chapter seven: conclusion 7.1. specific...

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271 CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCLUSION 7.1. Specific Findings Stylistics is the systematic analysis of style in language in all its forms. The conclusions derived in this chapter have summarized the conclusions included under each of the previous chapters. Apart from that, the correlations among the chapters have been attempted. Stylistics works on the linguistic evidences at hand in the language of poetry so that the conclusions reached are based on the actual analysis of the language of poems. In most of the cases, the results are replicable and objective. However, poems themselves bear ambiguous nature and stylistic interpretations many times rely on the individual world of experience and the intuition of the interpreter. Yet such interpretations always modify and add on the previous interpretations. The following specific findings in each of the poems have proved the hypothesis and it stands intact. The pleasurable function of poetry is served because of the cumulative effect of the employment of various stylistic devices in the poem. As it can be viewed from the analysis of the selected poems that unanimously, all poems possess stylistic features of various kinds. The employments of features vary in the poems as the stylistic competence of the poets varies from poem to poem. It would be amusing to see that how many stylistic features that each of the selected poem contains. So that the common stylistic features would show the production of similar effect in the poems. It has also proved the fact that the pleasurable function of poetry is the same, irrespective of country, age, sex or race.

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Page 1: CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCLUSION 7.1. Specific Findingsshodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/95401/13/13_chapter7.pdf · Ode to the West Wind Percy Bysshe Shelley The ... Apostrophe

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CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCLUSION

7.1. Specific Findings

Stylistics is the systematic analysis of style in language in all its forms. The

conclusions derived in this chapter have summarized the conclusions included

under each of the previous chapters. Apart from that, the correlations among the

chapters have been attempted. Stylistics works on the linguistic evidences at

hand in the language of poetry so that the conclusions reached are based on the

actual analysis of the language of poems. In most of the cases, the results are

replicable and objective. However, poems themselves bear ambiguous nature

and stylistic interpretations many times rely on the individual world of

experience and the intuition of the interpreter. Yet such interpretations always

modify and add on the previous interpretations.

The following specific findings in each of the poems have proved the

hypothesis and it stands intact. The pleasurable function of poetry is served

because of the cumulative effect of the employment of various stylistic

devices in the poem. As it can be viewed from the analysis of the selected

poems that unanimously, all poems possess stylistic features of various

kinds. The employments of features vary in the poems as the stylistic

competence of the poets varies from poem to poem. It would be amusing to

see that how many stylistic features that each of the selected poem contains.

So that the common stylistic features would show the production of similar

effect in the poems. It has also proved the fact that the pleasurable function

of poetry is the same, irrespective of country, age, sex or race.

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England

1. Poor Soul the Centre of My Sinful Earth William Shakespeare

The most dominant stylistic feature in the poem is semantic deviation, which

is involved in the use of paradox in the expression ‗feed on death‘. The poet

uses rhetorical questions in the beginning of the poem, which marks the

informal tone of the poem. Later he uses imperative sentences as usually are

found in religious registers. The shift of register takes place in case of

grammar. The shift of register changes common speech to serious theme.

2. The Invocation John Milton

The most dominant stylistic feature involved in the poem is semantic

deviation in relation to the use of the phrase ‗mortal taste‘. Phonological

deviation occurs in the use of polysyllabic word in the midst of monosyllabic

words.

The impact of classical language can be witnessed in the phrases like ‗didst

inspire‘, ‗dost prefer‘, ‗know‘st‘, ‗sat‘st‘, ‗mad‘st‘ etc. By employing these

words, the poet not only deviates from the language of his time but also is

successful in creating the biblical ambience appropriate to the epic. The

syntactical shift of register occurs in the poem. The poet uses ten subordinate

clauses with one main clause in the first sentence. The long sentence seems

to have been derived from legal register.

3. The Sunne Rising John Donne

The dominant stylistic feature involved in the poem is lexical deviation in

case of curtailing of the word ‗apprentices‘ and forming the word ‗prentices‘.

Another important stylistic feature of the poem is phonological deviation. It

occurs when the poet lengthens the vowels than its usual length to indicate

its actual use in the colloquial speech of the English people. The farfetched

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conceits used in the poem describe the cynical tone of the speaker. The

hyperbolic expressions used in the poem express the cynical nature of the

speaker.

4. London William Blake

The poet achieves semantic deviation on the word ‗chartered‘. This poem is

also marked by semantic parallelism. The semantic parallel phrases intensify

the action of the verb ‗mark‘ beyond the certain level. The syntactic shift of

register in the poem enables the reader to read the poem at two levels

personal and universal.

5. The Solitary Reaper William Wordsworth

The dominant stylistic feature involved in the poem is lexical deviation in

the formation of the phrase ‗sickle bending‘. The metaphors used in the

poem increase the melancholy loneliness of the reaper.

6. Ode to the West Wind Percy Bysshe Shelley

The deviant expressions like ‗the winged seeds‘ and ‗the dying year‘ used in

the poem invite the attention of the reader to life of human being rather than

to the cycle of season. The poet uses /r/ sound in all its allophonic variety.

Shelley not only passively depicts the destructive and constructive wind but

also projects the existence of wind through the acoustic qualities of /r/ sound

in English. Still more interesting to note that the metaphor and simile

mechanism used in the poem allows the poet to explore his theme i.e. life

within death or death within life. Apostrophe used in the poem marks the

emotive emphasis of the poem. The poet employs climax to show the cosmic

existence of the west wind.

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7. My Last Duchess Robert Browning

The grammatical deviation in the excessive use of possessive pronoun

enables the poet to comment on the possessive nature of the Duke. The

synecdoche on ‗hands‘ used in the poem helps the duke to draw the attention

of his guests towards his superiority. Irony achieved on ‗There she stands as

if alive‘ comments on the tragic death of the duchess. Tautology involves in

the expression ‗his daughter‘s self‘ where the poet unnecessarily repeats the

word ‗self‘ because the word daughter includes the meaning ‗self‘. Yet it

involves the meaning that the duke is interested in her ‗self‘ rather than in

the daughter for marrying.

8. Wants Philiph Larkin

The semantic repetition in the poem helps the poet to bind certain words

closely for raising their semantic fields. The poet uses transferred epithet in

the expression ‗artful tension‘ to expand the idea that tensions in life draws

people way from wish to be alone.

9. An Irish Airman Foresees His Death William Butler Yeats

The dominant stylistic feature of the poem is semantic deviation, paradoxical

expression, in which the poet due to typical context in the poem is able to

deviate from the literal meaning. The poet achieves paradox on the lines

‗Those that I fight I do not hate‘ and on ‗Those that I guard I do not love‘.

The literal understanding stands opposite to the literary understanding of the

poem.

10. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock T.S. Eliot

The dominant stylistic feature of the poem is shift of register. The

borrowings from different registers in the poem proves that the monologue

belongs to the psychologically disturbed person or at other level it also

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means different voices speak through him. The epigraph in Italian language

at the beginning of the poem clearly marks the change in the register. The

formal tone of Guido‘s speech in Italian language changes to the informal

speech of Prufrock in English language. The conceit used in the poem

enables the poet to allow his readers to peep inside the mind of Prufrock.

Antonomasia achieved on the word ‗Hamlet‘ presents Prufrock as the most

comic figure to heighten the tragedy of his life.

11. Flying Crooked Robert Graves

The poem is violently grammatically deviant with many breaks and

parentheses. Moreover, the subject ‗butterfly‘ is estranged from the verb

master. These grammatical deviations in the poem enable the poet to

communicate the message that the performance and performer may be at

length, but there is always a link between them.

America

12. Because I Could Not Stop For Death Emily Dickinson

The repeated verb ‗passed‘ compels the reader to read the word with

suggested meaning.

13. Richard Cory E.A.Robinson

The dominant stylistic feature in the poem is morphological deviation

achieved on the title of the poem. The parallel phrases beginning with ‗and‘

in the poem enables the poet to suggest the overlapping of meanings in the

poem.

14. In a Station of the Metro Ezra Pound

The dominant stylistic feature in the poem is syntactical deviation i.e. the

poem contains verbless clause.

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15. Stopping by Woods in a Snowy Evening Robert Frost

The repetition occurs as the repetition of the last line of the poem. The

repetition can be interpreted differently as emotive emphasis, introspection,

reaffirmation, resignation, acceptance of death by slow but steady degrees

etc. The poem with its metaphorical language seems to develop the

comparison i.e. ―Life is Journey‖.

16. A Noiseless Patient Spider Walt Whitman

His juxtaposition of the similarities between a noiseless patient spider and

the soul of the poet enables him to present the idea in parallel form. The lines

of the poem bring out the spider – soul comparison with the use of

parallelism in words, in phrases and in stanzas at large.

17. The Emperor of Ice-cream Wallace Stevens

The syntactical parallel enables the reader to accept the view that life too

makes death short lived so it should become beautiful, attractive and

irresistible. The dominant stylistic feature involved in the poem is lexical

deviation, where ‗be‘ and ‗seem‘ are used as nouns.

18. The Red Wheelbarrow William C. Williams

The poet typographically arranges the 16 word complex sentence having one

main clause and one subordinate clause in such a manner that it represents a

visual word pattern. Shape poem does not stand for anything else beyond its

shape.

19. Daddy Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath employs German words like ‗Ach du‘ and ‗Ich‘. This switch of

code of language enables the poet to typically describe the suffering and

trauma of German girl. The employment of German words and shift of

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registers in the poem avails the ground in the poem for psychological

interpretation and for finding the seeds of Electra complex in the poem. The

phonetical shift of register in the poem takes place where the poet uses the

words having the sounds / ju: / to remind the readers the pervasive presence

of her father.

20. what if a much of a which of a wind E.E. Cummings

The syntactical and grammatical parallel structures in the poem explore the

hidden sameness in the apparent dissimilar ideas.

India

21. An Old Woman Arun Kolatkar

The phonetical deviation occurs in the poem in the sense that the overuse of

/s/ and /z/ allomorphs enables the readers to explore the possibilities of

interconnections between different ideas in the poem. The phonetic

parallelism gives the reader an opportunity to relate hills and temples with

the action of falling. Thus, ‗hills‘ and ‗temples‘ not only crack but fall too.

This suggests the devaluation of hills i.e. society and temples i.e. religion on

metaphorical level.

22. Sea Breeze, Bombay Adil Jussawala

The poet has used words with unusual combinations like ‗cut country‘ and

‗fray cut‘. The poet employs the language and images from the tailoring

occupation to reinstate the process of dislocation and relocation. The words

are not only used from the different fields but also the language used in the

poem exhibits the grammar of language of the tailoring field rather the

language of poem or history to communicate the message effectively. The

use of Litotes in ‗uncovers no root‘ allows the poet to hint politely at the

spirit of gentleness on the part of the city, of not asking about caste, religion,

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creed or any other unwanted details. Had the poet used the direct expression,

‗the city covers the root‘, it might have given wrong implication that the city

covers the wrong doings of the people.

23. Father Returning Home Dilip Chitre

The comparisons between heterogeneous ideas in the poem hint at the busy

nature of life. It also places emphasis on the intellectual barrenness of

modern life.

24. The Old Playhouse Kamala Das

The poem is marked by phonetical parallel structure of the sounds /d/, /b/, /d/

. They represent the violent and so unpleasant sexual act on the behalf of the

speaker. The grammatical shift of register occurs in the change of passive

voice to active voice to mark ‗sex‘ and ‗tradition‘.

25. Night of the Scorpion Nissim Ezekiel

The parallel in the expression ‗with men also and ladies also‘ hint at the

typical concerns of Indian people while giving the public talk. Onomatopoeic

words used in the poem enable the poet to project the typical Indian rustic

scene in front of readers.

26. Hunger Jayanta Mahapatra

The use of zeugma in the expression ‗trailing his nets and nerves‘ reveals the

idea that one can trail net in real sense of the term but not nerves. However,

it hints at the carelessness of the father to sell his daughter.

27. Delhi R. Parthasarthy

The poet poses the rhetorical question in the poem to disparage the squalid

identity of Delhi and to lament on the loss of identity, power and glory. The

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use of personification in the poem facilitate the application of the action with

abstract ideas or other unanimated objects and furnishes the ground to

discover ruthless corruption in Delhi.

28. Grass Words Gopal Honnalgere

The poet employs Chiasmus in the lines ‗State gambles with men / Men

gamble with the state‘. The poet brings to the notice of readers the duplicity

of manmade world by reversing the ideas in the second line.

Africa

29. The Mystic Drum Gabriel Okara

The poem makes a deviant use of ‗but‘ and ‗and‘. The poet is able to create

plurality of meaning and of obscurity. The repeated use of ‗and‘ creates gap

of meaning to allow the scope to readers to perceive a new meaning

themselves. The poem is dialectically variant. The poet uses expressions like

‗fungoid sequences‘ which seems to have originated from the African

language, Yoruba. The parallel structure in the poem enables the poet to

comment on the transformation of men into fishes and vice versa.

30. A Negro Labourer in Liverpool David Rubadiri

The metaphorical comparisons develop new semantic values of the objects

of comparisons.

31. Refugee Mother and Child Chinua Achebe

The poet achieves semantic deviation on the expression on the word, ‗ghost

smile‘ to comment poignantly on the draught affected situation in Africa.

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32. To My First White Hairs Wole Soyinka

The graphological deviation in the poem with respect of ‗THREE WHITE

HAIRS!‘ enables the poet to attract the attention of his reader towards the

emphasis that he lays on the inevitability of the race mixing. The semantic

repetition of black colour is used in order to hint at the immense black

population in Africa. Epigrammatic expression ‗interpret time‘ reflects the

idea that there is every possibility of culture assimilation, race mixing and

society merging.

33. Africa David Diop

A typical syntactical repetition of NP with the structure ‗The + noun + of +

your + noun‘ describes the definite plan in the mind of the poet. The internal

linking is employed by repeating the last word as the first word of the next

line. The internal linking of such type also marks the thematic linking in the

poem. The pun achieved on ‗grave‘ explores the idea of seriousness of what

ancestors told about ‗liberty‘ achieved through hardship. The poet has used

sarcasm in the phrases ‗my Africa‘ and ‗your Africa‘ that enables him to

satirize his own country for the loss of liberty.

Australia

34. Surely God Was a Lover Shaw Neilson

The syntactical parallel used in the poem enables the poet to mark the

comparison between nature and woman. The syntactical shift of register

occurs where Shaw Neilson prefers prosaic register for every first line of

each stanza of two lines. The second line is written in the register of verse.

One interesting point about the poem is that the title of the poem forms the

main clause of the first line.

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35. Australia A.D.Hope

The grammatical parallel structure in the lines of the poem ‗we live‘ and ‗we

survive‘ assert the theme of survival.

36. Woman to Man Judith Wright

The repetition of various kind used in the poem hints at the limitation

imposed on her for expressing the sexual act through feminine point of view.

She has to express the act through masculine point of view. Paradoxes used

in the poem help the poet to comment on the complicated relations of man

and woman.

37. Exit Bruce Beaver

The dominant stylistic feature in the poem is grammatical deviation. The

words ‗fast‘ and ‗slow‘ are used as nouns rather than as adjective or adverb.

Canada

38. I'm Getting Old Now Robert Kroetsch

The grammatical parallel used in the poem enables the poet to discover the

relation between the exchange of roles as parent and son.

39. Like an Old Proud King in Parable A.J.M.Smith

The syntactical deviation used in the poem hints at the difficult structures of

Yeats‘s poetry itself.

40. Adolescence P.K.Page

The use of antithesis in the poem avails the poet an opportunity to pass

comment on the unformed stage of adolescence of the lovers and annoyed

nature of the lovers.

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41. This is a Photograph of Me Margaret Atwood

The poem is grammatically deviant because the poet ignores the normal

expression ‗This is my photograph‘, in favour of unusual expression ‗This is

a Photograph of me‘. The reader can read aloud the title of the poem in seven

ways and can ensure seven meanings. The graphological parallelism used in

the poem achieves the blurring effect of photography. It not only achieves

blurring effect on the text but also it represents blurring effect on the mind

that recollects the past.

The West Indies

42. Tizzic Edward Brathwaite

The poet in order to evoke the West Indian culture employs words like

‗kele‘, ‗kalinda‘, ‗calypso‘, limbo‘, ‗bambalula bambulai‘ etc. from

indigenous language and thus employs dialectal deviation. The employment

of the words from altogether different language and different register too,

enables the poet to link the theme of social slavery to musical slavery in real

sense of the terms. Asyndeton occurs as the conjunctions are omitted. The

omission hints at the idea that the slave loves all these things equally without

any preference to any special object.

43. On seeing the Reflection of Notre Dame John Figueroa

The oxymoron on ‗night‘s reflection‘ expands the idea that through the

realization of ignorance, one may hope for knowledge. The poet employs

Zeugma as the verb ‗make‘ is only correctly related with ‗tune‘, whereas it

cannot be used with cathedral, image, stone and poem. Yet the figure of

speech reflects the idea that the poet views these different activities as a part

of the same scheme of his universe

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44. A Far Cry from Africa Derek Walcott

The syntactical and phonetical parallel of the rhetorical question used in the

poem serves the idea that life force is stronger in African people. Mother

tongue influence of placing high tonic accent on words may suggest different

meaning to Kikuyu. They may pronounce ‗colonial policy‘ as ‗colonel

policy‘. The poet places the expression in the poem in such fashion that the

kikuyu people may misread the words. The pun is achieved on ‗read‘ extends

the ideas of reading and bloodshed.

45. Elemental Edward Baugh

The poem grammatically deviates because though upper limit of a sentence

is not fixed but it should be long enough, as the mind can perceive the idea

easily. The poem ‗Elemental‘ constructs one mega sentence depicting the

wholly trekking scene in which the speaker ascends mountain at night and

descends in sunlight.

Singapore

46. Ulysses by the Merlion Edwin Thumbo

The antithesis in the line ‗Suffering much, enjoying a little‘, beyond its

contrastive quality initiates the intertextuality. These lines remind readers to

recall lines from Tennyson‘s ‗Ulysses‘.

47. To a Visitor to Singapore Kirpal Singh

The use of transferred epithet at the end of the poem clearly marks the guilty

consciousness on the part of the host.

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Malaysia

48. On Writing a Poem E.E.Tiang Hong

The poem is marked by syntactical parallelism. The parallel structures in the

poem simplify the meaning of the world ‗simple‘.

Shrilanka

49. Don't Talk to Me about Matisse Lakdasa Wikkramasinha

The euphemistic expression used in the lines, ‗woman reclines forever on a

sheet of blood‘ describes typically the death in its mild form.

50. To a Student Kamala Wijeratne

The repeated construction ‗Let us …‘ enables the reader to understand the

close relations between the teacher and the student.

51. The Uncrossed Bridge Chand R. Sirimanne

The repetition in the poem suggests the gap of communication between

husband and wife. Oxymoron on ‗accusing regrets‘ typically describes an

irresolvable mystery of the quarrel between husband and wife.

New Zealand

52. The Man with the Wooden Leg Katherine Mansfield

The morphological deviation in the poem is achieved on the name of the

character in the poem by name ‗Farkey Anderson‘.

53. Time Allen Curnow

Internal syntactical deviation in the poem comes out with the meaning that

time does change but systematically.

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54. The Postman Gordan Challis

The poet has used morphological deviation in the poem to convey

disinterested nature of the postman‘s job.

Pakistan

55. I am not that Woman Kishwar Naheed

‗I am‘ construction and ‗I am not‘ construction are repeated to describe the

exploitation and the struggle of women.

56. My Guests Faiz Ahmad Faiz

The metaphoric expression used in the poem enables the reader to view

morning, afternoon and evening in its most dejected form.

57. Voice of a Stone Fahmida Riaz

The metaphorical language used in the poem heightens the suggestive tone

of the poem.

58. On the Tenth Night of the Tenth Moon Ahmed Ali

The grammatical deviation occurs in the poem where pronouns ‗I‘, ‗you‘ and

‗he‘ stand for the same entity.

59. Hurricane Lamp Daud Kamal

The metaphorical use of language enables the reader to see the correlation

between the temporariness of life and the objects of nature. The title

‗Hurricane Lamp‘ hints at the idea that one should not try to see the things

closely, lest they be disappointed.

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Bangladesh

60. My Daughter's Boy Friend Razia Khan

The parallels in NP and PP enable the poet to express the motherly concerns

for the daughters. The poet uses meiosis in the expression ‗The flesh of my

flesh‘ to refer to her daughter. The expression marks the scorn of the mother

to a daughter who is snatched away by the boy friend.

These specific findings have confirmed the idea that the uses of parallels,

repetition, deviance, register, figure of speech, syntactical inversions,

collocation and figures of speech in the poems have highlighted certain

linguistic items for specific effects. For calling the attention of readers, the

poets have foregrounded ideas by employing these poetic devices. It is

noteworthy that the poets first have employed backgrounding of the rest of

the text and the new norms have been set against the established norms. All

selected poems have showed the evidence of foregrounding and

backgrounding without exception.

The linguistic findings in the poems have displayed that deviation,

parallelism, repetition, shift of register and figures of speech work as a

theatrical device of verfremdung to distance the audience from the action.

The use of distancing effect has enabled the poet to shed a new and fresh

light on the overused concepts. The linguistic deviations in the poems like

‗ghost smile‘, ‗Farkey Anderson‘, ‗Richard Cory‘, ‗go-between‘ etc. have

been discovered to be employed for distancing effect to arouse the interest of

readers as well as to shed a new light on the theme of the poems. The same is

true about the employment of parallelism, repetition, shift of register and

figures of speech with their all kinds of modules.

The Russian ‗cuzoj‘, in English ‗alien‘ effect has been discerned among the

poems. The idea is that the words, lines or stanzas that poets employ are half

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someone else‘s. The use of shift of register in the poems not only recalls the

borrowings of the words but also has established the correlation between the

English ideas and the ideas of other countries. ‗Ulysees by the Merlion‘ of

Edwin Thumbo recalls to the mind ‗Ulysees‘ of Tennyson.

The figures of speech used in the poem have served various purposes in

stylistic analysis like verfremdung, distancing, foregrounding, alienation,

intertextuality etc. All selected poems have exhibited the behavior that the

poets find it as a powerful tool of expression. Apart from that, as 9 th century

Sanskrit theory believed that suggestion (vangyartha) is essence of poetry.

Figures of speech achieve ‗vangyartha‘ through ‗Vakrokti‘. As it is evident

that all selected poems have stomached one or other type of figures of

speech. The figures of speech based on comparison have been found almost

in every stanza of every poem. The analysis of figures of speech appeared

elsewhere in the thesis not only has aimed at discovery of the figures but also

aimed at discovery of a system of systems of figures of speech. The figures

of speech are the organic parts of the poem. As it has been demonstrated

from P.B.Shelley‘s ‗Ode to the West Wind‘ that the metaphor and simile

mechanism used in the poem has allowed the poet to explore his theme of

‗life within death‘ or ‗death within life‘.

These linguistic findings, across the selected poems from different countries,

furnish the solid ground for arriving at the following general findings and the

hypothesis stands absolute and intact.

7.2. General Findings

1. It has been explored that literary stylistics, as a discipline, has begun with

the benchmark publication ‗Style in Language‘ as an outcome of a

conference held at Indiana University in 1958. Style is as old as the human

communication itself. Man is believed to have acquired sounds in human

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language through imitation of animal sounds. The imitation of sound

includes imitation of style too. In the western literary tradition, the use of

rhetorical devices and figures of speech are found prevalent in the Bible and

even prior to that in the writings of classical writers, Homer and Horace. In

eastern literary tradition, Veda and Upanishad are discovered embellished

with alamkara. Western and eastern literary traditions have proved the fact

that though, literary stylistics as a formal discipline of applying stylistic

features to interpretation of literature in general and poetry in particular is

20th

century phenomenon, stylistic bent of mind is as old as literature itself.

2. It has been discovered that Stylistics is a meeting ground of different

theories in linguistics and its allied disciplines viz. semantics, syntacs,

pragmatics, morphology, phonology etc. on one hand and its application to

texts, especially literary text on the other hand. Therefore, stylisticians have

to be alert regarding the emerging ideas in other disciplines too. Innovative

ideas in these disciplines render a high assistance to stylisticians to interpret

a text of a poem in a new light or to reinterpret a poem in order to support

the previous interpretations or to modify them.

3. Interpretation has been examined as a critical faculty of mind. Stylistic

analysis of poems entrusts linguistic tools of analysis in the hands of

analysts. Hence, stylistic analysis in interpretation, especially of poetry,

offers training to his critical faculty of mind regarding how to analyze

systematically. Therefore, it develops the critical faculty of analyst. These

observations bear many pedagogical implications too. Stylistic analysis of a

poem experimented in a class by a teacher offers a training to students. Later

students can work on stylistic analysis on their own. Such academic practice

by students leads not only to enrich the language of the students but also

results into the development of their critical mind.

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4. The academic practice of stylistic analysis of poems has revealed that

students on their own satiate the academic thirst. It raises their confidence

through intellectual and artistic pleasure. Linguistic analysis gives the learner

intellectual pleasure. In the second chapter of this thesis, under

morphological deviation (point 2.3.4.), the title of E.A. Robinson‘s poem

‗Richard Cory‘ is morphologically analyzed. The word Richard is analyzed

as rich + ardent. The analysis may appear simple but if a learner reaches to it

by discovering with his and only his efforts, it gives him intellectual

pleasure. In that, he learns morphological rules of word formation as in this

case adjective + adjective. Learning, through active participation is in this

sense, is pleasurable and is permanent. Moreover, the norms of language

acquired through stylistic practice also serve principles of the educational

psychology viz. self-learning is a perfect learning.

5. The study has exposed the fact that like linguistic analysis which gives

intellectual pleasure, stylistic analysis gives the reader aesthetic pleasure.

Stylistic analysis involves correlation of linguistic findings and application

of them for interpretation. This process of interpretation enables the readers

to sympathize and to empathize with the poetry. In Indian poetics, this

process is of great importance for the production of ‗rasa‘. During the

process, the reader gets transformed into Sahrdaya. For an instance, when a

reader reads a narrative of the poem ‗Richard Cory‘, he finds a story of a

man who appears to be rich to the onlookers on the pavement but at the end

he commits suicide. When the student/analyst discovers the correlations of

the words ‗Richard‘, ‗Cory‘ and ‗glitter‘(point 2.3.4.) with the theme

‗appearances are deceptive‘, his intellectual pleasure transforms into

aesthetic pleasure.

6. It has been found that Stylistics is a science of interpretation. Like science,

the results in stylistics are replicable. The results are replicable in the sense

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that if two analysts follow the same stylistic feature with the same process of

analysis, they shall arrive at the same interpretation. However, which

stylistic feature should be considered significant for the analysis; it depends

upon individual analyst. It has been validated in the interpretation of the

poem ‗Flying crooked‘ (point 2.3.7.). The mindset of analyst is the

amalgamation of varied experiences that he has undergone as well as the

reading that he has performed in the past. It is also true that not all stylistic

features have been found in a single poem, or not all poems have had the

same stylistic feature. The mindset decides the significant stylistic feature of

the poem. In other word, it is believed that it depends upon intuitive clicks of

which stylistic feature is significant in a particular poem. The fixation of the

significant feature is the most important feature in the determination of the

overall meaning of the poem. Thus, the style of a poem is a perceived

distinctive manner of expression. Indeterminacy of meaning of poetic

language does not only involve poet‘s deliberation to do so but also analyst‘s

perception of the poetic world, which largely differs from analyst to analyst.

Since stylistic analysis gives evidence from text of poem itself, it is more

convincing as compared to other approaches of analysis.

7. The study has revealed the fact that foregrounding is a poetic effect

achieved through conscious effort by the poet. Deviation, parallelism,

repetition, shift of register and figures of speech are major foregrounding

devices. The appropriate employment of the devices highlights certain

important aspects of poetry. It is a kind of distancing effect. It is a

psychological principle that whatever is close to us, it loses its attractiveness.

Therefore, the poets make familiar look unfamiliar and unfamiliar look

familiar by estranging effect and by employing the foregrounding devices. It

is a function of poetic language to throw into relief the linguistic utterance.

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8. The employment of these devices has been found to enable the poet to

invite the attention of his readers to certain important aspects of the poem.

However, when a poet employs a certain device for foregrounding, then

certain portion of the poem or the norms serve as backgrounding for

example; as shown under grammatical deviation (point 2.3.7.), in Robert

Graves‘s ‗Flying Crooked‘, the title is an interesting collocation. The title

violates the norms of collocation. In Standard English, some words go in

company of some words. Their environment, in other words which word

should precede and which should follow, is fixed. It also violates the rules of

compatibility. The adjective should be compatible with the noun. Thus we

can say ‗flying swiftly‘ because ‗swiftly‘ possess such qualities that are

compatible with ‗flying‘, but the word ‗crooked‘ possesses qualities like

‗violent‘, ‗dangerous‘ ‗beast‘ which are incompatible with ‗flying‘. Thus,

these norms serve as backgrounding. Forestalling of the use of norms

appeals the readers‘ conscience, which ultimately activates the interpretation.

9. It has been marked that deviation is a purposeful aesthetic distortion of

standard language. Poets break the normal rules of language to discover

certain poetic truth. It is for this reason that poetic language is considered as

specialized language. Western concept of deviation and eastern concept of

Vakrokti are poetic licenses. Deviation is an unexpected irregularity of

expressions. The poetic language is distorted on different levels of language.

The distorted poetic language appears ungrammatical and unacceptable on

the surface level, but on the deeper structural level, it leads the reader to

some higher kind of truth, which in normal expression would have been

impossible. Lexical deviation is a kind of neologism as it is seen in case of

Wallace Stevens‘s poem, ‗The Emperor of Ice cream‘ where the verb ‗be‘ is

used as ‗noun‘. The phonological deviation in Milton‘s ‗Invocation‘

regarding employing multisyllabic word ‗disobedience‘ in the midst of

monosyllabic words hints at the attention catching devices through deviation.

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The verbless sentence in Ezra Pound‘s ‗In a Station of Metro‘ hints at the

new kind of grammar invented by the poet. In other words deviated use of

language establishes the truth.

10. The study has evaluated the fact that parallelism is an occurrence of

identical structures. The structures are identical on different level of

language like grammar, phonology, semantics, graphology etc. Unlike

deviation, it is an unexpected regularity. The significance of parallelism rests

on equivalence. Parallelism works on both level; similarity and contrast.

Under semantic parallelism (point 3.3.1.), the effect of equivalence on

meaning is described by drawing tree diagrams of noun phrases and

prepositional phrases from Blake‘s poem ‗London‘. The parallel structure of

NP and PP hints at significant interpretations. From tree diagram it can be

viewed NP is a part of PP. and PP is a part of NP. This interdependence is

also true in case of the civilians of London city. The function of parallelism

is so diverse that its multi-diversity cannot be summarized; though its

occurrence chiefly marks emphasis, memorability and aesthetic pleasure.

11. The study has yielded the result that repetition, as a stylistic device of

analysis, is different from parallelism. There is controversy regarding

whether parallelism is a part of repetition or repetition is a part of

parallelism. Notwithstanding, the similarity between them which is

insignificant, the difference between them is important. Parallelism consists

invariables along with variables. Repetition consists only invariables. The

exact repetition of linguistic unit is a hallmark of repetition. On a wider

level, repetition can be extended to analogy and intertextuality. Repetition

expresses diverse kind of emotions like surprise, irritation doubt etc. Though

there is no upper limit to repetition, generally the repeated item depends on

the encoder‘s emotion and decoder‘s endurance.

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12. It has been recognized that the use of shift of register is very useful in

asserting the existence of double perception. It proves the multi-linguality of

the poet. It is an attempt on the part of poet to maintain verisimilitude. Poets

of all ages have employed shift of register. Nonnative poets in English,

whenever do not find equivalent words for indigenous experience, they

employ the words from their native languages by transliteration. Borrowings

from different registers in Eliot‘s ‗The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock‘

prove the psychological imbalance of the person. His split personality is

marked by the shift of register in his speech as discussed under semantic

shift of register (5.3.1.).

13. It has been found that figure of speech is a kind of deviated use of

language. In western literary tradition, it was studied under rhetorics. The

study of figures of speech, though till today is considered as a traditional, yet

recent stylistic studies on metaphors, irony, pun, alliteration and a few other

figures of speech have been initiated in the recent past. Under the new light

of stylistic studies, the studies on figures of speech have reflected a few

significant contributions to the field of psychology. Many scholars believe

that metaphor is a thought itself. It describes the way the poet‘s mind work.

Structural metaphor, Orientational metaphor and Conduit metaphor (6.3.1.2.)

are the new findings. The study of these metaphors arrives at the same basics

of all human languages because the languages have the same grammar called

as universal grammar. People speak different languages but they share the

same bent of mind for critical thinking for example ‗happiness is up‘, this

metaphor is found in all languages.

14. The stylistic analysis of selected sixty poems in English from different

countries has proved the fact that like native poets of English, nonnative

poets too have stylistic competence of English. African poet Wole Soyinka‘s

‗To My First White Hairs‘ is marked by graphological deviation. New

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Zealand poet Allen Curnow‘s ‗Time‘ is marked by repetition. Singaporean

poet, Edwin Thumbo‘s ‗Ulysses by the Merlion‘ is marked, along with other

stylistic features, by intertextuality; this proves the fact that poets of

commonwealth literature too have stylistic competence, sense of tradition

and individual talents. Indian poets in English too are experimental. Dilip

Chitre‘s, ‗Father Returning Home‘ employs the double action verbs in the

phrases like ‗sleep listening‘ and ‗sleep dreaming‘ etc. to show the busy life

of modern man.

7.3. Pedagogical Significance

Stylistic analysis has pedagogical implications since the stylistic devices

activate the readers to interact with the expressions. True learning of

language is always a consequence of the active participation of learner in the

learning process and that is served in stylistic analysis. Stylistic analysis is

originated from formalism and is developed by structuralism, is in fact as old

as criticism and is still developing as a new pedagogical theory of

understanding literature in better manner. Apart from that, it has been found

that it helps the learner to strengthen their linguistic competence,

communicative competence and even stylistic competence. The study has

identified that there is a wide scope of running stylistic methods of poetic

analysis in classroom teaching to develop learners‘ competencies. Teacher

can analyze a small poem stylistically as are given in the thesis and may ask

the students to do stylistic analysis of some other poems.

7.4. Scope for Further Research

Analysis of poetry is a subject that is always expanding and opening new

directions of research. Stylistics is a discipline that expands on the insights of

other disciplines. Psychology, sociology and many other disciplines can

contribute to the research in stylistics. The discoveries of new theories in

these fields can widen the horizons of the interpretations in stylistics. The

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optimistic note about stylistic analysis can be expected in the emerging sub

disciplines of stylistics viz. feminist stylistics, corpus stylistics, statistical

stylistics, psychological stylistics, anthropological stylistics etc. Ideology

and philosophy of a particular community can be studied by applying the

interpretative skills of stylistics and by analyzing the spoken data of the

speakers of that community.

Apart from literary stylistics, the potentials of stylistic analysis can be

utilized for understanding better the language of newspapers, reports, films

and mass media along with the language of advertisement. Cognitive

stylistics is burgeoning every day. Stylistics analysis is a helpful tool in the

hands of scholars to shed new light on how large amount of data can be

analyzed with the help of computers. Over the course of the next few years,

researchers might be expected to do research in comparative mode between

literatures of different languages of the same author. It has been identified

that stylistics of humour, pathos, love and other emotions can avail

dramatists, authors and film scriptwriters the ways to evoke effectively these

feelings in the minds of readers. The future of the research in stylistic

analysis of poetry is bright in order to discover number of ways of teaching

poetry as stylistics is based on actual classroom teaching practice.