B) Lexical and Syntactical Features of Verse

The phonetic features of the language of poetry constitute what we have called its external aspect. These features immediately strike the ear and the eye and therefore are easily discernible; but the characteristics of this substyle are by no means confined to these external features. Lexical and syntactical peculiarities, together with those just analysed, will present the substyle as a stylistic entity.

Among the lexical peculiarities of verse the first to be mentioned is imagery, which being the generic feature of the belles-lettres style assumes in poetry a compressed form: it is rich in associative power, frequent in occurrence and varied in methods and devices of materiali­zation.

"An image," writes A. E. Derbyshire, "is a,use of language which relates or substitutes a given word or expression to or for an analogue in some grammatical way, and which in so doing endows that word or expres­sion with different lexical information from that which it has in its set. An image, in this sense, is merely a linguistic device for providing contex­tual information."1

In spite of its being rather complicated, there is a grain of truth in this definition of an image, for an image does give additional (contextual) information. This information is based on associations aroused by a pecul­iar use of a word or expression. An interesting insight into the essence of imagery is given by Z:;Paperny: "Poetical image," he writes, "is not a frozen picture, but movement;,not a static reproduction but the develop­ing idea of an artist."2 He calls the image a "double unit'," thus pointing to the twofold application of the word, word-combination or even whole sentence.

We here define imagery as a use of language media which will create a sensory perception of an abstract notion by arousing certain associa­tions (sometimes very remote) between the general and the particular, the abstract and the concrete, the conventional and the factual.

It is hardly possible to under-estimate the significance of imagery in the belles-lettres style of language. Imagery may be regarded as the antipode to precision, although'some stylicists hold the view that im­agery has its own kind of precision. "The essence of an image," writes L. V. Shcherba, "...is in the multifariousness of the associations it provokes." s

The image, as a purely linguistic notion, is something that must be decoded by the reader. So are the subtle inner relations between the parts of the utterance and between the utterances themselves. These relations are not so easily discernible as they are in logically arranged utterances. Instances of detached construction, asyndeton, etc. must also be interpret­ed.

An image can be decoded through a fine analysis of the meanings of the given word or word-combination. In decoding a given image, the dictionary meanings, the contextual meanings, the emotional colouring and, last but not least, the associations which are awakened by the image should all be called into play. The easier the images are decoded, the more intelligible the poetic utterance becomes to the reader. If the image is difficult to decode, then it follows that either the idea is not quite clear to the poet himself or the acquired experience of the reader is not suffi­cient to grasp the vague or remote associations hidden in the given image.

Images from a linguistic point of view are mostly built on metaphor, metonymy and simile. These are direct semantic ways of coining im­ages. Images maybe divided into three categories: two concrete (visual, aural), and one abstract (relational).

Visual images are the easiest of perception, inasmuch as they are readily caught by what is called the mental eye. In other words, visual images-are shaped through concrete pictures of objects, the impres­sion of which is present in our mind. Thus in:

"... and then my state,

Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth..." (Shakespeare)

the simile has called up a visual image, that of a lark rising.

Onomatopoeia will build an а и r a I i т a g e in our mind, that is, it will make us hear the actual sounds of nature or things (see, for example: "How the Water Comes Down at Ladore").

Arelational imaged one that shows the relation between objects through another kind of relation, and the two kinds of relation will secure a more exact realization of the inner connections between things or phenomena.

Thus in:

"Men of England, Heirs of Glory, Heroes of unwritten story. Nurslings of one mighty mother, Hopes of her, and one another." (3helley)

such notions as 4heirs of glory', 'heroes of unwritten story', 'nurs­lings of ... mother', 'hopes of her...' all create relational images, inasmuch as they aim at showing the relations bet ween the constituents of the met­aphors but not the actual (visual) images of, in this case, 'heir', 'hero', 'nursling', 'hope'.

A striking instance of building up an image by means other than metaphor, metonymy and simile is to be seen in the following passage of emotive prose from "The Man of Property." Galsworthy has created

in this particular case an atmosphere of extreme tension at a dinner table. This is only part of the passage:

"Dinner began in silence; the women facing one another, and the men.

In silence the soup was finished—excellent, if a little thick; and fish was brought. In silence it was handed.

Bosinney ventured: "It's the first spring day."

Irene echoed softly: "Yes—the first spring day."

"Spring!" said June: "There isn't a breath of air!" No one replied.

The fish was taken away, a fine fresh sole from Dover. And Bilson brought champagne, a bottle swathed around the neck with white.

Soames said: "You'll find it dry."

Cutlets were handed, each pink-frilled about the legs. They were refused by June, and silence fell"

The first thing that strikes the close observer is the insistent rep­etition of words, constructions, phrases. The word 'silence' is repeated four times in a short stretch of text. The idea of silence is conveyed by means of synonymous. expressions: 'There was a lengthy pause', 'no one replied' ('answered'), 'Long silence followed!' Then the passive constructions ('fish was brought', 'it was handed', 'the fish was taken away', 'cutlets were handed', 'They were refused', 'they were borne away', 'chicken was removed', -'sugar was handed her', 'the charlotte was re­moved', 'olives... caviare were placed', 'the olives were removed', 'a silver tray was brought', and so on) together with parallel construction and asyndeton depict the slow progress of the dinner, thus revealing the strained atmosphere of which all those present were aware.

This example illustrates the means by which an image can be created by syntactical media and repetition. Actually we do not find any trans­ferred meanings in the words used here, i.e. all the words are used in their literal meanings. And yet-so .strong is the power of syntactical arrange­ment and repetition that the reader cannot fail to experience himself the tension surrounding the dinner table.

In this connection it is worth mentioning one of the ways of building up images which Archibald A. Hill, an American scholar of linguistics, has called an i с о п. The icon 4s a direct representation, not necessarily a picture, of a thing or an event.

"Icons," he writes, "have not generally been included among the enu­merations of figures of speech, and in discussions of imagery, have usually been called simply descriptions." x

The excerpt from "The Man of Property" may serve as a good example of an icon. This device might justly be included in the system of stylistic devices and be given its due as one of the most frequent ways of image-building. However, an icon must always rest on some specific, concretizing use of words, and their forms (e.g. tenses of verbs), and/or the arrange-ment of sentences, which secure the desired image. These language unit

be likened to the colours in a painting which only in an adequate arrangement will reproduce the image. "An image," writes A. E. Derby­shire, evidently having in mind the process of iconizing, "is merely a way of using words in certain syntagmatic relationships."1

It was necessary to dwell so lengthily on the problem of icons because, to hazard a guess, icons seem to be a powerful means of creating images in the belles-lettres style. The simplicity and ease in decoding the icon outweighs the effect of other image-building media, the latter being more complicated because of their multi-dimensional nature. These properties of icons make it advisable to single the device out as one among other means of image-building. Icons may justly be promoted to canons in the belles-lettres style. '

Another feature of the poetical substyle is its volume of emotional colouring. Here again the problem of quantity comes up. The emotional element is characteristic of the belles-lettres style in general. But poetry has it in full measure. This is, to some extent, due to the rhythmic foun­dation of verse, but more particularly to the great number of emotionally coloured words. True, the degree of emotiveness in works of belles-lettres depends also on the idiosyncrasy of the writer, on the content, and on the purport. But emotiveness remains an essential property of the style in general and it becomes more compressed and substantial in the poetic substyle. This feature of the poetic substyle has won formal expression in poetic words which have beenjegarded as conventional symbols of poetic language.

In the history of poetic language' there are several important stages of development. At every stage the rhythmic and phonetic arrangement, which is the most characteristic feature of the substyle, remains its essence. As regards the vocabulary, it can be described as noticeably literary. The colloquial elements, though they have elbowed their way into poetry at some stages in its development, still remain essentially unimportant and, at certain periods, were quite alien to the style. But even common literary words become conspicuous because of the new significance they acquire in a line of poetry.

"Words completely colourless in a purely intellectual setting," writes S. Ullmann, "may suddenly disclose unexpected resources of expressive­ness in emotive or poetic discourse. Poets may rejuvenate and revitilize faded images by tracing them back to their etymological roots. When *T. S. Eliot says 'a thousand visions and revisions', 'revision' is suddenly illuminated and becomes transparent." 2

Poetry has long been regarded as "the domain of the few" and the choice of vocabulary has always been in accord with this principle. The words, their forms, and also certain syntactical patterns were usually chosen to meet the refined tastes of admirers of poetry.

In the chapter on poetic words, we have pointed out the character of these words and the role they have played in preserving the so-called "purity" of poetic language. The struggle against the conventionalities

of the poetic language found its expression in the famous "Preface to Lyrical Ballads" written by Wordsworth and Coleridge which undoubtedly bore some fruitful results in liberalizing poetic language. They tried to institute a reform in poetic diction which would employ "a selection of language really used by men" as they put it in their Preface. However, their protest against poetical words and phrases was doomed to failure. The transition from refined poetical language, select and polished, to a language of colloquial plainness with even ludicrous images and associa­tions was too violent to be successful. Shelley and Byron saw the reaction­ary retrograde aspect of the "reform" and criticized the poetic language of the^ Lake poets, regarding many of the words they used as new "poeti-cisms."

However, the protest raised by Wordsworth and Coleridge reflected the growing dissatisfaction with the conventionalities of poetic diction. Some of the morphological categories of the English language, as, for instance, the Present Continuous tense, the use of nouns as adjectives and other kinds of conversion had long been banned from poetical lan­guage. The Quarterly Review, a literary journal of the 19th century, blamed Keats for using new words coined by means of conversion. After the manifesto of Wordsworth and Coleridge the "democratization" of poetic language was accelerated, however. In Byron's "Beppo" and "Don Juan" we already find a great number of colloquial expressions and even slang and cant. But whenever Byron uses non-poetic words or expressions, he shows that he is well aware of their stylistic value. He does this either by foot-notes or by making a comment in the text itself, as, for example, such phrases as:

"He was 'free to confess'—(whence comes this phrase? Is't English? No—'tis only parliamentary)"

or:

" . . . „,, ...... .to use a phrase

By which such-things tire settled nowadays."

But poetical language remains and will always remain a specific mode of communication differing from prose. This specific mode of com­munication uses specific means. The poetic words and phrases, peculiar syntactical arrangement, orderly phonetic and rhythmical patterns have long been the signals, of poetic language. But the most important of all is the power of the wofds^used in poetry to express more than they usually signify in ordinary language.

A. A. Potebnya expresses this, idea in the following words:

"What is called 'common' language can at best be only a tech­nical language, because it presupposes a ready-made thought, but does not serve as a^means of shaping the thought. It (the common) is essentially a prose language." г

The sequence of words in an utterance is hardly, if at all, predictable In poetry.

Semantic entropy is, therefore, an inherent property of poetic language. But sometimes this entropy grows so large that it stuns and stupefies the reader, preventing him from decoding the message, or it makes him exert his mental powers to the utmost in order to discover the significance given by the poet to ordinary words. This is the case with some of the modern English and American poetry. Significant in this respect is the confession of Kenneth Allot, compiler of "The Penguin Book of Contem­porary Verse," who in his introductory note on William Empson's poetry writes: "I have chosen poems I understand, or think I understand, and therefore can admire... There are some poems I cannot understand at all." l

Poetry of this kind will always remain "the domain of the few." In­stead of poetic precision we find a deliberate plunge into semantic entropy which renders the message incomprehensible. The increase of entropy in poetic language is mainly achieved by queer word combinations, frag­mentary ^syntax—almost without logical connections.

We have already pointed out that in the history of the development of the literary language, a prominent role was played by men-of-letters. There was a constant struggle between those who were dissatisfied with the established laws which regulated the functioning of literary English and those who tried to restrain its progressive march.

The same struggle is evident in the development of poetic language. In ascertaining the norms of 19th century poetic language, a most signif­icant part was played by Byron and^Shelley. Byron mocked at the efforts of Wordsworth and the other Lake poets to reform poetical language. In his critical remarks in the polemic poem "English Bards and Scotch Re­viewers" and in his other works, he showed that the true progress of po­etic language lies not in the denial of the previous stylistic norms, but in the creative reshaping and recasting of the values of the past, their adap­tation to the requirements of the present and a healthy continuity of long-established tradition. Language by its very nature will not tolerate sudden unexpected and quick changes. It is evolutionary in essence. Poetry, likewise, willrevolt against forcible impositions of strange forms and will either reject them or mould them in the furnace of regognized traditional patterns. Shelley in his preface to "The'Chenchi" writes:

"I have written more carelessly; that is, without an over-fas­tidious and learned choice of words. In this respect I entirely agree with those modern critics who assert that in order to move men to true sympathy we must use the familiar language of men, and that our great ancestors the ancient English poets are the writers, a study of whom might incite us to do that foF our own- age which they have done for theirs. But it must be the real language of men in general and not that of any particular class to whose society the writer happens to belong."

In Shelley's works we find the materialization of these principles. Revolutionary content and the progress of science laid new demands on poetic diction and, as a result, scientific and political terms and im-

agery based on new scientific data, together with lively colloquial words poured into poetic language. Syntax also underwent noticeable changes' but hardly ever to the extent of making the utterance unintelligible* The liberalization of poetic language reflects the general struggle for a freer development of the literary language, in contrast to the rigorous restrictions imposed on it by the language lawgivers of the 18th century In poetry words become more conspicuous, as if they were attired in some mysterious manner, and mean more than they mean in ordinary neutral communications. Words-in poetic language live a longer life than ordinary words. They are intended to last. This is, of course achieved mainly by the connections the words have with one another and^ to some extent, by the rhythmical design which makes the words stand out in a more isolated manner so that they seem to possess a greater degree of independence and significance.