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ICONICITY AS a CREATIVE FORCE in the LANGUAGE of LITERATURE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements Fo ICONICITY AS A CREATIVE FORCE IN THE LANGUAGE OF LITERATURE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By Karina Ross. M. A. * * * * * The Ohio State University 2003 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Charles E. Gribble, Adviser Professor Daniel E. Collins ____________________________ Adviser Professor Anelya Rugaleva Slavic Linguistics Graduate Program ABSTRACT In recent decades, much attention has been focused on literary and linguistic iconicity. Poetry became the primary focus of investigations, while prose received substantially less attention. The primary premise of this research is the existence of correlations between ideas and beliefs that preoccupy a particular society, and the literary forms in which those beliefs are expressed; i.e. the theory that language possesses non- arbitrary linguistic signs. Thus, it is natural to suppose that any literary movement which advances a set of specific ideas develops expressive forms that become distinctive of it. Such distinctive characteristics emerge not only in poetry but in prose as well. The proposed investigation concentrates on iconic elements of syntax which mirror those concepts and beliefs, which are generated by Russian literary movements and which preoccupy the society during the periods of their preeminence. The four movements examined in this thesis are Sentimentalism, Romanticism, the “Natural School” and three examples of the prose of the Silver Age. The target of this research is establishing connections between ideas and forms, and distinguishing recurring instances of iconicity that are conditioned by a particular movement. As it becomes apparent that numerous prose works that refer to a particular literary movement exhibit persistent syntactic characteristic, one may wonder what conditions their recurring use in the works ii of a particular author or even of numerous authors. Upon a closer examination of these devices, it appears that many are connected with the general premises of the dominating literary movement. It becomes necessary to comprehend what movement-generated ideas stand behind these iconic devices and why. The methodological framework of this thesis is based on R. Jakobson’s research in the domain of the language of literature. It also largely hinges on E. Anderson’s profound research titled The Grammar of Iconism, which accounts for various iconic forms in literary languages. iii Dedicated to my husband iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my adviser, Dr. Charles Gribble, for his encouragement and continued support and for his patience in correcting my mistakes. I thank Dr. Daniel Collins, whose classes inspired my interest in the topic of this research. I am thankful to Dr. Anelya Rugaleva for her interest in this thesis and her comments and suggestions. I also wish to thank Dr. Irene Masing-Delic, who offered her time and advice while answering my questions pertaining to the domain of literature. Finally, I am infinitely grateful to my husband, who had the patience to correct my stylistic errors and encouraged me through the years of studies and research. This thesis would have not been possible without him. v VITA March 15, 1972………………………………………………………Born – Kursk, Russia 1993…………………………………………….B.A, Moscow State Linguistic University 1997……………………………………………………...M.A., The Ohio State University 1997 – present………………………………………..Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University PUBLICATIONS 1. K. Ross, “Rendering Iconicity in the Translation of Poetry.” In A Festschrift for Leon Twarog: Working Papers in Slavic Studies, vol. 1. Columbus, Ohio: The Ohio State University Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures, 2001. FIELD OF STUDY Major Field: Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………ii Dedication………………………………………………………………………………...iv Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………..v Vita………………………………………………………………………………………..vi Chapters: 1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………..1 2. Symbolism……………………………………………………………………….12 2.1 Sentimentalist Values and Principles……………………………………….12 2.2 Veneration of Nature and the Use of Elaborate Syntax in its Depictions…..16 2.3 Repetition as an Icon of Emotive Intensity…………………………………28 2.4 The Sentimental Hero. Triviality of Individual Characteristics………….…32 2.4.1 Delayed Introduction or Parenthesis as a Mode of Character Presentation…………………………………………………………..32 2.4.2 The Use of Series and Parallelism as a Means of Ascertaining the Link between Appearance and Character Traits…………………37 2.4.3 Emphasizing Importance through the Use of Doublets……………...43 2.5 Concluding Remarks……………………………………………………......53 3. Romanticism…………………………………………………………………….55 3.1 Romantic Opposition as the Characteristic Trait of the Movement……….55 3.2 The Prominence of a Romantic Setting in Marlinskij’s Tales. The Harbinger of the Conflict between Man and His Surroundings……….61 3.3 Negations Series as Icons of Contrast between the Romantic and the Mundane in Pavlov’s Prose……………………………………………..68 3.4 The Struggle against the Environment in Odoevskij’s Tales……………….79 3.5 Evil Forces against Man. Who is in Charge? «Уединенный домик на Васильевском»....................................................83 vii 3.6 The Opposition between Reality and Fantasy in «Вечера на хуторе близ Диканьки»………………………………………87 3.7 Concluding Remarks………………………………………………………..99 4. The “Natural School”………………………………………………………………………….100 4.1 Seeking Material in “Life as It is”………………………………………...100 4.2 Classifications of Character Types and the Use of Parallel Constructions..105 4.3 The Use of Parallel Constructions in Depictions of Social Groups…...…..110 4.4 Nominative Series in Character Portraits………………………………….118 4.5 Nominative Series in Depictions of Social Groups……………………….124 4.6 The Use of Series in Setting Depictions…………………………………..128 4.7 The Use of Merismus in Depiction Settings………..……………………..134 4.8 Concluding Remarks………………………………………………………136 5. Three Tales of the Silver Age…………………………………………………..137 5.1 The Supernatural as an Alternate Reality……………………………........137 5.2 Parallel Constructions as Icons of Correlation between the Natural and the Mystical Worlds in Brjusov’s «В зеркале»...........................................140 5.3 An Incursion of Chaos in Sologub’s story «В толпе».................................143 5.3.1 Verbal Series as Icons of Motion…………………………………...144 5.3.2 Repetitions Iconizing the Transmitting of Moods in the Crowd……………………………………………………………….148 5.4 Co-existence of Paganism and Orthodoxy in Remizov’s «Неуeмный бубен».....................................................................................156 5.4.1 Dual Repetitions as Icons of the Stability of Life…………………….....................................................................157 5.4.2 Binary Repetitions with One Negated Constituent as Icons of Ambiguity…………………………………………………………..164 5.5 Concluding Remarks……………………………………………………...166 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...168 Appendix A……………………………………………………………………………..174 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………177 viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Semiotics has generated increasing interest since the start of the twentieth century. In the domain of language this interest developed among linguists and literature scholars alike. In contrast with Saussure’s notion of the “arbitrariness” of a linguistic sign and the Peircean contention that it is merely a symbol which operates by means of arbitrary association, Jakobson showed that it can also be an index and an icon. He viewed artistic text as a relational and dynamic system which, while possessing its own laws and mechanisms, was not detached from the world. The premise that iconicity is the structure of experience reflected in the structure of language stimulates interest towards the relational aspect of a work of art. Any artistic text displays internal laws and mechanisms that generate its particular aesthetic character but it also bears a communicative function. Poetry has enjoyed the special attention from semioticians. Possibly this can be explained by the obviousness of verse’s structural design. Even an unconventional unrhymed verse exhibits a regular metrical pattern which distinguishes it from prose. The regular metrical pattern of free verse is likely to put constraints on the syntactic organization a versified piece, where the sequence of sentence constituents may be more 1 conditioned by the requirements of a verse’s metrical organization rather than those of normal grammatical patterns, especially in languages exhibiting a relatively flexible word order, such as Russian. Thus, a poem usually represents an entirety that is more iconic than the language of prose. Moreover, as Earl Anderson notes, “poets cultivate a variety of poetic voices or iconic ‘dialects’ that depart from the norms of ordinary speech in many ways.”1 Any poem exhibits some degree of departure from the linguistic norms existing at the time of its composition. The fewer the divergences, the less expressive a poem appears. In the language of prose fiction, divergences generally are not as conspicuous due to its higher resemblance to ordinary speech. Innovative prose, which displays greater divergences from the literary norm at the time of its creation, certainly displays more of various types of departures. While examples of extremely innovative prose fiction require a close examination of their syntactic
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