Stylistics course

1. Stylistics
S.6
Rachid Acim
Academic Year: 2020-2021

2. Chapter 3: The Purpose of Stylistics

3. Why should we do stylistics?

4. To do stylistics is to explore language, and more specifically,
to explore creativity in language use. Doing stylistics thereby
enriches our ways of thinking about language and, as observed,
exploring language offers a substantial purchase on our
understanding of (literary) texts.

5. Hence, interest in language is always at the fore in
contemporary stylistic analysis which is why you should never
undertake to do stylistics unless you are interested in
language.

6. We can synthesize that the practice of stylistics should conform
to the following three basic principles, cast mnemonically as
three ‘Rs’. The three Rs stipulate that:
a. Rigorous.
b. Retrievable.
c. Replicable.

7. Stylistic method should be rigorous means that it should be
based on an explicit framework of analysis. To argue that
stylistic method be retrievable means that the analysis is
organized through explicit terms and criteria, the meanings
of which are agreed upon by other students of stylistics.

8. And to say that a stylistic analysis seeks to be replicable does
not mean that we should all try to copy each other’s work. It
simply means that the methods should be sufficiently
transparent as to allow other stylisticians to verify
them, either by testing them on the same text or by applying
them beyond that text.

9. With respect to the methodological significance of the three Rs, it
is worth establishing some of the more basic levels, categories
and units of analysis in language that can help organize and
shape a stylistic analysis.

10. Language in its broadest conceptualization is not a disorganized
mass of sounds and symbols, but is instead an intricate web of
levels, layers and links. Thus, any utterance or piece of text is
organized through several distinct levels of language.

11. Level of Language Branch of Language Study
The sound of spoken language;
The way words are pronounced.
phonology; phonetics
The patterns of written language;
The shape of language on the page
graphology
The way words are constructed;
Words and their constituent structures.
morphology
The way words combine with other
words to form phrases and sentences.
syntax
The words we use; the vocabulary of a
language.
Lexicology
The meaning of words and sentences. semantics
The way words and sentences are used
in everyday situations; the meaning of
language in context.
pragmatics; discourse analysis.

12. These basic levels of language can be identified and teased out
in the stylistic analysis of text, which in turn makes the
analysis itself more organized and principled, more in
keeping so to speak with the principles of the three Rs.

13. It should be underlined here that all these levels are
interconnected; they interpenetrate and depend upon one
another, and they represent multiple and simultaneous
linguistic operations in the planning and production of an
utterance.

14. The next fragment is the first three lines of an untitled poem by
Margaret Atwood (b. 1939):
You are the sun
in reverse, all energy
flows into you…
(Atwood, 1996, p. 47)

15. You are the sun
in reverse, all energy
flows into you and is
abolished; you refuse
houses, you smell of
catastrophe, I see you
blind and one-handed, flashing
in the dark, trees breaking
under your feet, you demand,
you demand
I lie mutilated beside
you; beneath us there are
sirens, fires, the people run (…)
How can I stop you
How did I create you

16. ‫والملوك‬ ، ٌ‫شمس‬ َ‫فإنك‬
ٌ
‫كواكب‬
‫منهن‬ ‫يبد‬ ‫لم‬ ْ‫طلعت‬ ‫إذا‬ ،
ٌ
‫كوكب‬

17. At first glance, this sequence bears the stylistic imprint of the
lyric poem. This literary genre is characterized by short
introspective texts where a single speaking voice expresses
emotions or thoughts, and in its ‘love poem’ manifestations,
the thoughts are often relayed through direct address in the
second person to an assumed lover.

18. Frequently, the lyric works through an essentially metaphorical
construction whereby the assumed addressee is blended
conceptually with an element of nature. Indeed, the lover, as
suggested, is often mapped onto the sun, which makes ‘the sun
the source domain’ for the metaphor. Shakespeare’ sonnet 18,
which opens with the sequence “Shall I compare thee to a
summer’s day?”, is a well-known example of this type of
lyrical form.

19. Atwood however works through this generic convention to create
a starting reorientation in interpretation. In doing so, she uses a
very simple stylistic technique, a technique which essentially
involves playing off the level of grammar against the level of
graphology.

20. Ending the first line where she does, she develops a linguistic
trompe l’oeil whereby the seemingly complete grammatical
structure ‘You are the sun’ disintegrates in the second line
when we realize that the grammatical complement of the
verb ‘are’ is not the phrase ‘the sun’ but the fuller, and rather
more stark, phrase ‘the sun in reverse’

22. As the remainder of this poem bears out, this is a bitter
sentiment, a kind of ‘anti-lyric’, where the subject of the direct
address does not embody the all-fulfilling radiance of the sun
but is rather more like an energy sapping sponge which drains,
rather than enhances, the life forces of nature.

23. And while the initial, positive sense engendered in the first line
is displaced by the grammatical ‘revision’ in the second, the
ghost of it somehow remains. Indeed, this particular stylistic
pattern works literally to establish, and then reverse, the
harmonic coalescence of subject with nature.

24. ANONYMOUS c. 1500
Western Wind
Western Wind, when wilt thou blow,
The small rain down can rain?
Christ, if my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again!

25. This speaker’s intense longing for his lover is characteristic of
lyric poetry. He impatiently addresses the western wind that
brings spring to England and could make it possible for him to
be reunited with the woman he loves. We do not know the
details of these lovers’ lives because this poem focuses on the
speaker’s emotion. We do not learn why the lovers are apart
or if they will be together again. We don’t even know if the
speaker is a man. But those issues are not important. The
poetry gives us a feeling rather than a story.

26. Almost all texts have a social function and they have
particular intentions which can be related to the real world
around us (e.g. a headline encourages us to read a news story,
a publisher’s blurb encourages us to buy a book, and an
advertisement is designed to promote a product).

27. What is the function of literary texts?

28. Poetry bears no relation to our socially established needs and
conventions because unlike non-literary texts, poetry is
detached from the ordinary contexts of social life.

29. Poetry does not make direct reference to the world of
phenomena but provides a representation, a facsimile of it
through its peculiar and unconventional uses of language which
invite and motivate, sometimes even provoke, readers to create
an imginary alternative world. Poetry thus helps us satisfy
our needs as individuals, to escape, from our humdrum
socialized existence, and to find a reflection of our conflicting
emotions.

30. If this is the case, we might conclude that the function of
literature is not socializing but rather individualizing.

31. The language of poetry has the following characteristics: its
meaning is often ambiguous and elusive; it may flout the
conventional rules of grammar; it has a particular sound
structure; it is spatially arranged in metrical lines and stanzas;
it often reveals foregrounded patterns in its sounds,
vocabulary, grammar, or syntax, and last but not least, it
frequently contains indirect references to other texts.

32. Play is an important element of poetry. Consider, for example,
how the following words appeal to the children who gleefully
chant them in playgrounds:
I scream, you scream
We all scream
For ice cream.
These lines are an exuberant evocation of the joy of the ice
cream. Indeed, chanting the words turns out to be as
pleasurable as eating ice cream. In poetry, the expression of
the idea is as important as the idea expressed.

33. Thank you for your attention