Closing Statement: Linguistics an, 1 Poetics

ROMAN JAKOnSON
Fortunately. and political conferences have nothing in common.
The success of a political convention depends on the general ;lgrccllIcllt
of the majority or totality of its p'lrticip.:lnls. ThL' of votes and vetoes,
however, i'i alien to .c;chobrly di-;;lgrcclllcnt gL'llcrally
proves to be morc productive than agreement. Disagreemenl discloses
antinomies and tensions within the field discussed and calls for novel
exploration. Not political conferences hut rather exploratory activities in
Antarctica prescnt an analogy to scholarly meetings: international experts
in various disciplines altcmpt to map an unknown region and lind out
where the greatest obstacles for the explorer ore, the insurmonnl:tblc peaks-
and precipices. Such a mapping seems to have been the chief task of our
conference, and in this r('ipect its work has been qnite Ha\-e we
not realiled what prohlelll'i arc the mmt crucial and the most contro-
versial? Have we not <llso learned how to switch our codes. \vhat terms to
ex.pound or even to avoid in order to prevent misunderstandings with
people using di [ferent departmental jargon? Such questions, I helieve. for
most of the memhers of this conference. ir not for:tll of them. an! some-
wh:lt clearer today lh<ln they were three days ago.
I have been <lsked for summary remark:; :.lbotlt poetics in its rdation to
linguistics. Poetics deals prim:.uily with the question. What makes a
!"Nhal m(,5.'>Ogc a lI'ork of ar,? Because the main subject of poetics is the
dijjcrenlias!,uifica of verbal art in relation to other arts and in rclation to
other kinJ,'\ of verb:tl behavior. poetics is entitled lo the leadin!; place in
litcrary studies.
Poetics deals with prohkms of verbal structure. just as the analysis of
painting is concerned with pictorial structure. Since linguistics is the
global science of verbal structure. poetics may be regarded as an integral
part of linguistics.
Arguments against such a claim mlLst be thoroughly discussed. It is
evident that many devices studied by poctics arc not confined to \-erbai
art. \Ve can refer to the possibility of transposing WUlherillg inlo
a motion picture, medieval legends into frescoes and miniatures. or
L'opres-miJi c/'UI1 faune into music, ballet, and graphic art. However
ludicrous may appear the idea of the ]/jad and Odyssey in comics, certain
)SO
Cl(}jinf! Statement: Urrgui.flics utld Poeticr
351
s,tructur;\1 features of their plot :.He preserved despite the disappe:3rance
of their verbal sh3pe. The question whether nl;,ke's illustratioM 10 the
Dil fila Cnmmrdia are or are not adequate is 3 proofth:n difTerent arts are'
comparable. Tile problems of b:lroque or any other historical style
tran5grcss the frame of a single art. When handling the surrealistic
metaphor, we could hardly pnss by Max Ernst's pictures or Luis Ilui'iuefs
films, The Andalltsian Dog and The GoMen Age. In short. many poetic
.-featurcs belong not only to the science of language but to the who-le
theory of signs. that is, to general semiotics. This stateml!nt. however. is
valid not only for verbal art but for all varieties of I::tnguagl! since
language many properties with some other systcms of signs or even
with all of Ihel11 (pansemiotic
likewise :1 second objectinll contains nothing that would hI! specific for
literature: the que.<;tion of rclntions the word and the "orld
concerns not only vcrbJI art but actual1y all kinds of discourse. Linguistics
is likel) to explore all possible prohlems of relation between discourse and
the "universe.of discourse": what of this universe is verbalized by a given
discourse and how is it verhalized. The truth values, however, as far as
they arc-to say with the 10gicians-"extr:1linguistic entities," obviously
exceed the bounds of poetics and of linguistics in general.
Sometimes we hear that poetics. in contradistinction to linguistics. is
concerned with c\'alu:1tion. This separation of the two fields from each
other is based on a current but erroneous interpretation of the contrast
between the structure of poetry and other types of verb:!1 structure: the
latter are said to be opposed by their "casual," dcsignless nature to the
"noncasual," purpO$cf ul character of poetic lang\1Jgc. In point orract. any!
vClbal hehavior is gnal-dirl'('ted, but the aim" are different and the '(tn_{
formity of the me3ns used to the elTect ail11ed 'It is a evermore
preoccupies inquirers into the diverse kinds of verb .. 1 communication.
There is a close correspondence. Illuch closer than critics bclie\'c. :
the question of linguistic phenomena expanding in sp:lce 3nd time and the
spatial and temporal spread of literary models. Even such discontinuous
ex.pansion as the resurrection of neglected or forgotten poets-for insl:tn(e.
the posthumous discovery and subsequent canoniz31ion of Gerard Manley
Hopkins (d. 1889), the tardy fame of Lautrcamont (d. 1870) among
surrealist poets, and the salient influence of the hitherto ignored Cyprian
Norwid (d. ISS)} on Polish modern poetry-find a parallel in the history
of standard languages which are prone to revive outdated models. some-
times long forgotten, as was the case in literary Czech which toward the
beginning of the nineteenth century ieaned to sixtel!nth-century models.
Unfortunately the terminological confusion of "literary studies" with
"criticism" tempts the student of literature to replace the description of
352
Retrospects and Prospects
the intrinsic value" of a litcr:lry v!ork by suhjective. ccnsoriouc; verdict.
The J:1hcl "literary critic" npplicd to <1n of literature is as
erroneolls :1<" "gram mat leal (or lexical) critic" would he a rplicd to a lingui,t.
Syntactic and morphologic by a normative
grammar, and likewise no manifesto. rOlstmg a critic S own a.nd
opinions on creattve literature, may act as mb-s.titutc for an
scholarly analysi .. of verbal art. This statement is not to be n,llslakcn
for the quid is! rrinciplc of !ai.ue;: Jain?; any verbal culture IIlvolvcs
programm:ltic. planning. normallv!.: Yd is a clear-cut
di\crimination made hetween pure :lnd applied or hetweel1
phonctics and orthocpy hut not literary 'i1.II11ics '!
Literary !<.tutiics, with poetics a!<. their focal portion. consl!<.t hke
P"UI">t ics of two !<.els of prohlem'\: synchrony alH.I diachrony. The synchroillc
description cnvi ... agcs not only the litcr:HY production of any
but also that rart of the literary II""dilion which for the stage 10 ques\lon
has remaincJ vital or hac; been rcvivcd. Thus, for inst"l1CC. Shakespcare on
the one hand and Donne, Marvell. Keats. "nt! Eillily Dickinson on the
other arc e.xperiellced hy the present Eng.lish poetic world. whereas the
works or Jamcs Thomson "nd ror the tillle being. do not
helong to viable art!.;;!ic values. The selectioll or c!a\sics and
prctalion by a nO'd trend is a subst;l11tial prohlem of synchrolllc literary
studies. Synchronic poetics, like synchronic is not to con-
fuscd with statin,; any stage discrimin<ltes between more conservatl\"C and
morc innovatory form ... Any cOllt..;mporary stage is expcricnccu in its
temporal dynamics, and. 011 the other hand. the historical approach both
in poetics :lnu in linguistics is concerned not only with change .. hut
with cont;nuou ... enduring. slatie factors. A thoroughly comprehenSIve
historical poetics or history of languag.e is a supcrslrUl.:lure to be built on a
series of successive synchronic description ...
111 .. ; .. lcnce on kecping poetics apart from linguistics is w<lrrantcJ only
when the field of linguistics "prears to he illicitly rC:<itricted. for cx<llllpic.
when the sentence is viewcd by some linguists as the hig.hcst
con .. truction or whcn the scope of lingui:<itics is confined to grammar nlone
or uniquely to nonsemnnlic questions of external form or 10 the
of denotative devices with no reference to free variations. Voegelin has
clearly pointed out the two most important "nd related \\hic.h
fuee structural linguistics. namely, a revision of "t he monollllilc hypotheSIS
of languagc" and a concern with "t he interdcpendence of structures
within one languagt":' No doubt. for any speech communlly. for tiny
speaker, there exists a unity oflangutlgc. but this over-all code represcnts a
system of interconnected subcodcs; each
concurrent patterns which are each charactcTlzcd by a dllTerent funcllon.
!
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Clos;tll! Statement: Linguistics and roetics
353
Oh .. iously we must "grec wilh that, on the ,,,hole, reigns
supreme in langu::Igc ... "(J.aR), hut Ihis surremacy does not authorize
linguistics to disregan.l the "seconuary ftlctors." The emotive ek'ments of
speech which. as loos is prone to believe, cannot be described "" ith a
finite numher of absolute categories," are classified by him "as non-
linguistic clements of the real WOfW." "for \J5 tlK-y remain vague,
protean. tluclu:tting phcnomena," he concludes, "which we refuse to
tolerate in our science" (2U). loos is indeed a brilliant expert in reduction
experimcnts, "IHI his elllph:lIic rcquiremcnt for an "c:xpllision" of the
emotive clcmcnts "frolll linguistic scicnce" is a radical c'peril1lcnt in
reduction-reductio ad nh.mrdlllll.
Language 1l1l1:<it he ilm:stigatcd in ailihe variety of ils functions. Ikfore
disclJssing the poetic function we must ddinc its pl;.1Cc nl110ng the other
functions of language. An outlinc of thcse functions dcmands " concise
survey of the constitutive factors in any speech event. in any act of verbal
cOlllmunication. The ADI1R[S!)[R sends a M[SSAGE to the ADDRESSEE. To be
operati .... e thc mcss"gc CONTEXT referred to ("rcrerent" in another,
somewhat ambiguous. nomenclature). seimblc by the addressee. and
either verb,,1 or cap:1ble of being verbalized: a ("ODE fully. or tit least
partially. comlllon to the addresser :1Ild addrt!ssce (or in other words, to
the encoder and decoder of the message); and, fin::lIly. a CO!'.lTACT, tt
physical channel and psychological connection between the addresser and
the addressee, enabling both of them to enter and stay in communication.
All these factors inalienably involvcd in verbal communication m"y be
schematized as follows:
ADDRESSER
CONTEXT
MESSAGE
CONTACT
CODE
. ADDRESSEE
Each or thcse six f"ctors determines a dirTcrent runction of language.
Although we distinguish six basic "specls of I"nguage. we coult!. ho\\c,er.
hardly rind verbal messages that would fulfill only onc function. The
divcrsity lics not in a monopoly of some one of these several functions but
in a dilferent hicrarchical order of functions. The verbal structure of a
message depends primarily on the predominant function. But ncn though
a sct (Einsldlung) toward the rcferent, an orientation toward the CO:-.TEXT
-brieny the so-called RF:FERENTIAL, Udenotative:' Ucognitivc" function-
is the Icading task of numerous messages, the accessory participation of the
other functions in such messages must be taken into account by the
observant linguist.
\
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354 Retrospects and Prospects
The so-called nlOTlVE or function, focused on the
ADDRESSER, aims a direct expression of the speaker's attitude toward what
he is speaking about. It tends to produce an impression of a certain emo
tion whether true or feigned; . therefore, the term "emotive," launched and
advocated by Marty (269) has. proved to be preferable to "emotional."
The purely emotive stratum in language is prcs,cnte.d by the interjections.
They differ frolll the means of language both by their sound
paHcrn (peculiar sound sequences or even sounds elsewhere unusual)
and by their syntactic role (they are not components but equivalents of
sentences). "TUf! TUff said McGinty": the complete utterancc of Conan
Doylc's character consists of two suction clicks. The cmotive function,
laid bare in the interjectiom;, flavors to somc extcnt ali our utterances,
on their phonic, grClmmatic;:ll, and lexical level. If wc analY1c bnguagc
from the standpolllt of the information it carries, we canTlot restrict the
notion of information to the cognitive aspect of language. A man, using
expressive features to indicate his angry or ironic attitude, conveys
ostensible informiltion, and evidently this verbal behavior cannot be
likened to such nonsemiotic, nutritive activities as "eating grapcfruit"
(despite Chatman's bold simile). Thc dilTcrence between [big] and the
emphatic prolongation of the vowel [bi: g] is a conventional, coded
linguistic feature likc the difTl:fencc hetween the short ;'IIH.I long vo""eI in
such Czech pairs :1S [vi] 'you' and [vi:] 'knows,' but in the lattcr pair the
ditTercntial information is phonemic and in the former elllotive. As long
as we arc interested in phonemic invariants, the lit /i:f appear
to be mere variants of one and the samc phoneme, hut if we arc concerned
with emotive unite;. the rcbtion hetwecn the invariant and vari::lIlts is
I revcrscu: length and shortness arc invariants implemented by variable
phoncmcs. Saporta's surmise that emotive dilTerelH:e is a nonlinguistic
feat ure, "attrihutable to the delivery of the message and not to I he message,"
arhitrarily reduces the informational capacity of messages.
A former actor of Stanislavskij's Moscow Theater told me how at his
audition he was asked by the famolls director to make forty ditTaent
messages from the phrase Segor/"ja l'C'c-erom 'This evening,' by divcrsir)ing
its expressive tint. He made a list of some forty emotional situations. then
emitted the given phrase in accordance with each of these situ;lIiollS,
which Ilis audience had to recognize only from Ihe changes in the sound
shape of the same two words. For our research work in the description
and analysis of contemporary Standard Russian (under the auspices of the
Rockefeller Foundation) this actor was asked to repeat St::lI1isbvskij's
test. He wrote down some lifty situations framing the same elliptic
sentence and made of it fifty corresponding messages for a tape record.
Most of the messages were correctly and circumstanthllly decoded by
Cloring Statement: Linguistics and 355
Moscovite listeners. May I add that all such emotive cues e:lsily undergo
linguistic analysis.
Orientation toward the ADDRESSEE, the CONATIVE function, finds its
purest grammatical expression in the vocative and imperati"e, which
syntactically, morphologically, and often even phonemically deviate from
other nominal and verbal categories. The irpperative sentences cardinally
differ from dcdar:ttive sentences: the latter are and the former are n-ot
liable to a truth test. When in O'Neill's play The> FOU1IIail', Nano, "(in a
tone of command)," says "Drink !"-the imperative c:lonol be
challenged by the question "is it true or not 7" which may be, however.
perfectly well asked after such sentences as "one drank," "one will drink;'
"one would drink." In contradistinction to the imperative sentences. the
declarative sentcnces :Ire convertible into intcrrof!ative sentences: "did
onc drink 7" "will one drink?" "would onc drink 1"
The Iradition;tl model of IJnguage as elucidated particularly by Buhler \'"
(51) was confined to these three functions-emotive, eonative, and
referential-and tl'le three of this model-the fIrst person of the .
addresser. the second person of the addressee, and the "third person," \.
properly-somcone or something spoken of. Certain additional verbal
functions can be easily inferred from this triadic model. Thus the magic.
inc:lntalory function is chicny sOl11e kind of convcrsion of an absenc or
inanimate "third person" into an addressee of a conative message. "May
Ihis Sly dry up, 'ra, 'f", ifa, if"" (Lilhuanian spell: 266, p. 69). "Waler,
queen river. dayhreak! Send grief heyond the blue sel. to the sea-bottom,
like a grey never to rise from the sea-hottom. 111;IY !!ricf Ile\'cr corne
to hurden Ihe light heart of God's servant. may grief be rerno"'cJ :md sink
away." (North Russian inclIltation: J ..B. p. 217f.), "Sun. stand thuu still
upon Gihcon: and thou, Moon, in the valley of Aj-a-Ion. And Ihe
stood !;Iill, and tht! moon stayed ... t, (Josh. 10.12). We ohserve, howeycr.
three further constitutive factors of verbal and three
corresponding functions or languagc.
There are llless;lges primarily serving to establish, to prolong. or to dis-
continue communication, to check whether the channel works ("Hello, do
you hear me ?"), to attract the attention of the interlocutor ortoconlirm his
continued attention ("Are you listening?" or in Shakespearean diction.
"Lend me your ears!"-and on the other end of the wirc "Urn-110m!").
This set for CONTACT, or in Malinowski's terms PIIATTC function
may be displayed by a profuse exchange of ritualized formulas, by enttre
dialogues with the mere purport of prolonging communication. Dorothy
Parker caught eloquent examples: .. 'Well!' the young man said. 'Weill'
she said. 'Well, here we are,' he said. 'Here.we are,' she said, 'Aren't we?'
'I should say we were,' he said, 'Eeyop! Here "we are.' 'Well!' she said.
Rctro.flpC'cts Otlll Prospects
'Well!' he ... aid, 'welL' .. The endeavor to and communication
! is typical ofwl\.,ing hird,,; thus the pilatic function oflangtl:1g;e is thc only
: one Ihey share with human beings. It is also the first verhal function
! acquired by infants; they arc pr.onc to communicate before being ablc to
send or n:ceive inform<ltive communicatioll.
A distinction has been made in modern logic between two of
"ohjecl languagc" spc'lk;ng of ohjccts and
speaking of language. But metalanguage i" not only a necessary <;cientifie
tool utilized hy logicians and linguists: it plays al<;o an illlport;\Ilt role in
our c .... crJay language. Like Molierc's Jourdain u"ed pro<;e without
knowing it, we pfm:tice met:dangllage without rc:di/ing the !l1c1alingual
character of our operations. Whcncver the ,uldres<;cr and/or thc addressee
need to -:heck up whether they usc the S'lIlle code, spel'ch is focu"ed on the
CO[)E: it performs a MHALJNGUAL (i.e . gloo;"ing) function. "I dOIl't follow
you-wlmt do YOll mean?" asks the iHldrc<;<;ce, or in Sha\.:cspc;)rcaTl
diction. "What i<;'t thou <;ay'st T' t\ nd the iH.ldre"ser in anticipat ion of sllch
rcc;)ptllring questions inquires: Do you know what I llle:1I1?" Imagine
such an ex;:t"perating dialogue: "The sophomore was plucked." "RUI
what is plllcked?" "Plucked nlC'InS the same a<;jlllllked." "/\ndjlw1!.:rrl?"
"To he jlrmked is for ai/ in 01' exam." "And what is S(I/,holl1o/"e?" pcrsists
the interrogator innocent of school vocahulary. "A .1'0/,/101/101"(' is (or
me<ll1s) <I seuJlldyclIr sllld('I1/." All Ihe<;e equational sentences convl?Y
inrormation merely ahout Ihe lexical code of Eng!ish; their rUlleti(lIl is
qrictly metalinguiil. Ally process of langu:lge karning. in p:lrtinll:1f child
acqui"ition of the mother tongue. wide usc or such lllctalingu;)l
operations; and ilpha<;ia m<.ly often be defined as a loss of ability for
metalingual l)peralions.
\
We h;lve hrouht lip six r'.'lctors invoh'cd in verhal.cOIl1I1lUllic:Jtion
except the me<;"agc it"elf. The set (EillSlelhlllg) toward the Mt SSACt: as
sll(:h. rol.:u<; on the for Its own i" the I'OJ IIC fUllction or
Jangu;lge. This function cannot he pro(tuctin.'ly <;tudied out or touch with
the general problems of language. and. on the other hand. the scrutiny of
bngu<lgc reqllires a thorough consideration of its poctic function. Any
attempt to reduce the sphere of poetic rUllclion to poetry or to contine
poetry 10 poetic function would be a dehlsive over<;implilicalion. Poetic
fUllction j" not the sole function of verbal art hut only its dominatlt.
dctermining function, whereas in all other verhal it aLls as a
sub"iuiary. aeces"ory constituent runclion, by promoting the
palpability of sigm. deepens the fundamental dichotomy of signs and
objects. Hence. whcn with poetic function, linguistics c:lnnot
limit itself to the tield of poetry.
"Why do you always say Joan and Marger)" yet never Margl'f)' al/(/Joan?
,
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Glosi,,/! Stn/clUe",: UIIJ!";.fltic.f nml POl,tics
"-
357
Do you prefer Joan to her twin sister?" "Not' at ::til, it just sounds
smoother." In a sequencc of two coonJinate names. as r;)r as no rank.
problems interfere, the precedence of the shorter nnme suits the sp\!akcr.
unaccountably for him, as a well-ordered shape of the message.
A girl used to t;llk about "the horrihle Harry." "Why horrible?"'
"Bccause I hate him." "Rut why not drC'adfitl, I('rrih/t', frightful. rlis-
grwillg?" '" don't know why. bUI IJor,.ihl4' lits him Without
rcalizing it, she clung to the poetic device of
The political slog:1I1 "I like Ike" 1:ly layk ayk/, sllccinctly structured,
of three Illollmyllahlcs ;\I1t! cOllnts three diphthongs layl, e:ll:h of
them symllletril':lIly rollowed hy one phollern..:. I .. 1 .. k .. k/.
The makr.:.up of the three \\,on.l .. presents a v:lriatiol1: no conson:lIl1:tl
phonemcs in I he !irst \vonl, two arollnd the diphthong in t he second. and onc
linal consol1nnt in the third. A similar dominant nuclcus layl was noticed
by Ilymes ill some of the sonnets of Ke::lts. Both cola of th..: tri .. yll:lbic
formula "I like like': rhyme with each olher, and the second or the two
rhyming words is fully included in the !irst onc (echo
a paronollwstie image of a feeling which totally envelops ohjeet. Both
cola alliterate with c:leh other, and thc lirst of the two :llIilerating words is
includcd in the second: a i1l1:1ge of the loving
subjcct enveloped hy the heloved object. The Sel:Olld;lry. pOdic function of
this election:11 calch phrase reinforces its :tnd cllicacy.
,\s we said, the linguistic study of the poetic function must overstep the
limits of poetry. ;lIlt!. on Ihe other hand, the sl'f\ltiny of poetry
callnot limit itsclf to the poetic function. The particularities of divers\!
poetic genres imply a dilTerclltly ranked partieipalion of the (Hher \erhal
runctions along ",itlt the dominant poetic function. Epic r0etry. focused
on the third rerson, strongly involves the rcicrl!nti;li runction of hlngu:J.gc;
the lyric. oriented to" .. :trd the first person, is intimately linked "ith the
emotive rUllction; poetry of the second pcrson is imhued with the con;lti\c
function and is either supplicatory or exhort:ttive, depcnding on whcther the
first person is to Ihl! second one or the second to the first.
l'!ow that our cursory description of the six basic functions of verbal
communication is more or less complete, we may eomplementourschcme of
the fundamental factors by a corresponding scheme of the runctions:
EMOTIVE
REFERENTIAL
POETIC
PHATIC
METALINGUAL
CONATIVE
358
Retrospects and Prospects
What is the empirical linguistic criterion or the poc{ic fundion? In
particular. what is I he indispensable feature inherent in any piece of poetry?
To answer this question we must recall the two basic modes of arrangement
used in verbal behavior, sr/rclinn and comhinafion. If "child" is the topic of
J' the message. the speaker selects onc among the extant. more or less similar,
. nouns like child. kid. ),oung,,{cr, lot, all .or them equivalent in a certain
respect. anti then. to comment on this topic, he may select one of the
semantically cognate verbs-sleeps. d07es, nods, nap". ilolh chosen wortls
combine in the speech chain. The selection is produced on the hasc of
equivalence ... imibTity and di ... similarity. synonymify and antonymity,
I while the eomhin:llion, Ihe build up orlile sequence, is based Oil
I The I'oetic jUllifhm I'rojects t"e prillcil"e cquim/cl1c(' FOII/ t"e axis of'
sel{'(tiol1 into ,hc (lxis of cflllIhillotion. Equivalence is promoted to the
con<;,titlltive Jevice or the sequence.! In poetry one syllahlr: is equalized
with any other syllahlc or the same sequence; word stress is assumed to
equal word stree;s. as une;tress equals umtress: pro<;odic long is matched
with long. and short with short; word boundary equals word boundary,
no boundary equale; no houndary: syntactic pause equals syntactic pause.
no pallse equal .. no pause. Syllahles arc converted into units or measure,
and so arc morae or stresses.
It may he ohjected th<.lt mct:.,danguage al<;o makes a sequential usc or
equivalent units when eomhining synonymic expressions into an
tional sentence: A = A ("Marl! is I"" felllale 0I the horsc"). Poetry and
metalanguage, however, arc in diametrical opposition to each other: in
metalanguage the sequence is used to build an equation. whereas in poetry
the equation is used to build a sequence.
In poetry. and to a certain extent in \;Itent manirestations or poetic
function, scquence<; dclimited by word boundaries hccome comlllen-
surahle whether they ::He sensed as isochronic or graded. ".loan and
Margery" showed IlS the poetic principle of syllable tilt: same
principle which in the closes or Serbian rolk epics has been raised to a
comrulsory law (cr. 2MH. Witbout its two dactylic \vords tbe combination
"ill"ocelll by.ttander" would hardly have become a hackneyed phrnse.
The symmetry or three verbs with an identical initial consonant
and identical final vowel added splendor to the laconic victory message or
Caesnr: "Vclfi. rh/;. rid:'
Measure or sequences is a device which. outside of poetic runction. finds
no application in language. Only in poetry with its regubr rc;ter?tion of
equivalent units is the time of the speech flow experienced. as it is-to
cite another semiotic pattern-with musical time. Gerard Manley
Hopkins. an outstanding searcher in the science or poelie language.
defined verse as "speech wholly or partially repeating the same figure of
I
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Closi,!g Statement: Linguistics and Poetics
359
sound" Hopkins' suhseqllent question. "but is all verse poetry:'
can he definitely answered as soon as poetic runction to be :ubi.
trarily confined to the domain of poetry. Mnemonic lines cited by
(like ."Thirty days hath September"). modern advertising
Jmgles. and versllled medieval!aws. mentioned by LOll. or finallv Sanserit
scientific treatises in verse which in Indic trJdition arc strictly
from .true (ktirya)-all texts m:lke use of poetic
. wlthollt,. ho\\c.ver, to this runction the coercing.
rolc It carnes in poetry. Thus verse actually e:.;.cccds the
hmlts of poetry. but at the same time always implies poetic function.
And apparently 110 human cuiture ignores vcrsema\r..ing. \\hen::ls there arc
m:lny cultural patterns without "applied" vcrse; ;1I1d e\'cn in stich
cultures which possess both pure and applied vcrses. the latterappc:lT to he 3
sceol.ldary, unquestionably derived phenomenon. The adaptation or
poetic means for some hcterogeneous purpose docs not conee:ll their
primary essence. just as elements or emoti\'e lanCllace. when utilized in
poetry. still mai1ltain their emotive tinge. A may recite
it is long. yet poetical ness still remains the primary
mIen I or thiS text IIsc1r. Sdf-cvidently. the c:.;.islcnce or \'Crsified. musical,
and pictorial coml1lercials does not separ:!le the questions or vcrse or of
musical and piclori:1I rorm rrom the study of podry. mllsic. and fine arts.
To sum up. the analysis of verse is entirely within the competence or
poetics, and the latter may be defined as that part or linguistics which
tre:lls the poelie rUllclion in its relationship to the othcr runcticll1s or
language. Poetics in the wider sense or the word de:ds with the poetic
function nol only in poetry, where this runction is superimposed upon the
other functions or hut also outside of poctry. \"hen some other
function is superimposed upon the poetic runction.
The reiterative "Iigure of sound," which Hopkins S3W to be the
principle of verse, can be rurther specilied. Such a figure always
utdlles at least one (or more than one) binary contrast of a relatively
high Jnd relatively low prominence effected by the differcnt sections or
the phonemic sequence.
Within a sy\1ahle the more prominent, nuclear, syllabic part.
tuting the peak or the syllable. is opposed to the less prominent, marginal.
nonsyllahic phonemes. Any syllabIc contains a syllabic phoneme. ::lIld the
intervJI hct\\cen two successive syllabics is in some languages and
in others overwhelmingly carried out by marginal, nOllsyllabic phonemes.
In the so-called syllabic versification the number of syllabics in a metrically
ddimited chain (time series) is a constant, whereas the presence of a
nonsyllabie phoneme or cluster between e"ery two syllabies of a metrical
chain is a constant only in languages with an occurrence of
- - ------ -------
360
RetrrMpects atJd Prospects
nomyllabics between syllabics and, furthermore, in those verse sy .. tcms
where hiJtus is prohihited. Another mtlnifcstation of a tendency toward a
uniform syllahic model is the avoidance of closed syllahlcs althe end oflhc
tine. ohservahle. for instance, in Scrbi;Jn epic songs. The Italian syllabic
verse :::.hows a tendency 10 lre<lt a sequence of vowds uno;,cpar:'llcd hy conso-
nantal phonemes as one single metrical syllabic (cf. 247:1, sees. VIII-IX).
In some patterns of the syllahlc is the only comtanl unit
of verse and a grammatical limit is the only con\lanl line of
dcm;lrcation between measured sequcllces, whcrc<l'> in other patterns
syllahlc,> ill turn an; dichololl1i:tcd into more and prominent, and/or
two kvels of grall1lllatic;d limits ;In: diqingui"hcJ in their metrical
runction, wonJ houndaries syntactic pau\t.:s.
Except the varieti!:s or the so-calkti vcrs lihre th.lt arc based on eon-
jllgatc intonations and pauses only. any meIer tlses the syllahle as a unit
or measure at least in cert:lin sections or Iheverse. Thlls in the pllrely
accentual verse ("sprung rhythm" in Hopkins' vocabulary). the number or
syllahles in the upheat (called "slack" hy Hopkins) Illay vary, btu the
down heat (ictus) eon'll:!lllly contains one single syllahlc.
In any accentual \'erse the contrast between higlll:r and lo\\cr prominencc
is achieved by syll:lhlcs ulHkr slress versus IIIlS(res,cd syllahlc... Most
aCCl:ntual patterns opemte primarily with the contrast of syllahles with
and without word stress, but some varietie"" or ncccntual verse deal with
syntactic, phras;d <;fre"ses, those wllich Wimsatt :md Beardsky cite as "the
major stre:""l:" or the major word,," and whkh arc Oprosl:d as prominent
to syllahlcs without such major, "Ylltaclic slress.
In the qU;lntitati"e ("chroncl1lic") h'rse, long :111<1 sylbh1cs arc
mutually as more and promincnt. Til;:.. contrast is ll<;ually
carried out by syllahle nudei. phonemically long and Bur ill
metrical pallerns like Ancient Greek and !\rahic, which equali7c kllgth
"by p()<.,ition" with length "by nature." the minimal.\)'lIah1cs consisting or
a consonantal phoneme nnd one mora vo'.'.cI arc opposed fo syllables \\Ith
a surplus (3 second mora or a closil1gconsonant) as simpler and prorni-
nelH syllables opposed to those that arc more complex and promincnt.
The question still remains open whether. besides the :.accentual nnd the
chronemic Verse, there exists a "!onelllie" type orversilication in
where dilTercnccs or syllabic intonations :'Ire used to distill!!uish'-
meanings (19K). In classicaIChinesepoelry(293).syl1;lhlcswith n;odl,lations
(in Chinese (St:. 'dc-nected lones') are opposed to the nonmouulated
syllahlcs (p'ing. 'level tones'), but apparcntly n chroncmic principle unda.
lies this opposition, as was suspected by Polivanov (JIR:I) and keenly
intl:rpreted by Wang Li (4JHa): in the Chinese the level
tones prove to be opposed 10 the dellcetcd tOiles JS long tonal pe.lks or
F'
CIMinI! Statement: L/n:!ui.flicJ and P"('t;u
361
syllablcs to short ones, so that verse is based on the opposition or length
and shortness.
Joseph Greenh..:rg brought (0 my attention another variety or [anemic
versification-the verse of Efik riddles based on the level feature. In the
sample cited by Simmons (J79. p. 228). the query ant.I the form
two octosyllabks with an :tlike distrihution of h(ich} In<.l I(ow)-tonc
syll;lhics: in each hemistich. morcover, the last tl1rt.'e of the four syl1;tbles
prt.'selH nn identical !onemic pattern: ''''''/!tlt/dl/I/''''I'''''''!!. Where;ls
Chillec;c vcrsilication ;lrre;lrS as a peculiar variety of the qll3nlitative
verse, the verse or the EliI.' riddles is linked with the usual ;\t.'\.'('nlllal verse
bY;l1l opposition of two degrees orprol11incnce (slrl'ngth or of the
vOl'al tOile. Thus a metric}l system or ver.:-:ili(::ltitlll l':lll he based only on
the oppo;;ition of syllabic pe.lks and slopes (syl1'1hic verse). on the rl'lative
level oftllc peaks (accentual verse), nnd on the relative kngth oflhe sylbhic
peaks or entire syllabks (qu:lntil:ltive verse),
In textbooks Qf literature we sometimes encounter a superstitious
eontraposition of syllabi Sill as n mere mechanical count of syllables to the
lively pulsntion of accentual ver.:-:c. If '\o'l! however. the binary
mcters or the strictly syllahic and at the samc timc. acccntuni versilication.
we obscrvc two homogeneolls of w;)"e1ike peaks :md v;\l1eys,
or thesc two unduhllory curves, the syll<1hic olle ca.rries nuclear phonemes
in the crest nnd lIsually m:lrgin:11 phonemes in the bottom. As a rule the
;lecelltual curvc supcrposed upon the syll:lhic curve aileflt:ltes stressed and
unstressed syllables in the crests and hottoms respc\.'livdy.
For eomp;lrison with the English meters ",hi(,:h we have lengthily
di<;clls'\l'd. I hring 10 your attcntioll the similar Rtls"ian hi,l;iry vl..'r'e rorms
which for the last fifty years llave verily ullth.'rgol\c an C:dl:lllstive investi-
gation (sec pnrlieul:Jrly 407). The structure of the verse COlli be ...cry \
thoroughly described and interpreted in terms of enchained probabilities,
the compulsory word boundary bct\\een the lines. "hidl is nn
invarinnt throughout nil Russi:m meters. in the classic pattern of Russian
syllabic accentual verse ("syllabo-tonic" in nati\e nomenclature) we
observe the following constants: (1) the nllmber of syllablcs in the line
from its beginning to the last downbeat is stable; (2) this very last down-
beat always carries a word stress; (3);} stressed syl1nbk: cnnnot f<lll on the
upbeat if a downbeat is rulfilled by an unstressed syll<lblc of the same
word unit (so thnt a word stress enn coincide with an upbe:lt only ns rar as'
it belongs to a mon05yllabic word .unit).
Along with these characteristics compulsory for any linc composed in
a givcn metcr, there are rcatures that show a high probability of occurrence
without being constantly present. llesides signals to occur ("proba-
bility one"), signals likely to occur less th<l" one") enter
362
Retrosp(cts amI Prosp('clS
into the nolion of meIer. Using Cherry's description of human
cation (62), we could say that the reader of poetry obviously "m;\y he
unable 10 atlach numerical frequencies" to the constituents of the meter,
hut as rar as he conceives the vase shape, he unwittingly gets an inkling of
their "rank order."
In the Russian hinary meters all odd syllahles counting back from the
last downhcat-hricny, all the upheats-arc usually fulfilled by unstressed
syllahles. ('"ecpt some very low percentage of strc<iscd All
even syllables, again counting hack from the last downhc:ll. show a sizahle
preference for syllahlcs under word sIre"". hut the prohahililics of their
occurrence aTC uncq lIa Ily d rstrihuleu among the succes"ive down heals of the
line. The higher the relative frequency of word stresses in a given
beat, the lower the ratio shown hy the preceding downheat. Since the last
downbeat is constantly the next to last gives the lowest percentage
of word strcsses; in the preceding downl"leat 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
last downheat: and so on. Thus the distribution of word stresses among
the downbeats within the line. the split into strong and weak downbeats,
creates a rl'!{rl'ssire ulU/u/afnry curl'' 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
stresses.
The Russian binary meters reveal a stratified of three
undulatory curveS: (I) alternntion of syllahic nudei and l1l;lrgin'i; (11)
division of syllahic nuclei into alternating downbcats :md upheats: and
(Ill) alternation of strong and weak downbeats. For example. Russian
masculine iamhic tetmllleter of the nineteenth and present centuries may
be represented by Figure It and a similar triadic pattern appears in the
corresponding English forms.
Three of five downbeats arc deprived of word stress in Shelley's iambic
line" Laugh with an inextinguishable la ughtcr." Seven of sixteen downbeats
are stressless in the following quatrain from Pasternak's recent iambic
tetrameter Zemlja (" Earth "):
I (11ica za panibr:ita
S okonniccj podslcpov;itoj,
I bcloj noci i zabtu
Ne rilzminut'sja u rcki.
Since the overwhelming majority of downbeats concur with word stresses.
the listener or reader of Russian vcrses is prepJrcd with a high degree of
Closing SlatCn!('nt: linguistics and PO(?ticf 363
probability to meet a word stress in any even syllable of iambic Jines. but
at the very beginning of Pasternak.'s quatrain the fourth and, one foot
further, syllabic, both in the first and in the following line;
present him With a fruslraled expectation. The degree of sueh a "frus-
tration" is higher when the stress is lacking in a strong downbeat and
becomes particularly outstanding when two- successive downbeats are
!II
II
2 3 4 5 6 7
FJgure 1
carrying unstressed The of two adjacent down-
belts is the less probablc and thl! most striking when it embraces a whole
as in a bter line of the Slme pocm: "Ctohy za gorodskj6u gran'
JU" [s{')hyz.)g.1rack6jll gran'juJ. Thc expectation dcpcllJs on the treatment
of a given downbeat in the poem and more generally in the whole extant
metrical tradition. In the last downbeat but one, un stress may, ho" .. ever,
outweigh the stress. Thus in this poem only 17 of 41 lines have a word
stress on their sixth syllable. Yet in such a ease the inertia of the stressed
even syllables alternating with the unstressed odd syllables prompts
some expectancy of stress also for the sixth syllable of the iambic
tetrameter.
Quite naturally it \\:as Edgar Allan Poe, the poet and theoretician of
defeated anticipation, who metrically and psychologically appraised the
human sense of gratification for the unexpected arising from expected ness.
both of them unthinkable without the oppmite. "as e\:il cannot e:(ist.
without good" (316). Here we could.easily apply Robert Frost's formula
from "The Figure A Poem Makes": "The figure is the same as for
love" (128).
The so-called shifts of word stress in polysyllabic words from the
downbeat to the upbeat ("reversed feet"), which are unknown to the
--------
364
Rdr(UpcctJ amI Prospects
sl:lnt.lard of Rus<;ian verse, appear quite usually in English poetry
after a metric;!! <lnd/or syntactic pau!'c. A noticeahle "wmrle i<; the
rhythmical vari:uion of the same adjective in Milton's "'nfinite wrath and
inti"ilC despair." In the linc "Nearer, my God, to Thee, ncarer to Thee,"
the stressed syllahlc of onc and the same word occurs twice in the upbeat.
first at the beginning of the linc and a second time at the beginning of a
phra"c. This license, discussed hy Jespersen (212) and current in many
laogu'lgcs. is entirely cxpl<lin:.lblc by the p:Jrticular import of the relation
between an upheat ,Int! the immediately preceding downhcat. Where such
an immediate precedence is impeded by an inserted pause, the upheat
becomeo; a kind of s)"l/aha ance(1!i.
Be<iideo; the ruleo; which underlie the compulsory featurcs of verse, the
rules governing its option;)1 traits also to meter. We arc inclined to
designate such phenomena as unstress in the down heats and stress in
uphcats :.IS deviations, hut it he rememhered that these :tre :tllowed
oscillations, departures within the limits of the law. In British parliament-
ary terms, it is not an opposition to its majesty thc meter but an opposition
of its majesty. As to the actual infringements of metric:tl laws, the dis-
cuY-sion of such violations recalls Osip Brik, perhaps the keenest of RU<isian
formalists, v..ho used to say that political conspirators arc tried and
condemned only for unsuccessful attempts at a forcihle upheaval, hecause
J
II in the case of a SlKCI.!<isful COIiP it is the conspirators who aSSUIlll.! the role
I of and plw:.ecutors. II" tile violences the melcr take root,
I they theln<.elve<; heco1l1e metrical rules.
'-"ar from heing an ahstract, theoretical <icheme, metef-or in more
explicit tenn<:., ("a.H' rln(!!,I1- underlies the of" any single line or,
in logical terminology, any \ingle rast' int/lll1cl'. Iksi,Sn and instance ;lrc
correlatIve concerts. The versc determines thc invariant featurcs
of the vcrsc in<,tances and sets up i-he limits of vari:ltions. ;\ Serhian
pea .... ant 1"t.:citer of" epic poetry llle1l1ori/eS, performs, and. to a high c.'([tnt,
improvi<;es thousands, sometimes lens of thousands of lines, their
meter is alive in his mintl. Una hie to abstract il<; rules, he nonetheless
notices and repudiates even the infringement of the<;e ruks. Any
line of Serhian epics contains precisely tcn syllables and is followed hy a
syntactic p.wsc. Thefe is furthermofe a compulsory word houndary
before the fiflh syllable and a compulsory ahsence of word boundary
fourth and tenth syllable. The verse has, moreover, significant
quantltatlvc and tlcccnlual characteristics (cr. 199, 200). .
This Serbian epic break, along with many similar examples presented by
comparative metrics, is a persuasive warning agninst the erroneous
identification or a break with a syntactic pause. The obligatory word
boundary must not be combined with pause and is not even meant to be
elMi,,:: Statement: U,t;!ui.uics antI Podia 36S
by the ear. The 31l:dy<;is of Serhian epic phonographic-
ally rccorded proves that there no compulsory clues to the
hreak. anti yet any attempt to abolish the word boundary before the fifth
syllan!e by a mere insignilicant change in word order is immediately
condemned hy the nnrrator. The grammatical facl that the fourth and lifth
pert:lin to two different word units issuilicienl for the
of the bre:lk. Thus verse design goes far heyond the questiOn<; of Sheer!
sound shape: it is a much wider linguistic phenomenon, and it yields to no
isolating phonetic trealment.
I say "linguistic phenomenon" even thOllgh Chatman states Ihn( "the
meter e."tists as a system outside the language." Yes. meter ;lrpcars nlso in
other dcaling with time sequence. There arc 1ll;IIlY linguiqic prohlems
-for syntax-which likewise overstep the limit of langunge and
arc comhlon to difTerent semiotic systems. We m:ly even ahoul the
grammar of tralTie signals. There e.xists:l sign:ll coJe, where a yellow light
when com hi ned will} green warns tlml froe passage is close to hcing
stopped and when combined with red announces the approaching
cessation of the such a yellow signal ofTers a close nl1alogue to
the vcrhal comrletive asped. Poelic meier. however, has so Illany
parlit.:ularitics th:!t it is most cOlwellient to tkscrib\!:
it from a purdy lingui\til..' point of view.
Let us add that no linguislie property of the vcrse should be
tlisn:garded. Thus, for example. it would he an unfortunatc mistake to
deny Ihe constitutive v:ll\1e or intonation in English I1ll'lcrs. Nll( e,"cn
speaking nbollt its fUlld:lI11enlai role in the mt'lcrs of such a nl<lsh:r of
Engli"h frt'c v"::l"';e as Whitman, it j ... impossible 10 ignorl.! the tllltril..,;tl
signilit":lIlce or ramal il1(011;1Iion ("fin;11 j1l11cture"), "hcther '\:adcnt.:I!"
or "anticati"::llce" (223), in pocms like "The Rape of The Lock" "ith its
intentional avoidance of" enjamhmcnts. Yct CYeIi :l \"chl.'lllcnt ;I1;'1.."umu-
lation of cnj;lIHhments never hides lhl'ir digressi\e. variational slaHls;
they always set oIT the norlllni coincidl.!llcc of syntactic p:'llIse ;111(1 pilUS;JI
intonation with tile mdricnllimit. Whntcver is the reci ler's \\ ay of reading.
thc intonational constraint of the poem remains valid. The intonational
contour inherl.!nt to a poem, to a poet, to a poetic school is one of the 1110st
notablc topics brought to discussion by the Russian formalists (J08, 461).
The verse design is cmbodied in verse instances. Usu:.llly the frce \,tria-
tion ofthese instances is denoted by the somewhat equivocalla bcl"rh}"thm."
A variation of rase installer." within a given poem must be strictly
tinguishcd from the variablc dc/in',}, ins/anCl's. The intention "to describe
the verse line as it is actually performed" is of lesser usc for the synchronic
and analysis of poetry th:\o it is for the study of its recitation in
the present Jnd the past. Meanwhile the truth is simple and clear: "Th..:re
366 Retrospects and Prospects
are many performances of the same pocm-dilTcring among themselves
in many ways. A performance is an event, but the poem itself, if there is
any poem, must be some kind of enduring object." This sage memento
of Wimsatt and Beardsley belongs indeed 10 the essentials of modern
melries.
In Shakespeare's verses the second, stressed syllabic of the word
"absunJ" falls' on the downbeat, but once in the third ;:let of
lIam/('{ it falls on the upbeat: "No. let the candied tongue lick absurd
pomp." The reciter may scan the word "absurd" in line with an
initial On the fir'.l syllabic or observe the fin:11 word stress in accord-
ance with the standard accentuation. He may :.lIso subordinate the word
stress of the adjective in favor or the strong stress or the following
head word, as suggested by Hill: "No, leI the candied tongue ahsurd
pomp" (174), tiS in Hopkins' conception or English antispasts--"regrct
never" (179). There is finally a possibility of emph<ltic modifications either
through a "fluctuating accentuation" (scliLl'ehcl1r/c Bctommg) emhracing
both syllables or through an exclamatiunal or thc first
sylhlhlc Utbsurd]. But whatever solution the reciter chooses, the shin of
the word stress rrom the downbeat to the upbeat with no antecedent p:1use
is still arresting. and the moment of frustr:1ted expectation st;lYS vi;lhle.
Wherever the reciter put the accent, the discrepancy hct\ .... een the English
word stress on the second !>yllable of and the downbeat att:1ched
to the flrst syllahle persists as a constitutive re;'llure of the verse inst:1nce.
The tension between the ;lnd the usual word stress is inherent in this
line independently of its different implementations hy various actors and
readers. As Gerard Manky Hopkins observes, in the preface to his poems.
"two rhythms arc in some manner running at once" (180). His description
of such a contr<lpuntal run can be reinterpreted. The superinducing of an
equivtllence principle upon the word seq lienee or. in other terms, the
mounting of the metrical form upon the usual speech form, necessarily
gi\cs the experienec or a double, ambiguous shape to anyone who is
familiar y,ith the given language and with H:rst!. Both the convergences
and the divergences bctween the two forms, both the \varranted and the
rrustrated expectations, supply this experience.
How the given verse-instance is implemented in the given delivery
instance depends on the dC/kefy desl);n of the reciter; he may cling to a
scanning style or tend toward prose-like prosody or freely oscillate
betv.een these two poles. \Vc must be on gU;)fd against simplistic binarism
which reduces t\VO couples into one single opposition either by suppressing
the cardinal distinction between vcrse design and verse instance (a:; well as
Closing Statement: LitJl!u;stics and PoeticJ 367
between delivery design and delivery instance) or by an erroneouc; ideoli
ncation or delivery instance and delivery design with the verse instance and
verse design.
"But tell me. child. your choice; wh:lt o;h:\11 I buy
You?"-"Father. wh:tt you huy me I like best."
These two lines from "The Heart" hy Hopkins contain a heavy
enjamhment which puts a verse houndary herorc the concluding mono
syllahle of a of a sentence. of an utterance. The rccitation of these
pentameters may he strictly Illctric:11 \\ ith a m:1I1ifest pause hetween "buy"
tlnd "you" ;lnd a suppressed pause the pronoun. Or. on the contrary,
there may he displayed a prose-oriented manner without any separation
of the words "buy you" :lI1d with a marked pallsal intonation at the end
of the question. None of these ways of recitation however. hide the
intentional discrepancy between the metric::!1 :11ld synt:tctic division. The
verse shape or a poem remains completely independent of its variable
delivery, whereby.1 do not intend to nullify the alluring question of
Afltorcfl/cscr and Sclbst/csrr launched by Sievers (376).
No doubt, verse is primarily a recurrent "figure of sound." Primarily,
always, but never uniquely. Any attempts to confine such poetic conven-
tions as meter, alliteration. or rhyme to the sound level are speculative
reasonings without any empiric::li justification. The projection of the
equational principle into the sequence has a much deeper and wider
signific;,lnce. view .or poetry as "Ih.:sitation the sound
and the sense" (cr. 426) is much more realistic and scientific than any bias
of phonetic isolationism.
Although rhyme hy definition is based on a recurrence or
equivalent phonemes or phonemic groups. it would be an unsound
oversimplilication to trcat rhyme merely from the standpoint of sound.
Rhyme necessarily involves the semantic relationship between rhyming
units ("rhymefdlows' in Hopkins' nomenclature). In the scrutiny or a
rhyme we arc faced \vith the question of whether or not it is a homoe-
oteleuton, which confronts similar derivational :lI1d/or inflexional
suffixes (congratu!ationsdecorations), or whether the rhyming words
belong to the same or to different grammatical categories. Thus, for
example, Hopkins' fourfold rhyme is an agreement of two nouns-"kind"
and "mind"-both contrasting with the adjective "blind" and with the
verb "find." Is there a semantic propinquity, a sort or simile bcl\\een
rhyming lexical units, as in dove-love, light-bright, placespace, namefame?
Do the rhyming members carry the same syntactic function? The difference
between the morphological class and the syntactic application may be
pointed out in rhyme. Thus in Poc's lines, "While 1 nodded. ncarly
368
nappillg. sudJcnly there came a lapping. As or someone gently rapping," the
three rhyming \\ord<;, morphologically alike. arc all three syntactically
different. Arc totally or partly homonymic rhymes prohibited, tolerated,
or ftlvor..::d? Such f\dl homonyms as 50n ... un. I-eye, eve-cave, and on the
ollll:r hand. echo rhYllH:s like Dt:ccmhcr-crnhcr, infinite-nigh!, ... warm-warm,
smiles-miles? What ahout compound rhymes huch as Hopkins' "enjoy-
ment-toy meant" or "began s.ol11c-ransom"). where a wonJ unit accords
with a word group-!
A poet or poetic school may he oriented tuwnrJ or against grammatical
rhyme; rhymes must he either grammatical or anti!!r;lI11lllatlcd; all
agr:.lmmatical rhyme, indifferent to the n.:lalion hetween sound
gr:Jmmalic;)1 !\trw.;turc, would. like any agrammatism, belong to veroal
pathology, Jr a poet tends to avoid grammatic;1I rhyme<;, for him. as
Hopkins said. "There arc two clement<; in the heauty rhyme has to the
mind. the likeness. or of sound and the unlikenes<; or difTerence
of meaning" (179), Whatever the rebtlon between sound and meaning in
dilTerent rhyme techniques, both spheres are necessarily involved. Arter
Wimsatt's illuminating ohservations about the meaningfulness of rhyme
(441) and thc shn.:wd motlern studies or Slavic rhyme patterns, a student in
poetics can hardly m;lintain that rhymes signiry merely in a very vague way.
Rhyme is only a particular, condensed case or a much more gcner;d. we
may even say the rllnu:llnent;ll, probkm or poetry, n:lll1cly I'fll'lllldi.HII.
Here again Ilorkins, in his student papers of I H65, tlisplayed a prodigious
insight into the <..trUl:ture of poetry:
The artificial !'art or poetry. perhaps we shall he right to say ;111 artifice,
redueee; it<,dr to the principle of paralleli:C;lll. The :-;trllcture of poetry is that of
continuous parallelism, runging from the technical <;ocalled rarallc1i'illls or
Ilcbrew poetry "nd the antiphons or ("lHm.:h lip to Ihe intricacy of Greek
or Italian or Engli.d1 vcr<;c. But paralleli:c;m is of two kind" m:ecssarily-where
the oppo"ition i<; clearly marked, and whcre it ie; trallsitional ralher or chrom:Hic.
Only Ihe first kind, Ihal or marked parallcli"m, is concerned WLlh !he structure
of rhythm, the recurrence of a certain sequence or syllables. in metre.
the recurrence of a certain sequence or rhythm, in alliteration, in asson'lnc": and
in rhyme. Now the force or this recurrence is to beget a recurrence or
parallelism an<;wering to it in the words or thought and, speaking roughly and
rather for the tendency than the invariable result, the more marked parallcli'im
in structure whether of elaboration or of emphasis hegcts more m:nked
par:dlcli:c;m in the words and sense,." To the marked or abrupt kind
parallelism bl'long metaphor, simile .. and so on. where the
sought in likenc'i'i of tlunge;, and anllthesls. contrast. and so on. where It IS
sought in unlikeness (179),
Drieny. equivalence in sound, projected into the sequence as its
tive principle. inevilJbly involves semantic equivalence, and on any
linguistic level any constituent of such a sequence prompts one of the two
Closi,J;.! Stdlt'rf,cnt: Un:!"istiCJ and Pot,tics 369
corrl.'bli\c cxperielKe<; "hich Ifopkins neatly delincs "comrari,on for
likel1e",,' s:lk..::" and "comparison ror
Fon.lore ofT..::rs the mo<;l clear-cut and stereotyr..::d rorm<; or poetry,
p;utieularly suitable ror structural (;]<; Seb('ok \\ith
Chercmis oral tr;Hlitions that me gramm;1ti(.':1\ p;u:ll1e1ism
to connect eomecutive lincs, for example. Finno-Ugric patterns of verse
(sec 10 . .199) and to a degree also Russian foil... poetry. be
fruitrully anal)7ed on all linguioqic Ic\'els- phonological.
logicll. syntactic. and Icxical: we learn what elemcnts arc concci,'cd
as cquival..::nt :llld how likeness on certain levels is tempered \\'ith
spicuous d ill'crence 011 othcr ones. Such forms ella hie lIS 10 \"erir y
wise suggestion that "the process is the org::lI1ie act
of poetry. :Inti involves all il<; important ch:u<lcters" (J2n. Thesc cle:lr-cut
tr:Hlitional structures may dispel Wim<;alt's douilto:. :I.houl po .. sihility or
writing a gr;lmmar or meter's interaction with the scnse, as \\ell as a
grammar or the arrangement of melJphors. As soon as parJ.lIc1ism is
promoted to canon, the interaction hel' ...ecn meter meaning and the
arrangement or tropes cease to be "the free J.nd individual and unpre-
dictable of the poetry,"
Let us translate a few typicnllines rrom Russin" wedding songs about the
apparition or the hridegroom:
/\ hrave rellow was going to the porch.
Vasilij \\as walking to the mallor.
The trall<;latioll is literal: the verhs. howeycr, takc the final POSitIon in
both Ru'\sian I..'lauscs (I)ohroj mol(1dec k senick:un privor:'lci,"I.//
k tcrelllll pri'\;ii.ivai), The lines wholly correspond to e;l(h other syllt:lCti-
c::lIly :1I1d morphologically. Both prcliieati\"e \"er(,s h:m.: thc same preli\cs
and suOi\cs and the same voenlic allernant in the stem: they arc :llil..e in
a<;pcct, tensc. number, and gender; and, morcovcr, they arc synonymic.
Both sllhjccts, the common nOlln and the proper name. refer to the same
person and form nn appositional group, The two modifiers or place are
expresc;cd hy identical prepositional constructions. and the first one stands
to the second in synecdochic relation.
These verscs Jl1Jy occur preceded by another line of similar grammalil.':ll
(syntactic and morphologic) Il1nke-up: "Not a bright falcon" as nying
beyond the hills" or "Not a fierce horse was coming at gallop 10 the court."
The "hright ralcon" and the "fierce horse" of these variants arc put in
metaphorical rel'llion with "brave fellow," This is traditional Slavic
negative parallelism-the refutation or the metaphorical st:llc in ravor of
the ractual state. The negation lie 110\\,cvcr. he omillcd: "Jasjon
.okol za gory zalj6tyval" (II bright falcon was nying beyond the hills) or
370
URcliv ken' k6 dyoru prisLiki' .. al" (A fierce horse \...-a" coming at a gallop
to the court). In the first of the two examples the metarhorical relation is
maintained: a brave fellow appeared at the porch. like a bright falcon from
behind the hills. In the other instance, however, the semantic connection
becomes ambiguous. A. compar.ison hetween the appearing hridegroom
anti the galloping horse suggests itself, hut at the SJme time the hah of the
horse althe court actually anLicip.Jtcs the arrro:lch of the hero to the house.
Thus before introducing Ihe rider alll.1 the manor of hi..; fiancee, the song
evokes the contiguous, ml'lol1ymicai images of the hors!.:: and of the
courtyard: posst:s",ion instead of posscs<;or, and outdoors instead of
inside. The exposition of the groom be hrohn up into two consecu
tive moments even without suhstituting the horse for the horseman: "/\
brave rellow was coming at tl gallop to the court./! Va'iilij W;lS walking
to the porch." Thus the "rlerce horse," cmerging in the preceding line at
a similar metrical ;'Ind syntactic place as the "brave rellow," ligures
simultaneously as a likeness to and as a representative possession or this
fellow, properly I'm 1010 ror the horsemall. The horse
image is on a border line hetween metonymy and synecdoche. From these
suggestive connotations or the "fierce horse" there ensues a metaphorical
synecdoche: in the wedding song .. and other varieties or Russian erotic
lore. the m;lsculille felil"- /.;011 becomes ;1 latent or even p"tcnt phallic
symhol.
A .. early as the IHHOs. I)otehnja, a remarkable inquirer into Slavic
poetic". pointed out that in folk poetry a symhol <1rrenrs to he m'lteri;l1ized
(orclCrJfr/(,I1). eonvt.:rted into .111 acces\ory or the amhiance. "Still a
symhol. it is put. however. in <1 connection with the action. Thus a simile is
under the shape or a temporal sequence" (322). In Potebnja's
examples rrom Slavic folklore. the willow, 1.1I1tkr which a girl
serves at the same time as her inw.ce; the tree and the c.irl arc hoth
in Ihe same verbal orllle willow. Quitc"':-.imil:nly the
horse or the love rel1l:Jins a virililY symbol not only when the maid
is asked by the Jall to reed his steed but even when being saddled or put
into the stahle or attached to a trce.
In poetry not only the phonological sequence but in the S31lle way :lny
se'1l1encc or semantic units strives to huild an equation. Similarity
superimposed on contiguity imparts to poetry its throughgoing symbolic,
multiplex. polpc11l;]ntie essence which is beautirully suggested by Go(:the's
"Alles Verg;ing!iche ist nur ein Gleichnis" (Anything transient is bu.t a
likencss). S'lid more technically. anything is a simile. In poetry
where similarity is superinduced upon contiguity ... ny metonymy is slightly
metaphorical and any metaphor has a metonymical tinl.
Ambiguity is an intrinsic, inalienable character or any sclffocllsed
Closing Slol('ment; Un:!uiltics and Pottics
371
m..:<,<,:lge. hricny J: corollary fC:lture of poetry. let us repeat "ith Empson:
"The m;schin3tion .. of :lmhiguilY are among the ,ery roots of poetry"
(J13). Not only the message itself but also its addresser and addressee
hecome amhiguous. Besides the author and the reader, there is the "I" of
the lyrical hero or of the fictitious storyteller and the "you" or "thou" of
the alleged addressee of dramatic monologues, supplic:ltions. and epistles.
For instance the poem "Wrestling Jacob" is. addressed by its title hero to
the Saviour and acts as a suhjective Oless:lgc of the poet
Ch .. rles Wesley to his readers. Virtually any poetic is a quasi- J'
quoted discourse with all those peculiar, intricate problems which
"spcech within speech" olTers to the lingl1ist.
The supremacy of poetic function over referential function docs not II
obliterate the reference but it ambiguous. The douhlcscnsed
finds in a split addresser, in a split addressee. and
besides in a split reference. as it is cogently e."posed in the preamhles to
fairy tales of variQus peoples, for instance. in the usual exordium of the
Majorca storytellers: "Aixo era y no era" (It W<1S and it was not) (135). _
The repetitiveness elTeeted by imparting the equivalence principle to";--
the sequence makes reiterable not only the constituent sequcnees of
the poetic mcss .. ge but the whole message as well. This clpacity for
reiteration whether or reific:llion of a poetic
message ;J nd its constituents. this convcrsion of <t Illess.age into :.111 enduring
thing. inuced aU this represents an inherent and elTct::tivc property of /
poetry.
In a sequence, where similarity is superimposed on contiguity, two
similar phonemic sequences ncar to each other arc prone to assume a
paronomastie runction. Words simil:1r in sound arc drawn togcther in
meaning. It is true that the first linc of the final stanza in Poe's "Raven"
makes wide use of repetitive alliterations. as noted by Valery (426), but
"the overwhelming ellect" of this line and of the whole stanza is due
primarily to the sway of poetic etymology.
And the Raven, never flitting still is sitting. still is sitling
On the pallid bust of Pllllas just above my chamber door:
And his eyes have all the seeming or a demon"s that is dreaming.
And the lamp.light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that Sh'ldow that lies floating on the Roor
Shall be lined-nevermore.
The perch of the raven, "the pallid bust of Pallas," is merged through the
"sonorous" paronomasia /pi:bd/-/pxbs/ into onc organic whole
(similar to Shelley's molded line "Sculptured on alabaster obelisk" /sk.1p/-
/l.b.st/-/b.l.skf). Doth conrronted words \vere blended e.arlier in another
epithet of the same bust-placid /pl:csld/-a poetic portmanteau, and the
--- - ----- --- ------------------------
372 RelTfHpects and Prospects
hond between the siller and the scat was in turn fastened by a paronomasia:
"hirtl or hC;Hf upon the ... hust," The hird "is sitting liOn the pallid
of Pall<ls just ahove my chamber door," and the raven on his perch,
(kspitc the lover's imperative "Iake thy form from orT my door:' is nailed
to the place by the wonJs (jAsI ;)h,\v/. hoth of thelll blended in
/h;'''/.
1 hI.! ncvcrcnding slay of the grim guc'a is c:.;prcs\cd hy a chain of
ingenious paronnmasias, partly invcr"ivc. as ",:0.,; woult! from a
ddihcratc experimenter in anticipatory. rcgn:s\ivc IIIOdliS (J1,('umdi. such a
ma ... ter in "writing hackwanl .... as Edgar All:tn Poe. In the introductory
line of thi .. cOIH.:luding .. tanw. "ra\'ell," contiguolls to the hleak. refrJin
wortl "never," aprcars Olll:e lllore as an embodied mirror im:l!;c of this
"never:" /11.v.r/-/r.\'.n/. Salient paronoma .. j:ls inkn:nnncct both
cmhlr.:ms of the e\'crJa'iting despair. lir'it "the Raven, never niuing," at the
heginning of the very Ia'it stanza. and second. in its very last lines the
"shadow that lics noaling on the noor" and "shall be lifted-nevermorc":
Int:v.lr nitil.1/-jn()tll.l/ .. . jn()rj .. . /lirt.1u n(,v.lr/. The alliterations which
struck V:lkry build a paronomaqic string: ... /-{..,il ... 1-
/..,'1 .. . I-I .. h . .. /. The invariance of the group is particularly sln:sscu
by the variation in its on.kr. The two luminous clTects in the chiaroscuro-
tile "Iiery eyes" of the hl:u.:k fowl and the tilr{)\\ "his shadow
on the 1100r"-are cvoked to add to the glool11 of the whole pit'lure and
are aeain bound by the "\'ivid efTcct" of paronomasias: 61(\) ...
... /II. drimll.1! --IHun st(jmrr.l!. "Thai shadtH\' Ih:lt lies
IlaY7/,' pairs with the Raven's .. eye .. /;lyrl ill an impn.:<;<;i\c1y misrlaced
echo rhyme.
111 porlry . 111Y con .. picHoUS similarity in sound is evaluatcd in re<;pcel 10
simil:lrily and/or di ..... imilarity in meaning, But Popc's :tllitcrali"e pr ...'cept
tn r0rls-"lhe sound musl sccm an Lcho of the has a \\ider
aprlicalion. In rcf ...l'cllliat lang\1agc thc conneltion b":I\\l,'cn Siglltlll:; :l11d
sigll(lfW/J i" o\..:rwhclrningly 011 their codilil'U contiguity. \\l1ich ie;
oflcn conru<;ingly ta hl,'lcd "arhitrarincss of I hc \ erbal sign." The rde\ a nce
of Ihc sound-meaning ne'lls is a simple corollary or the supcrpo<;ilion of
I
') similarity upon contiguity. Sound symholi ... m i .. an ohjcctive
relation founded 011 a phenomenal COll11cclion hel\\'ee11 dilll.:rellt sCllSory
modes. in particular hetwcen the "isual and auditory expericnce. If the
results of in this nrea have sometimes heen \'Jgue orconlro\'ersial.
it is primarily due to an insunicient care ror the methods or psychological
andlor linguistic inquiry. Particularly from the linguistic point or view
the picture has orten been distorted by lack of attention to the phOl10-
---..
Srah,,,,,.'nt: I.i"gu;sr;cs anfl Pa(.'(;(J
373
logicol ospcct of spcech sounds or hy ine\'itahly \3in operations with
phonemic units instead or \\ith their ultimate componenls. BUJ
whell. on le<;ting. ror cxample, such phonemic oppo .. ilions Je;, 'cr"us
acute we ask whether IiI or luI is darkcr. some or the subjects m:ly re"'pond
th:lt this '1l1estiol1 makes 110 sense to them. hut hardly one will state Uta
IiI is the darkest or the two.
Poetry is not the only arca where sound makes itself fclt,
bUI it is a province where the internal nexus hctween sOllnd and mcaning
changes rrom lalcn! into palent and m:lnifests itselr most palp:lhly and
:IS it has hl,'en noted in 11)'lllcs's stimulating p:lpcr. The super-
avcrage acculllulation of a certain or phoneme_<; or :l contrastive
asscllIhl:lge or two opposite dasses in the sOllnd \nturc of a line. of a
stann. or a poem :lctS like an "undercurrent or to usc Poc's
ricture<;ql1c e'<pression. In two pobr words phonemic 1llJY be
in :Igreelllellt with opposition, as in Russian /d.cn.1 'd<ly' and
Inocl 'night' with the acute vowel and sh3rped consonants in the diurnal
name and the corresponding grave "owel in the. nocturn:11 name, A
reinforccment or Ihis eontr;I .. 1 by surrounding the first word \\ilh acute
and sharped in contradistinction 1\1:t gr;I\'c phonemic
hood of the second word. makes the into a thorough echo or Ihe
sense. But in Ihe Frl'lIch JOIll' 'tl;ly' and 111"'1 'ni!!ht' the di"trihution (If
grave and :tCllk \O\\c1s is imerted. so that an'usc
his mother tongue or a decci\ing perversity ror us<;igning to d;'IY a dark
timhre and to night a one (2(,:'1. Whorr st:lt..:s that \\ hell in ilS snl1n(1
shape "a word has:ln awustic simil<lrily to its OWIl meaning, we C:1I1 not icc
it, ... Out. whl:n the oppos.ite occurs. nobody 11otk-cs it." I\lltil'
ho\\'c"er. and p:lrtinrlarly Frcndl poclry ;n the h .... l\\eel1 sonnd
and meaning dctl,'clcd hy Mallarmc. either seeks:1 pholl(1logil';d alternation
or <;uch a dis('fepaney and drowns the "con\,crsc" distribution of ,-ocalic
reatures by surrounding Ill/if with grave and jOllr with acute ph(llu:mes. or
it rc<;orts to a semantic shirt and imagery of day and night replaces the
imngery or light and dnrk by other synesthetic correhllcs of the phonemic
opposition grave/anile and. ror instance. puts the hea\'y. ,\arm day in
contrast to the airy. cool night: because "human subjects seem to asso-
ciate the e.'<pericnccs or bright, sharp, hard, high. lighl (in \\eight). quick,
high-pitched, narrow, and so on in a long series. with each other; and
conversely the experiences of dark, warm, yielding. sort, hlunt. low, heavy.
slow, low-pitched. wide, elc., in anolher long seril!s" p. 2670.
However clTcetivc is the cmphasis on repetilion in poetry, rhe sound
texture is still rar from being conlined to numerical eontri\anccs. and :1
phoneme that appears only once. but in a key word, in a pertinent position.
374 Retrospects and ProspeclS
against a contrastive background, may acquire a striking significance.
As painlers used to say, "Un kilo de vert n'cst pas plus vert qU'un dcmi
kilo."
A ny analysis of poetic sound texture must consistently take into account
the phonological struclure of the given language and, beside the
cotlc. also the hierarchy of phonological distinctions in the given poetic
conwntion. Thus the approximate rhymes used hy Slavic peoples in oral
and in some stages of written tradition admit unlike consonants in the
rhyming mcmhcr"i (e.g. Czech Imfy, hnky. J/o!'y. kos.\'. ,fOehy) hut. tiS Nilch
ncllect!. no mutual correspondence hctwccn voiced and voiceless con
sonants is allowed (294). so that the qlloted Czeeh words C:lnnot rhyme
with hotl)'. doily. !.:o:y, rolly, In the songs of some American Indian peoples
5uch <1" Pima.Papago and Tepecano. according to lIer7og's oh"ervations-
only partly c0111l11unicah.:d in print (l6Hl--the phonemic distinction
betwcen voiced and voiceless plosives and between them and nasals is
replaced by a free variation, wherca.c; the distinction between labia Is,
dentals, velar'>. and palatals is rigorously maintained, Thus in the poetry
of these languages consonants lose two of the four distinctive features,
voiccd/voicclcsc; :lnu nas<ll/oral, and preserve the other two, gr:l\"c/acute
and compactjdifTu<ie. The sdection and hierarchic stratifrGltion of valid
C<ltcgories i'i a fadar or primary importance for poetics both Oil the
phonoloical and on the gramm<ltical level.
Old Indie and Medievnl Latin literary theory keenly distinguished two
poles of verb.1I arl, labded in Sanskrit Piiiinili alH.I Vaidarhbi and corre
spondingly in Latin ornafus dYJicilis and ornailis/acilis (sec 9), Ihe latter
style evidently being much more d ifficllit 10 anrliy7e lingllistic<lJly in
such literary forms verbal ue"iccs arc nnosknlatious and lan!!uJge seL'IllS
a neJrly transparent garment. Bul onc must say \\,oith Charles Sallucrs
Peirce: "This clothing never can be completely stripped olf, it is only
I changed for somelhing more diaphanous" (307, p. 171). "Vcrsdess
I composition," as Hopkins calls the prosaic variety of verbal art--:-where
I
parallelisms are not so strictly marked and strictly regular as "coIlIIllUOUS
parallelism" and where there is no dominant figure of sound-present more
I
entangled problems for poetics, as doc,> any transitional linguistic area.
In this case the transition is between strictly poetic and strictly referl'ntial
I language. But Propp's pioneering monograph on the structure of the
fairy tall! (323) shows us how a consistently syntactic approach may be
of paramount help even in classifying the traditional plots and in tracing
the puzzling Jaws that underlie their composition and selection. The new
studies of Levi-Strauss (248, also, 24Rb) display a much deeper but
essentially simii:J.r approach to the same constructional problem.
It is no mere chance that metonymic structures arc less explored than
Closin1! Statrnll'nl: lifl:!lIil1;o and POC!I;('I
375
the field of mCI:Jphor. I rcpc:1t myoid Oh'i.enalion th::J.1 the Ifotudy of
poetic tropc-o.; ha'i. h .... cn dirl'cted mainly to"ard metaphor. and the so-callcd
reali .. tic litcr;:llurc. intimately ticd \\ith the metonymic principle. still defies
inlerprct::ltion. ahhough the same lingui'i.tic methodology. \\hiclt poetics
uses when analyzing the metaphorical style of rom:lntic poctry, is entirely
applicahle to the metonymical tex.ture of re:l1islic prose (l(1).
Totbooks h" .. lievc in the {lCClirrence or poems dC\'oid of imagery, but
nctually scarcity in Icx.icnl tropcs is countcrb:ll<lnced by gorl!eolls gram-
matic<ll tropes <Inti rlgure,>, The poelic resOllrces concealed in ;hc morpho-
logic;}1 ant..! syntactic structure of language, hrieny the poetry of gr:lmmar,
and its literary product, the grammar of poelry. haw becn seldom known
to critics ;;md mostly disregarded by linguists but skillfully mastered by
creative writers.
Thl' main dramatic force of Anlony's exordium to the funeral oration
for Caesar is Jchieved by Shakespeare's playing on grammatical categories
and construclions .. Mark Antony lampoons Brutus's speech by changing
the alleged reJsons for Cnesar's assassination into pl3in linguistic fictions.
Brutus's nceusation of Caesar, "as-he was ambitious, I slew him," undergoes
successive tmosformalions. First Antony reduces it to a mer\!' quotalion
which pUIS thc responsibility for the statement on the speaker quoted:
"The noble Brutus !!Ilalh loki you ... ," When n."pcatl'd, tllis reference
to Brutus is put into orposition to Antony's own asscrtions by :111 adver.
sative "but" and further degraded by a concessive "yet." The reference to
the alleger's honor ceases to juslify the allegation, when repcated \\ith :1
substitution of the merely copulative "and" instead of the previous causal
"ror," and when finally put into question through the malicious insertion
of a modal "sure":
The noble Brutu$
Hath told you C::r=sar was ambitious;
For Brutus is an honourable man,
But Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honourable man.
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honourable man.
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
The following polyptoton-"J speak ... Brutus spoke ... I am to speak"-
presents the repeated allegation as mere reported speech instead of reported
facts. The effect lies, mod:1llogic would say, in the oblique context of the
arguments adduced which makes them into unprovable belief sentences:
I speak not to disprove wh:lt Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I lIo know;
376
R('(roJpccts untl PrtHPl.'06
The: mo<;' or Antony's irony j .. the IIfodll.f "Mil/flll.f of
ah<.,traL"h il1to :I 11IodllS ralll.\" 10 Ihat these reilicd
:lllnhu{c'" Me nolhmg hut IIf1!!lIhtlc hcllon... To <;aying "hc was
amhitiow .. ." Antony rcrlies hy the alijectivc rrom the
agent to the ("Did Ihi" in ambitiousT'), thcn hyelieit-
ing the ah<.,lract noun "amhition" :lnd convening it into a suhject of a
concrete passi .... e constnJclion "Amhition sholllJ he m:H1c or siemer Sill IT"
and subsequently to a rrediC<I{e noun or an interrogative sentence, "Was
thie; ambition T'--Brutus's aprcal "hear mc ror my cause" is amwcred hy
the sallle noun in recio, the hypost:lli7eo subject orall interrogative,
cOllstruc.:tioll: "What cause wit holds you, .. ?" While Brutuscalls "aw;lkc
your sen"cs, that you may thc netter judge," thc substantivc
derived from lin apo"trophi.fcd agcllt ill Antony's report:
"0 judgment, thou art ned to hrutish neasts. Incilientally. this
apO"trophe with its p'.lfonomae;ia Brutus-hrutish is reminiscent
or Caesar's parting exclamation "Et lu, Brule!" Propertics and activities
are exhihited in rafO, whereas their carriers :tppe:.lr either ill ohliquo
("withholds you," "to brutish beasts." "hack to mc") or as subjects of
negative action<; ("men have lost," "1 must pause"):
/
You all did love him once, nlll without e:\lIse;
What cau"e you then 10 mourn rur him'!
o judgment, thou art ncd to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason!
The last two lines of Antony's exorliium display the ostensibk indepcndence
or these t;rammalical metollymies. The stcreotyped .. , mourn for
so" anu the ligur:lIivc hut still slereotyped "so-anu-so is in the collin and Illy
heart is with him" or "goes out to him" give pl:KC in Antony's speech 10 a
daringly metonymy; the trope heeomcs a part of poetic reality:
My heart is in the coOin there with Cxsar,
And I must pause till it come back to mc,
In poetry the internal rorm of a name, that iS
I
the semantic load of its
constituents, regains its pertinence, The "Cocktails" may resume their
ohliterated kinship with plumage, Their colors are vivified in Mac
Hammond's lines "The ghost of a Aron.'( pink lady /I With orange
anoat in her hair," and the etymological metaphor attains its
realization: "0, Bloody Mary,lI The cocktails have crowcd not the
cocks!" ("At an Old Fashion Bar in Manhattan"), Wallacc Stevens' poem
"An Ordinary Evening in New Havcn" revives the head word or the city
name lirst throllgh a <Iiscrect allusion to heaven and thcn through a direct
pun-like confrontation similar to Hopkins' "Heaven-Haven,"
377
1 hoe ..Ii:- <,.,1.. ,;, .. r /'1 tI,, '.JII'.' (I""J,
... "-t'r I "r 11..1\1;:1 _ .. 1.\ 111111 ill .\"clt IIflf"t'n . ,
Tre i,: ... :'no.:l ,10' I:. </1, rJ h,tJ i(\ t:oulIll'rr.lrt:
1 he m ... lilll..t r,lr "tnh, f" S, .. lIun"', ror h;\ room. , ,
The ";-':C\\ '. or the: city n:Jrnc is laid bare through the concate-
nation or orposih.'s: ..
The ofdc<;t,ne\\est day is thc nev .. c<;t :tlone.
The oldcst-newe'it ni!;ht docs n(lt creak by, , ,
When in 1919 the Moscow Lin!!ui"ti!.' Cin.:1c how to define and
deli.mil the range qil/tcln arna;/{ia, the poet Majako\"sl..ij rehuked us hy
saylllg that for hlln :1I1y <Hljecti\"e while in poetry was thereby a poetic
epithet, even "gre:lt"' in the Greift nl'm' or "hi{' ;lIlt! "little" in slJ(h n:llnes
of Moe;cow streets as no/'.flwja and frl'Jl1ja. In other
words. poetical ness is not a suprlementation of discour."c with rhctoric::J1 \
adornment hut a total re-c\'ahwtioll or the discourse and of all its COIll- ;
ponents whatsocver,'
A missionary blamcd his African flock ror walking undressed. "And
what ahout yourselr'?" Ihey pointed to his vis<lgc, :'arc not you, too,
somcwhere T' "Well, hut that is my f:ll'e." "Yet in rl'lllrted
the nati\'es, "e"erywhere it is f:ll'e," So in podry ,IllY \erh:11 d . ."I11..::nt is
cOIl\'erled inlo a figure of poctic !"ipeedl.
My attempt to vindicate the right and duty of linguisti!.'s to direct Ihc
invcstigation or vernal art in :111 ils compass :lI1d cxtent can l'Ol11e to a
conclusion \\ilh the same hurden whk'h summ<lrized my report to the 1953
conference here at Indiana University: "Unguista sum; lill!!lIi"tiei nihil
a me aliellmll puto" (249), If Ihc ptlel R:IIHiOlll is richt (and'" hc is right)
"poetry is a kind or langua?c" (J26), the lingui;1 ,\lH1SC lidd is ;ny
kll1J of language may and must mclude poetry in his The
has clearly shown that the time \\ hen both lingui"ts and literary
hlstonans eluded questions of poetic structure is now sa rely behind us.
Indeed, as stated, "there seems to be no reason for trying to
separate the literary rrom the overnll Jinguistic," If there arc somc critics
who still doubt the competenec of linguistics to emhrace the field or poetics,
1 pri\'ately believe that the poetic incompetcnce of some higoted lil1!!uists
has been mistaken for a.n inadequa.cy of the linguistic itselr. All of
us here, howe\'er, definitely realize that a linguist deaf to the poetic runc-
tion of language and a literary scholar indilTerent to linguistic problems and
unconversant with linguistic methods arc equally nagrant anachronisms.