. of such a contrapuntal run can be rcintcrpretcd. The superinducing of an Rhyme necessarily involves the semantic relationship bctwccn rhyming cqi~iv:ilcncc principlc upon tlic word scqucncc or, in othcr tcrms, the mits ("rhyme-fcllows" in Hopkins' nomenclature). In the scrutiny of a ~~toli~ttil?pof the metrical form upon tlic usual speech form, ncccssarily 'rhyme we arc facctl with thc qucstion of whcthcr or not it is n homoc- gives the cxpcricncc of a double, an~biguousshape to anyone who is oteleuton, which confronts similar derivational and/or inflexional familiar with the givcn language and with vcrsc. Both the convergences suflixcs (congratulations-decorations), or whether thc rhyming words and the divergences betwcen the two forms, both the warranted and the belong to the same or to different grammatical categories. Thus, for frustrated expectations, supply this experience. example, Hopkins' fourfold rhyme is an agreement of two nouns-"kind" How thc givcn vcrsc-instnncc is implcn~cntcd in the givcn delivcry and "mind"-both contrasting with the adjective "blind" and with the instance depends on thc c/cliuery clesign of thc reciter; he may cling to a verb "find." Is there a semantic propinquity, a sort of simile between scanning style or tend toward prose-like prosody or freely oscillate rhyming lexical units, as in dove-love, light-bright, place-space, name-fame? between these two poles. We must bc on guard against simplistic binarism Do the rhyming members carry the same syntactic function ? The difference which reduces two couples into one single opposition either by suppressing between the morphological class and the syntactic application may be the cardinal distinction between vcrse design and vcrsc instance (as well as pointed out in rhyme. Thus in Poe's lines, "While 1 nodded, nearly 368 Retrospects and Prospects Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics 369 nappilrg, suddcnly llicrc cama /q)pilicp,As of so~nconcgcntly rt~p~~ilq,"lllc corrclativc cxpcricnccs which f-lopkins ncally dcfincs as "comparison for thrce rhyming words, morpliologically alike, are all threc syntactically likeness' sakc" and "comparison for unlikeness' sakc." different. Arc totally or partly homonymic rhymes prohibited, tolerated, \ Folklore olfen the most clear-cut and stereotyped forms of poctry, or favorcd? Such full homonyn~sas son-sun, 1-cyc, cvc-cavc, and on the particularly suitablc for structural scrutiny (as Scbcok illustratcd with other hand, ccho rliymcs likeDecember-ember, infinite-night, swarm-warm, Cheremis samples). Those oral traditions that use grammatical parallelism sniilcs-n~ilcs? What about compound rliymcs (such as Hopkins' "cnjoy- to connect consecutivc lines, for examplc, Finno-Ugric patterns of verse mcnt-toy meant" or "began some-ransom"), where a word unit accords (see 10, 399) and to a high degree also Russian folk poetry, can bc with a word group? fruit fully analyzed on all linguistic levels-phonological, morpho- I A poct or poclic school may bc.oricntcd toward or against grammatical c.------logical, syntactic, and Icxical: wc lcarn what clcmcnts arc conccivcd :I rhyme; rhymes must be either grammatical or antigrammatical; an as equivalent and how likeness on certain levels is tempered with con- a&ammati&l" rhyme, indifferent -to the relation between sound and spicuous difference on other ones. Such forms enable us to verify Ransom's grammatical structurc, would, like any agrammatism, belong to verbal wise suggestion that "the meter-and-meaning process is the organic act pathology. If a poet tends to avoid grammatical rhymes, for him, as of poetry, and involves all its important characters" (324). These clear-cut Hopkins said, "Thcrc arc two clements in the beauty rhyme has to the traditional structures may dispel Wimsatt's doubts about the possibility of mind, the likcness or samencss of sound and the unlikeness or difference writing a grammar of the meter's interaction with the sense, as well as a of meaning" (179). Whatevcr the relation betwecn sound and meaning in grammar of the arrangement of metaphors. As soon as parallclism is dilfcrcnt rliynic tccliniqucs, both sphcrcs arc necessarily involved. After promotcd to canon, the interaction between meter and meaning and thc Wimsatt's illun~inatingobscrvations about the meaningfulness of rhyme arrangement of tropcs cease to be "the free and individual and unpre- (449) and the shrewd modern studics of Slavic rhyme patterns, a student in dictable parts of the poetry." poetics can hardly maintain that rhymes signify merely in a very vague way. Let us translate a fcw typical lines from Russian wedding songs about the Rhymc is only a particular, condcnscd casc of a much morc gcncral, we apparition of tlic bridegroom: may cvcn say tlic fundamental, problem of poetry, namely parallelisin. Hcrc again Hopkins, in his studcnt papers of 1865, displayed a prodigious A brave fellow was going to the porch, insight into tlic structurc of poctry: Vasilij was walking to the manor. Thc artificial part of poctry, pcrliaps wc shalI bc right to say all artifice, The translation is literal; tlic vcrbs, Iiowcvcr, takc the final position in rcduccs itsclf to thc principle of pnrnllclism. Thc structure of poctry is that of both Russian clauses (Dobroj m6lodec I< sPIniEkam privoriEiva1, /I Vasilij continuous parallclism, ransing from the tcchnical so-called Parallelisms of k ttremu prix52ival). The lines wholly corrcspond to each other syntacti- Hcbrcw poctry and thc antiphons of Church music up to the intricacy of Greek or Italian or Engfisli vcrse. But pnr;~llclismis or two kinds ncccssnrily-where cally and niorphologically. Both predicativc vcrbs have the samc prefixes thc opposition is clcnrly ninrkcd, and whcrc it is transitional rather or chromatic. and sufixes and tlic samc vocalic alternant in the stem; they arc alikc in Only thc lirsl kind, th;~tor m;lrkctl p;~r;~llclisn~,is conccrncd with thc structurc aspcct, tcnsc, number, and gcndcr; and, moreover, they arc synonymic. of vcrsc-in rhythm, rhc rccurrcncc ol' a ccrtain scqucncc or syll;~blcs,in mctrc. 130th sul~jccls,thc common noun 2nd Ihc proper nanic, rcfcr to thc same thc rccurrcncc oTa ccrtain scqucncc of rhythm, in alliteration, in assonance and person and form an appositional group. Thc two modifiers of placc itrc in rhymc. Now thc rorcc of this rccurrcncc is to bcgct n rccurrcncc or p:~rallelismanswering to it in the words or thought mtl, spatking roughly and cxprcsscd by itlcnticnl prepositional constructions, and the first onc stands rather for the tcndcncy than thc invariable result, thc more markcd parnllclism to thc sccond in syncctlocliic relation. in structure whcthcr of cl:tborntion or of cmphasis begcts more marked These verses may occur preceded by anothcr linc of similar grammatical parl~llclisn~in the words and scnsc.. .. To thc rnarkcd or abrupt kind of (syntactic and n~orpliologic)makc-up: "Not a bright falcon was flying parillclism belong mctaphor, simile, parablc, and so on, whcrc thc cffcct is bcyond tlic hills" or "Not a licrcc horse was coming at gallop to tlic court." sought in likcness of things, and nntithcsis, contrast, and so on, wherc it is sought in unlikcncss (179). The "bright falcon" and the "fierce horsc" of these variants arc put in metaphorical rclation with "brave fellow." This is traditional Slavic Bricfly, cquivalcncc in sound, projcctcd into the sequence as its constitu- negative parallelism-the refutation of the metaphorical state in favor of tive principle, inevitably involvcs semantic equivalence, and on any tlic factual state. The negation lie may, liowcvcr, be ornittcd: "Jasj6n linguistic lcvcl any conslitucnl of such a scqucncc prompts onc of thc two sokol z:i gory zalj6tyval" (A bright falcon was flying beyond the hills) or 370 Retrospects and Prospects Closing Statement: Lingrristics and Poetics 37 1 "Retiv kon' k6 dvoru priskikival" (A fierce horse was coming at a gallop message, briefly a corollary feature of poetry. Let us repeat with Empson: to the court). In the first of the two examples the nietaphorical relation is "The machinations of ambiguity are among the very roots of poetry" maintained: a brave fcllow appeared at the porch, like a bright falcon from (113). Not only the message itself but also its addresser and addressee behind the hills. In the other instance, however, the semantic connection 1become ambiguous. Besides the author and the reader, there is the "I" of becomes ambiguous. A comparison between the appearing bridegroom the lyrical hero or of the fictitious storyteller and the "you" or "thou" of and the galloping horse suggests itself, but at the same time the halt of the the allcgcd addressee of dramatic monologues, supplications, and epistles. horse at the court actually anticipates the approach of the hero to the house. For instance the poem "Wrestling Jacob" is addressed by its title hero to Thus before introducing tlic ridcr and thc manor of his fiancee, tlic song thc Saviour and sirnultancously acts as a subjective mcssagc of the poet cvokcs the contiguous, n~ctoryniicalimages of thc horse and of the Charles Wesley to his readers. Virtually any poetic message is a quasi- courtyard: posscssion instead of possessor, and outdoors instead of quoted discourse with all those peculiar, intricate problems which inside. Tlic cxposition of tlic groom may be broken up into two consccu- "speech within speech" ofi'ers to the linguist. tive moments even without substituting the horse for the horseman: "A The supremacy of poetic function over referential function does not brave fellow was coming at a gallop to the court, // Vasilij was walking obliterate the reference but makes it ambiguous. The double-sensed to the porch." Thus the "fierce horse," cmcrging in the preceding line at message finds correspondence in a split addresser, in a split addressee, and a similar metrical and syntactic place as thc "brave fellow," figures besides in a split reference, as it is cogently exposed in the preambles to simultaneously as a likeness to and as a rcprescntative possession of this fairy tales of various peoples, for instance, in the usual exordium of the fellow, properly speaking-pars pro toto for the horseman. The horse I Majorca storytellers: "Aixo era y no era" (It was and it was not) (135). image is on a border linc bctwecn mctonymy and synccdoche. From these The repetitiveness effected by imparting the equivalence principle to suggestive connotations of thc "fierce horse" there ensues a metaphorical the sequence makes reiterable not only the constituent sequences of synccdochc: in the wedding songs and other varieties of Russian erotic the poetic message but the whole message as well. This capacity for lore, tlic ninsculinc retic lioit bcconles a latent or even patent phallic reiteration whether immediate or delayed, this reification of a poetic syn~bol. message and its constituents, this conversion of a message into an enduring As early as the 1880's. Potcbnja. a remarkable inquirer into Slavic thing, indeed all this represents an inherent and effective property of poetics, pointed out that in folk poetry a symbol appears to be materialized poetry. (ore~hrlen),convcrtcd into an accessory of the ambiance. "Still a In a sequence, where similarity is superimposed on contiguity, two symbol, it is put, howcvcr, in a connection with the action. Thus a simile is similar phonemic sequences near to each other are prone to assume a prescntcd undcr thc shapc of a tcmporal scquencc" (322). In Potebnjn's paronomastic function. Words similar in sound are drawn together in cxamplcs from Slavic folklore, thc willow, under which a girl passes, meaning. It is true that the first line of the final stanza in Poe's "Raven" serves at the samc time as her image; the tree and the girl are both makes wide use of repetitive alliterations, as noted by ValCry (426), but coprcscnt in the same vcrb:ll siniulncrum of the willow. Quite similarly the "the overwhelming effect" of this line and of the whole stanza is due horsc of the love songs rcmains a virility symbol not only whcn the maid primarily to tlic sway of poctic etymology. is askcd by the lad to fccd his steed but cvcn when being saddled or put into the stablc.or attached to a tree. And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; In poctry not only the phonological scqucnce but in the same way any And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, sequence of semantic units strivcs to build an cquation. Similarity And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; supcrimposcd on contiguity imparts to poctry its throughgoing syn~bolic, And my soul from out that shadow that lics floating on thc floor multiplex, polyscmantic csscncc which is beautifully suggested by Goethe's Shall be lifted-neverrnorc. "Allcs Vcr~iinglichcist nilr cili GIcichnis" (Anything transient is but n Tlic pcrch of thc raven, "thc pallid bust of Pallas," is inergcd through thc likeness). Said morc tcchnic:~lly.:~nything scqucnt is ;t simile. In poctry "sonorous" paronomasia /p&lsd/--/p;bs/ into onc organic whole where similarity is supcrinduccd upon contiguity. any mctonymy is slightly (similar to Shcllcy's moldcd line "Sculptured on alabaster obelisk" /sk.lp/- mctaphoricnl nntl any mctnphor has :I metonymical tint. /l.b.st/-/b.l.sk/). Both confronted words wcre blended earlier in another Ambiguity is :In intrinsic, inalicnablc chnractcr of any self-focused epithet of the same bust-placid/pl&sld/-a poetic portmanteau, and the 372 Retrospects and Prospects Closing Statement: Lingtristics and Poetics 373 bond between the sittcr and thc scat was in turn fastened by a paronomasia: logical aspect of speech sounds or by inevitably vain operations with "bird or Dcast upon thc . . . busf." Tlic bird "is sitting // On the pallid complex phonemic units instead of witli their ultimate components. But bust of Pallas just nbovc my chambcr door," and thc ravcn on liis pcrch, wh~li,~ontcsting, for cxamplc, sucli phonemic oppositio~lsas grllvc vcrsus dcspitc tlic lovcr's inipcrativc "takc thy form from off my door," is nailed acute we ask whether /i/ or /ti/ is darker, some of the subjects may respond to thc place by thc words /:;st abiv/, both of them blended in that this question makes no sense to them, but hardly one will state that /bist/. /i/ is thc darkcst of tlic two. Thc ncvcr-cnding stay of thc grim gucst is expressed by a chain of Poetry is not the ody area where sound symbolism makes itself felt, ingenious paronomasias, partly invcrsivc, as wc would cxpcct from such a but it is a province whcrc tlic intcmal ncxus bctwccn sound and meaning dclibcratc cspcrimcntcr in anticipatory. rcgrcssivc ~irorhrsoprmirli, sucli a cliangcs from latcnt into patcnt and nianifcsts itsclf most palpably and mastcr in "writing backwards" as Edgar Allan Pot. In the introductory to/ intensely, as it has been noted in Hymes's stimulating paper. The super- line of this concluding stanza, "ravcn," contiguous to the bleak refrain average accumulation of a certain class of phonemes or a contrastive word "ncvcr," appcars oncc morc as an cmbodicd mirror imagc of this assemblage of two opposite classes in the sound texture of a line, of a "ncvcr:" /.v.r/-/rv/ Salicnt paronomasias intcrconncct both stanza, of a poem acts likc an "undercurrcnt of meaning," to use Poc's cmblcnis ofthc cvcrlasting despair, first "thc Ravcn, ncvcr flitting," at tlie picturesque expression. In two polar words phonemic relationship may be bcginning of tlic vcry last stanza. and second. in its vcry last lincs the in agrecmcnt with scniantic opposition, as in Russian /d,en,/ 'day' and "s11:tdow t1i:tt lies Iloating on thc Iloor" and "shnll bc lifted-~icvcrniorc": /noE/ 'night' witli thc acute vowel and sharped consonants in the diurnal Inthr flitl!]/-/ll6t~!~/ . . . Ill&-/ . . . /liftxl nGvar/. Thc allitcrntions which name and the corrcsponding grave vowel in tlie nocturnal namc. A struck Valcry build a paronomastic string: 1st;. . . /-/sit. . . 1- reinforccmcnt of this contrast by surrounding tlie first word with acute Isti. . . /-/sit. . . /. Thc invarinncc of thc group is particularly stressed and sliarpcd phoncmcs, in contradistinction to a grave phonemic neighbor- by the variation in its ordcr. Thc two luminous cffccts in tlic cliiaroscuro- hood of tlie sccond word, makes thc sound into a thorough echo of thc thc "licry cycs" of tlic black fowl and thc lamplight throwing "liis shadow sense. But in the French jorrr 'day' and rnrit 'night' the distribution of on tlic floorv-arc cvokcd to add to thc gloom of thc wholc picturc. and grave and acute vowels is inverted, so tliat MallarmCs Dicagafions accuse arc again bound by thc "vivid cffcct" of parononiasias: /513a si~n~g/.. . his mothcr tongue of a deceiving pcrvcrsity for assigning to day a dark /dimanz/ . . . /lz drim~q/--/sr~mst rim^!^/. "That shadow tliat lies timbrc and to niglit a light one (265). Whorf states that when in its sound /Iiyz/" pairs with thc Ravcn's "cycs" /iyz/ in an impressively misplaced shape "a word has an acoustic similarity to its own meaning, we can notice echo rhymc. , it. . . . But, when tlie opposite occurs, nobody noticcs it." Poetic language, In poctry. any conspicuous simi1:lrity in sound is cvaluatcd in rcspect to however, and particularly French poetry in thc collision between sound similarity and/or dissimilarity in mcaning. But Popc's ~~llitcrativcprcccpt and mcaning dctcctcd by Mnllarnd, cithcr sccks a phonological alternation to pocts-"the sound must sccm an Echo of thc scnscW--has a widcr of such a discrepancy and drowns tlic "converse" distribution of vocalic :~pplic:~tion.In rcfcrcnt i:tl I:~ngu;~gcthe connection hctwccn .s~;rrtrrrs and fcaturcs by surrounding ~iuitwith gravc and jorrr with acute phoncmcs, or sipa/rnrr is ovcrwhclmingly b;tscd on thcir coclilicd contiguity, which is it resorts to :I scm:~nticshirt and its im;lgcry of clay and night rcplaccs thc oftcn confusingly labclcd "arbitrariness of the verbal sign." The relevance imagery of light and dark by other synesthctic correlates of the phoncmic of the sound-meaning ncxus is a simple corollary of tlic superposition of opposition gravelacute and, for instance, puts the heavy, warm day in similarity upon contiguity. Sound syn~bolisn~is an undeniably objective contrast to tlic airy, cool night; because "human subjects secrn to asso- rclation founded on a phcnomcnal connection bctween different scnsory ciate the experiences of bright, sharp, hard, high, light (in weight), quick, niodcs, in particular bctwccn thc visual and auditory cxpcricncc. If thc high-pitched, narrow, and so on in a long series, witli each other; and rcsults of rcscnrch in this arca havc sonictimcs bccn vague or controversial. conversely thc experiences of dark, warm, yielding, soft, blunt, low, heavy, it is priniarily duc to an insullicicnt carc for thc mcthods of psychological slow, low-pitched, wide, etc., in another long series" (447, p. 267f). and/or linguistic inquiry. Particularly from thc linguistic point of vicw Howcvcr cflectivc is thc emphasis on rcpctition in poctry, thc sound the picturc has oftcn bccn distorted by lack of attention to tlic phono- tcxturc is still far from being confined to numerical contrivanccs, and a plioncnic that appcars only oncc, but in a kcy word, in.a pertinent position, 374 Retrospects and Prospects Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics 375 against a contrastive background, may acquire a striking significance. the field of metaphor. May I repeat my old observation that the study of As painters used to say, "Un kilo de vert n'est pas plus vert qu'un demi poetic tropes has been directed mainly toward metaphor, and the so-called kilo." realisticlitcratuf~intimatelytied with the metonymic principle, still defies Any analysis of poetic sound texture must consistently take into account interpretation, although the same linguistic methodology, which poetics the phonological structure of the given language and, beside the over-all uses when analyzing the metaphorical style of romantic poetry, is entirely code, also the hierarchy of phonological distinctions in the given poetic applicable to the metonymical texture of realistic prose (197). convention. Thus the approximate rhymes used by Slavic peoples in oral Textbooks believe in the occurrence of poems devoid of imagery, but and in some stages of written tradition admit unlike consonants in the actually scarcity in lexical tropes is counterbalanced by gorgeous gram- rhyming members (c.g. Czech hotjt, boky, stopy, kosy, socl~y)but. as Nitch matical tropes and figures. The poetic resources concealed in the morpho- noticed, no mutual correspondence between voiced and voiceless con- logical and syntactic structure of language, briefly the poetry of grammar, sonants is allowed (294), so that the quoted Czech words cannot rhyme and its literary product, the grammar of poetry, have been seldom known with hot!^, (/oI>y,kozj*, roly. In the songs of some American Indian peoples to critics and mostly disregarded by linguists but skillfully mastered by such as Pima-Papago and Tcpccano, according to Herzog's observations- creative writers. only partly communicated in print (168)-the phonemic distinction The main dramatic force of Antony's exordium to the funeral oration between voiced and voiceless plosives and between them and nasals is for Caesar is achieved by Shakespeare's playing on grammatical categories replaced by a free variation, whereas the distinction between labials, and constructions. Mark Antony lampoons Brutus's speech by changing dentals, velars, and pnlntals is rigorously maintained. Thus in the poetry the alleged reasons for Caesar's assassination into plain linguistic fictions. of these languages consonants lose two of the four distinctive features, Brutus's accusation of Caesar, "as he was ambitious, I slew him," undergoes voiced/voiceless and nasalloral, and preserve the other two, gravelacute successive transformations. First Antony reduces it to a mere quotation and compact/diffuse. The selection and hierarchic stratification of valid which puts the responsibility for the statement on the speaker quoted: categories is a factor of primary importance for poetics both on the "The noble Brutus I/ Hath told you . . . ." When repeated, this reference phonological and on the grammatical level. to Brutus is put into opposition to Antony's own assertions by an adver- Old lndic and Medieval Latin litcrary theory keenly distinguished two sative "but" and further degraded by a concessive "yet." The reference to poles of verbal art, labeled in Sanskrit Pfiricdi and Vaidarblii and corre- the alleger's honor ceases to justify the allegation, when repeated with a spondingly in Latin oruarus tl![/ici/is and or~~atusJacilis (see 9), t he latter substitution of the merely copulative "and" instead of the previous causal style evidently being much more diflicult to analyze linguistically because in "for," and when finally put into question through the malicious insertion such literary forms verbal devices arc unostentatious and language seems of a modal "sure": a nearly transparent garment. But one must say with Charles Sanders The noble Brutus Peircc: "This clothing never can be completely stripped ofT, it is only Hath told you Cresar was ambitious; chnn~cd for something more diaphanous" (307, p. 171). "Verseless For Brutus is an honourable man. composition." as I-lopkins c:llls the prosaic variety of verbal art-whcrc But Brutus says hc was ambitious, parallelisms arc not so strictly mnrkcd and strictly regular as "continuous And Brutus is an honourable man. parallelism" and where there is no dominant figure of sound-present more Yet Brutus says he was ambitious, entangled problems for poetics, as docs any transitional linguistic area. And Brutus is an honourable man. In this case the transition is between strictly poetic and strictly referential Yet Brutus says he was ambitious, language. But Propp's pioneering monograpli on the structure of the And, sure, he is an honourable man. fairy talc (323) shows us how a consistently syntactic approach may be The following polyptoton-"I speak. . . Brutus spoke. . . I am to speak"- of paramount help even in classifying the traditional plots and in tracing presents the repeated allegation as mere reported speech instead of reported the puzzling laws that underlie thcir composition and selection. Thc new facts. The effect lies, modal logic would say, in the oblique context of the studies of Lcvi-Strauss (248, 2483, also, 24813) display a much dccpcr but arguments adduced which makes thcm into unprovable belief sentences: csscnlially similar approach to the same constructional problem. I spcak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, It is no nicrc chance that metonymic structures arc less explored th;ln But hcrc I am to spcak what I do know: 376 Retrospects and Prospects Closing Statement: Linglristics and Poetics The most ~ITcctivedcvicc of Antony's irony is tlic morlus obliquus of The dry eucalyptus seeks ,rod ill tire rairry e1011d. Brutus's abstracts changed into a nrorlz~srcctus to disclose that these reified Professor Eucalyptus of New Haven seeks lrirrr ill Nov H(~ocrt.. attributes arc nothing but linguistic fictions. To Brutus's saying "he was The instinct .for lreauen had its counterpart: ambitious," Antony first rcplics by transferring the adjective from the Thc instinct for earth, for Nov Haucrr, for his room . . . agent to tlie action ("Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?'), thcn by elicit- The adjective "New" of tlie city name is laid bare tlirougli the concatc- ing tlie abstract noun "ambition" and converting it into a subjcct of a nation of opposites: concrctc passive construction "Ambition sliould bc madc of stcrncr stulT" and subscqucntly to prcdicatc noun of an intcrrogativc scntcncc, "Was The oldest-ncwest day is thc ncwcst alonc. The oldest-newest night does not crcak by. . . this anibition?'-Brutus's appcal "licar mc for my cause" is answercd by tlic s:imc noun irr rccto, tlic hypostntizcd subjcct of an intcrrogativc, active ;( Whcn in 1919 tlic Moscow Linguistic Circlc discussed how to dcfinc and construction: "What causc witliolds you . . . ?While Brutuscalls"awake delimit the range of epitlreta ornantia, the poet Majakovskij rebuked us by your senses, tliat you may tlic bcttcr judgc," tlie abstract substantive saying tliat for Iiim any adjective while in poetry was thereby a poetic dcrivcd from "judgc" bccomcs an apostropliizcd agcnt in Antony's rcport: epithet, even "grcat" in thc Great Bear or "big" and "littlc" in such names "0 judgmcnt, thou art flcd to brutish bcasts. . ." Incidentally, this of Moscow streets as Bol'slroja Presrljn and Ma/@ Presnja. In other apostroplic with its murdcrous paronomasia -Ilrutus-brutish - is rcnlinisccnt words, pocticalncss is not 3 ~i~ppIc~iic~it;~tio~iof discourse with rhctorical of Cacsar's parting exclamation "Et tu, Brute!" Propcrtics and activities adornment but a total re-evaluation of thc discourse and of all its com- arc cxliibitcd in recto, wlicrcas thcir carriers appear cither in obliquo ponents wliatsoever. ("withholds you," "to brutisli beasts," "bxk to nlc") or as subjccts of A niissionary blamcd his African flock for walking undrcsscd. "And negativc actions ("mcn have lost," "I must pause"): what about yourself?" they pointed to his visage, "are not you, too, son~ewherenaked?" "Wcll, but tliat is my face." "Yet in us," retorted You all did lovc liini oncc, not without causc; the nativcs, "cvcrywhcrc it is facc." So in poctry any verbal clemcnt is . What c:iusc withholds you thcn to mourn for him? 0 judgnicnt, thou art llcd to brutish bcasts, mmwk&&ea~+etic speech. And nicn havc lost thcir rcason! My attempt to vindicate the right and duty of linguistics to direct the investigation of verbal art in all its compass and extcnt can come to a Tlic last two lines of Antony's cxordiun~display tlieostensible independence conclusion witli tlie same burden which summarized my report to tlic 1953 of tlicsc grammatical nictonyn~ics.Tlic stcreotypcd "I mourn for so-and- conference here at Indiana University: "Linguista sum; linguistici niliil so" and tlic figur:ltivc but still stcrcotypcd "so-and-sois in thccoffin and my a me alienum puto" (249). If the poet Ransom is right (and hc is right) hcart is witli liim" or "gocs out to him" give place in Antony's speech to a that "poetry is a kind of language" (326), the lin~uistwhose ficld is any daringly rc:llizcd nictonymy; tlic tropc becomes a part of poetic reality: kind of language may and must include poetry in his study. The present conference has clearly shown tliat the time when both linguists and literary My hcart is in thc conin tlicrc with Czsclr, historians cludctl questions of poetic structurc is now safcly bcliind us. And L nwst pmsc till it comc back to mc. Indccd, as Hollander stated, "thcrc sccms to be no rcason for trying to In poctry thc intcrnal form of a namc, that is, the scmantic load of its scparatc tlic litcrary from the overall linguistic." If tlicrc arc somc critics constitucnts, regains its pcrtincncc. Tlic "Cocktails" may resume their who still doubt the competence of linguistics to embrace the ficld ofpoetics, oblitcratcd kinship with plumage. Thcir colors are vivified in Mac I privately believe tliat the poetic incompetcncc of somc bigoted linguists has been mistaken for an inadequacy of the linguistic science itself. All of Hanimond's lincs "Tlic ghost of a Bronx 'pink lady /I With orange ' blossonis afloat in licr hair," and tlic ctyniological metaphor attains its us hcrc, however, definitely realize that a linguist dcaf to the poctic func- I' realization : "0, Bloody Mary, // The cocktails have crowd not the tion of language and a literary scholar indiITcrcnt to linguistic problems and cocks!" ("At an Old Fashion Bar in Manhattan"). Wallace Stevens' poem unconversant with linguistic methods arc equally flagrant anachronisms. 1 , "An Ordinary Evcning in Ncw Havcn" rcvivcs tlic licad word of tlic city namc first through a discrcct allusion to lionvcn and tlicti througli a dircct pun-like confrontation similar to Hopkins' "Hcnvcn-Havcti."