Making the reader feel

Syntactic iconicity in poetry.

Lesley Jeffries

University of Huddersfield

‘Broadcast’ by Philip Larkin

Giant whispering and coughing from

Vast Sunday-full and organ-frowned-on spaces

Precede a sudden scuttle on the drum,

'The Queen', and huge resettling. Then begins

A snivel on the violins:

‘Broadcast’ by Philip Larkin

Giant whispering and coughing from

Vast Sunday-full and organ-frowned-on spaces

Precede a sudden scuttle on the drum,

'The Queen', and huge resettling. Then begins

A snivel on the violins:

‘Broadcast’ by Philip Larkin

Giant whispering and coughing from

Vast Sunday-full and organ-frowned-on spaces

Precede a sudden scuttle on the drum,

'The Queen', and huge resettling. Then begins

A snivel on the violins:

‘Broadcast’ by Philip Larkin

Giant whispering and coughing from

Vast Sunday-full and organ-frowned-on spaces

Precede a sudden scuttle on the drum,

'The Queen', and huge resettling. Then begins

A snivel on the violins:

‘Broadcast’ by Philip Larkin

Giant whispering and coughing from

Vast Sunday-full and organ-frowned-on spaces

Precede a sudden scuttle on the drum,

'The Queen', and huge resettling. Then begins

A snivel on the violins:

‘Broadcast’ by Philip Larkin

Giant whispering and coughing from

Vast Sunday-full and organ-frowned-on spaces

Precede a sudden scuttle on the drum,

'The Queen', and huge resettling. Then begins

A snivel on the violins:

Doorsteps

She used it to pare to an elegant thinness.

First she smoothed already-softened butter

on the upturned face of the loaf. Always white,

Coburg shape. Finely rimmed with crust the soft

halfmoon half-slices came to the tea table

herringboned across a doylied plate.

Doorsteps

She used it to pare to an elegant thinness.

First she smoothed already-softened butter

on the upturned face of the loaf. Always white,

Coburg shape. Finely rimmed with crust the soft

halfmoon half-slices came to the tea table

herringboned across a doylied plate.

Doorsteps

She used it to pare to an elegant thinness.

First she smoothed already-softened butter

on the upturned face of the loaf. Always white,

Coburg shape. Finely rimmed with crust the soft

halfmoon half-slices came to the tea table

herringboned across a doylied plate.

Doorsteps

She used it to pare to an elegant thinness.

First she smoothed already-softened butter

on the upturned face of the loaf. Always white,

Coburg shape. Finely rimmed with crust the soft

halfmoon half-slices came to the tea table

herringboned across a doylied plate.

Doorsteps

She used it to pare to an elegant thinness.

First she smoothed already-softened butter

on the upturned face of the loaf. Always white,

Coburg shape. Finely rimmed with crust the soft

halfmoon half-slices came to the tea table

herringboned across a doylied plate.

Doorsteps

She used it to pare to an elegant thinness.

First she smoothed already-softened butter

on the upturned face of the loaf. Always white,

Coburg shape. Finely rimmed with crust the soft

halfmoon half-slices came to the tea table

herringboned across a doylied plate.

Dulce et decorum est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Dulce et decorum est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Dulce et decorum est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Dulce et decorum est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Robbing Myself

The front room, our crimson chamber,

With our white-painted bookshelves, our patient books,

The rickety walnut desk II paid six pounds for,

The horse-hair Victorian chair I got for five shillings,

Waited only for us.

Robbing Myself

The front room, our crimson chamber,With our white-painted bookshelves, our patient books,The rickety walnut desk I paid six pounds for,The horse-hair Victorian chair I got for five shillings,

Waited only for us.

Robbing Myself

The front room, our crimson chamber,With our white-painted bookshelves, our patient books,The rickety walnut desk I paid six pounds for,The horse-hair Victorian chair I got for five shillings,

Waited only for us.

Müller (1999:394)

The study of iconicity provides an ideal field of research for linguists and literary critics alike and may thus help to bridge the gulf between the two disciplines which has steadily widened in the course of the twentieth century.

Fischer (1999:346)

only in imagic iconicity, is there a straight iconic link between the verbal sign and the image or object (…), as for instance in onomatopoeia. Diagrammatic iconicity is more like a topographic map, where the relation between objects or concepts in the real world (as we see it) can be deduced from the relations indicated on the map

Onomatopoeia:

quack, moo, baa squawk, squeak, squeal clap, slap, thwack, bong, ting whistling wind the knock of sailing boats on the net

webbed wall (Dylan Thomas)

Imagic iconicity: tube line

Diagrammatic iconicity: tube map

Direct experience of language

Sound Sight Linearity – time (and space)

Müller (2001:305)

What the linguistic structure imitates is not external reality, but a subjective perception or, rather, conception of reality, a mental structure which is related to external reality but does not merely imitate or copy it. Rhetorical features, for instance, schemes like asyndeton and climax or different forms of word-order, are structuring and ordering devices, which point to the structure and activity of the mind and to cognitive and epistemological processes

Müller (2001:319):

In this as in many other cases in rhetorical speech it is just the deviation from the iconic norm which manifests iconicity most conspicuously. This is iconicity, to be sure, on a level different from the mere miming of external reality. It is non-objective or, to use Tabakowska’s term once more, ‘experiential iconicity’.

Müller (2001:406)

But even then Collins uses protracting syntactic devices, an adverbial phrase and a passive construction which shifts the agent of the action to a prepositional phrase…The following one-sentence paragraph describes the protagonist’s physical reaction to the event…yet again not without the use of suspense-increasing syntactic devices (inversion of the word order, the use of adverbial elements, parenthesis)…This is indeed a supreme example of the art of creating suspense.

‘The Unprofessionals’

2nd year stylistics of contemporary poetry class

Mixed lang/lit students Mostly (not all) 19-20 years old Almost complete consensus One exception! Different to my own reactions

Explanations?

Firstly my interpretation of ‘The Unprofessionals’ may have been based on textual cues which my students missed.

Secondly, they (and I) may have been reacting to an unambiguous narrative from their (my) own experiential perspective.

Finally, there may be textual cues to both interpretations, which we reacted to differently because of our age, experience or background.

Readers’ iconicity?

Conceptual iconicityCould information structure provide a

better basis than syntax for explaining syntactic iconicity?

Emotional iconicityIs a reader-based approach one way to

describe the iconic effects of syntactic deviance?

Syntax – iconic meaning?

Readers’ reactions to deviation in syntax – based on expectations of information structure.

The basic strands of these expectations are related to old and new information and complexity/length of clause elements

Is this another ‘natural’ iconicity?

English information structure:

There will be clause structure; Subjects will be relatively short; Predicators will be arrived at fairly quickly; Adverbials will be relatively few in number and

short, particularly before Subject and Predicator; The focal point will be longer than the earlier

elements, and will bring in the new information; Optional clause elements of any length will occur

late in the clause, preferably after the focus, and certainly after the Predicator; They will not be excessively long or numerous

Deviations from this norm will have effects.

1st stanza

When the worst thing happens,That uproots the future,That you must live for every hour of your future,

1st stanza

When the worst thing happens,That uproots the future,That you must live for every hour of your future,

1st stanza

When the worst thing happens,That uproots the future,That you must live for every hour of your future,

1st stanza

When the worst thing happens,That uproots the future,That you must live for every hour of your future,

A three-line adverbial clause, with no sign of the main clause so far

2nd stanza

They come,Unorganized, inarticulate, unprofessional;

2nd stanza

S P They come,

Unorganized, inarticulate, unprofessional;

Short main clause with simple elements, cutting through long adverbial clause of previous stanza

2nd stanza

S P They come,

Unorganized, inarticulate, unprofessional; The presence of these people is a

(syntactic) relief, but they turn out to be bumbling and ineffectual;

Non-obligatory clause elements; Note 3-part list of multi-syllabic words and

unprofessional used as adjective here.

3rd stanza

They come sheepishly, sit with you, holding hands,From tea to tea, from Anadin to Valium,Sleeping on put-you-ups, answering the phone,Coming in shifts, spontaneously,

Two main clauses, elaborating on earlier one – they are still a comfort, though sheepish.

3rd stanza

They come sheepishly, sit with you, holding hands,From tea to tea, from Anadin to Valium,Sleeping on put-you-ups, answering the phone,Coming in shifts, spontaneously,

A string of non-finite adverbial clauses further elaborating what these people do when they arrive. Verbs in progressive form.

4th stanza

Talking sometimes,About wallflowers, and fishing, and whyDealing with Kleenex and kettles,Doing the washing up and the shopping,

Continuing the string of adverbial clauses with –ing verbal forms

5th stanza

Like civilians in a shelter, under bombardment,Holding hands and sitting it outThrough the immortality of all the seconds,Until the blunting of time,

This last adverbial clause introduced by adverbials

5th stanza

Like civilians in a shelter, under bombardment,Holding hands and sitting it outThrough the immortality of all the seconds,Until the blunting of time,

The main elements of this last clause

5th stanza

Like civilians in a shelter, under bombardment,Holding hands and sitting it outThrough the immortality of all the seconds,Until the blunting of time.

This last adverbial clause also followed by non-obligatory adverbials (PPs)

Iconicity in the poem

iconicity - a direct reflection of the dynamics of the situation in the information structure of the syntax.

juxtaposition of subordinate clauses and main clauses may cause the reader not just to perceive but to actually experience the feelings of frustration and resignation described.

ongoing presence of the vacuously active ‘unprofessionals’, against such a bleak background, is, perversely, rather comforting

tension between what they actually do and the fact that they are there continuously reflects both sides of the discrepancy noted in class.

Unprofessionals – good or bad?

Noun / adjective Syntactic relief and frustration Continuity of presence of the

unprofessionals Schematic knowledge – cultural

difference and local practice? Personal experience

Conclusions

There may be some value in taking norms of information structure and length/complexity of clause elements as a basis for syntactic analysis of poetic syntax.

This may provide deeper insights into the reader’s more unconscious responses.

Our definitions of iconicity need further development, to encompass different kinds of mimesis relating to different aspects of communicative process.

References

Fischer, O., (1999) ‘On the Role Played by Iconicity in Grammaticalisation Processes’ in Nänny, M. and Fischer, O. (Editors) 1999:345-374.

Jeffries (1993) The Language of Twentieth Century Poetry; Basingstoke, Macmillan.

Jeffries, L. (2001) ‘Schema theory and White Asparagus: cultural multilingualism among readers of texts’, Language and Literature 10(4): 325-43.

Jeffries, L. and McIntyre, D. (2010) Stylistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jeffries, Lesley (2001) ‘Schema affirmation and White Asparagus: cultural multilingualism among readers of texts.’ Language and Literature, 10 (4): 325-343.

References

Jeffries, Lesley (2008) ‘The role of style in reader-involvement: Deictic shifting in contemporary poems.’ Journal of Literary Semantics, 37 (1): 69-85.

Müller, W. (1999) ‘The Iconic Use of Syntax in British and American Fiction’ Nänny, M. and Fischer, O. (Editors) 1999:393-408.

Müller, W. (2001) ‘Iconicity and rhetoric. A note on the iconic force of rhetorical figures in Shakespeare’ Fischer, O. and Nänny, M. (Editors) (2001: 305-322).

Nänny, M. and Fischer, O. (Editors) (1999) Form Miming Meaning. Philadelphia, PA, USA: John Benjamins Publishing Company.