CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCLUSION
7.1. Specific Findings
Stylistics is the systematic analysis of style in language in all its forms. The
conclusions derived in this chapter have summarized the conclusions included
under each of the previous chapters. Apart from that, the correlations among the
chapters have been attempted.
Stylistics works on the linguistic evidences at
hand in the language of poetry so that the conclusions reached are based on the
actual analysis of the language of poems. In most of the cases, the results are
replicable and objective. However, poems themselves bear ambiguous nature
and stylistic interpretations many times rely on the individual world of
experience and the intuition of the interpreter. Yet such interpretations always
modify and add on the previous interpretations.
The following specific findings in each of the poems have proved the
hypothesis and it stands intact. The pleasurable function of poetry is served
because of the cumulative effect of the employment of various stylistic
devices in the poem. As it can be viewed from the analysis of the selected
poems that unanimously, all poems possess stylistic features of various
kinds. The employments of features vary in the poems as the stylistic
competence of the poets varies from poem to poem. It would be amusing to
see that how many stylistic features that each of the selected poem contains.
So that the common stylistic features would show the production of similar
effect in the poems. It has also proved the fact that the pleasurable function
of poetry is the same, irrespective of country, age, sex or race.
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England
1. Poor Soul the Centre of My Sinful Earth
William Shakespeare
The most dominant stylistic feature in the poem is semantic deviation, which
is involved in the use of paradox in the expression ‗feed on death‘. The poet
uses rhetorical questions in the beginning of the poem, which marks the
informal tone of the poem. Later he uses imperative sentences as usually are
found in religious registers. The shift of register takes place in case of
grammar. The shift of register changes common speech to serious theme.
2. The Invocation
John Milton
The most dominant stylistic feature involved in the poem is semantic
deviation in relation to the use of the phrase ‗mortal taste‘. Phonological
deviation occurs in the use of polysyllabic word in the midst of monosyllabic
words.
The impact of classical language can be witnessed in the phrases like ‗didst
inspire‘, ‗dost prefer‘, ‗know‘st‘, ‗sat‘st‘, ‗mad‘st‘ etc. By employing these
words, the poet not only deviates from the language of his time but also is
successful in creating the biblical ambience appropriate to the epic. The
syntactical shift of register occurs in the poem. The poet uses ten subordinate
clauses with one main clause in the first sentence. The long sentence seems
to have been derived from legal register.
3. The Sunne Rising
John Donne
The dominant stylistic feature involved in the poem is lexical deviation in
case of curtailing of the word ‗apprentices‘ and forming the word ‗prentices‘.
Another important stylistic feature of the poem is phonological deviation. It
occurs when the poet lengthens the vowels than its usual length to indicate
its actual use in the colloquial speech of the English people. The farfetched
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conceits used in the poem describe the cynical tone of the speaker. The
hyperbolic expressions used in the poem express the cynical nature of the
speaker.
4. London
William Blake
The poet achieves semantic deviation on the word ‗chartered‘. This poem is
also marked by semantic parallelism. The semantic parallel phrases intensify
the action of the verb ‗mark‘ beyond the certain level. The syntactic shift of
register in the poem enables the reader to read the poem at two levels
personal and universal.
5. The Solitary Reaper
William Wordsworth
The dominant stylistic feature involved in the poem is lexical deviation in
the formation of the phrase ‗sickle bending‘. The metaphors used in the
poem increase the melancholy loneliness of the reaper.
6. Ode to the West Wind
Percy Bysshe Shelley
The deviant expressions like ‗the winged seeds‘ and ‗the dying year‘ used in
the poem invite the attention of the reader to life of human being rather than
to the cycle of season. The poet uses /r/ sound in all its allophonic variety.
Shelley not only passively depicts the destructive and constructive wind but
also projects the existence of wind through the acoustic qualities of /r/ sound
in English. Still more interesting to note that the metaphor and simile
mechanism used in the poem allows the poet to explore his theme i.e. life
within death or death within life. Apostrophe used in the poem marks the
emotive emphasis of the poem. The poet employs climax to show the cosmic
existence of the west wind.
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7. My Last Duchess
Robert Browning
The grammatical deviation in the excessive use of possessive pronoun
enables the poet to comment on the possessive nature of the Duke. The
synecdoche on ‗hands‘ used in the poem helps the duke to draw the attention
of his guests towards his superiority. Irony achieved on ‗There she stands as
if alive‘ comments on the tragic death of the duchess. Tautology involves in
the expression ‗his daughter‘s self‘ where the poet unnecessarily repeats the
word ‗self‘ because the word daughter includes the meaning ‗self‘. Yet it
involves the meaning that the duke is interested in her ‗self‘ rather than in
the daughter for marrying.
8. Wants
Philiph Larkin
The semantic repetition in the poem helps the poet to bind certain words
closely for raising their semantic fields. The poet uses transferred epithet in
the expression ‗artful tension‘ to expand the idea that tensions in life draws
people way from wish to be alone.
9. An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
William Butler Yeats
The dominant stylistic feature of the poem is semantic deviation, paradoxical
expression, in which the poet due to typical context in the poem is able to
deviate from the literal meaning. The poet achieves paradox on the lines
‗Those that I fight I do not hate‘ and on ‗Those that I guard I do not love‘.
The literal understanding stands opposite to the literary understanding of the
poem.
10. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
T.S. Eliot
The dominant stylistic feature of the poem is shift of register. The
borrowings from different registers in the poem proves that the monologue
belongs to the psychologically disturbed person or at other level it also
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means different voices speak through him. The epigraph in Italian language
at the beginning of the poem clearly marks the change in the register. The
formal tone of Guido‘s speech in Italian language changes to the informal
speech of Prufrock in English language. The conceit used in the poem
enables the poet to allow his readers to peep inside the mind of Prufrock.
Antonomasia achieved on the word ‗Hamlet‘ presents Prufrock as the most
comic figure to heighten the tragedy of his life.
11. Flying Crooked
Robert Graves
The poem is violently grammatically deviant with many breaks and
parentheses. Moreover, the subject ‗butterfly‘ is estranged from the verb
master. These grammatical deviations in the poem enable the poet to
communicate the message that the performance and performer may be at
length, but there is always a link between them.
America
12. Because I Could Not Stop For Death
Emily Dickinson
The repeated verb ‗passed‘ compels the reader to read the word with
suggested meaning.
13. Richard Cory
E.A.Robinson
The dominant stylistic feature in the poem is morphological deviation
achieved on the title of the poem. The parallel phrases beginning with ‗and‘
in the poem enables the poet to suggest the overlapping of meanings in the
poem.
14. In a Station of the Metro
Ezra Pound
The dominant stylistic feature in the poem is syntactical deviation i.e. the
poem contains verbless clause.
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15. Stopping by Woods in a Snowy Evening
Robert Frost
The repetition occurs as the repetition of the last line of the poem. The
repetition can be interpreted differently as emotive emphasis, introspection,
reaffirmation, resignation, acceptance of death by slow but steady degrees
etc. The poem with its metaphorical language seems to develop the
comparison i.e. ―Life is Journey‖.
16. A Noiseless Patient Spider
Walt Whitman
His juxtaposition of the similarities between a noiseless patient spider and
the soul of the poet enables him to present the idea in parallel form. The lines
of the poem bring out the spider – soul comparison with the use of
parallelism in words, in phrases and in stanzas at large.
17. The Emperor of Ice-cream
Wallace Stevens
The syntactical parallel enables the reader to accept the view that life too
makes death short lived so it should become beautiful, attractive and
irresistible. The dominant stylistic feature involved in the poem is lexical
deviation, where ‗be‘ and ‗seem‘ are used as nouns.
18. The Red Wheelbarrow
William C. Williams
The poet typographically arranges the 16 word complex sentence having one
main clause and one subordinate clause in such a manner that it represents a
visual word pattern. Shape poem does not stand for anything else beyond its
shape.
19. Daddy
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath employs German words like ‗Ach du‘ and ‗Ich‘. This switch of
code of language enables the poet to typically describe the suffering and
trauma of German girl. The employment of German words and shift of
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registers in the poem avails the ground in the poem for psychological
interpretation and for finding the seeds of Electra complex in the poem. The
phonetical shift of register in the poem takes place where the poet uses the
words having the sounds / ju: / to remind the readers the pervasive presence
of her father.
20. what if a much of a which of a wind
E.E. Cummings
The syntactical and grammatical parallel structures in the poem explore the
hidden sameness in the apparent dissimilar ideas.
India
21. An Old Woman
Arun Kolatkar
The phonetical deviation occurs in the poem in the sense that the overuse of
/s/ and /z/ allomorphs enables the readers to explore the possibilities of
interconnections between different ideas in the poem. The phonetic
parallelism gives the reader an opportunity to relate hills and temples with
the action of falling. Thus, ‗hills‘ and ‗temples‘ not only crack but fall too.
This suggests the devaluation of hills i.e. society and temples i.e. religion on
metaphorical level.
22. Sea Breeze, Bombay
Adil Jussawala
The poet has used words with unusual combinations like ‗cut country‘ and
‗fray cut‘. The poet employs the language and images from the tailoring
occupation to reinstate the process of dislocation and relocation. The words
are not only used from the different fields but also the language used in the
poem exhibits the grammar of language of the tailoring field rather the
language of poem or history to communicate the message effectively. The
use of Litotes in ‗uncovers no root‘ allows the poet to hint politely at the
spirit of gentleness on the part of the city, of not asking about caste, religion,
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creed or any other unwanted details. Had the poet used the direct expression,
‗the city covers the root‘, it might have given wrong implication that the city
covers the wrong doings of the people.
23. Father Returning Home
Dilip Chitre
The comparisons between heterogeneous ideas in the poem hint at the busy
nature of life. It also places emphasis on the intellectual barrenness of
modern life.
24. The Old Playhouse
Kamala Das
The poem is marked by phonetical parallel structure of the sounds /d/, /b/, /d/
. They represent the violent and so unpleasant sexual act on the behalf of the
speaker. The grammatical shift of register occurs in the change of passive
voice to active voice to mark ‗sex‘ and ‗tradition‘.
25. Night of the Scorpion
Nissim Ezekiel
The parallel in the expression ‗with men also and ladies also‘ hint at the
typical concerns of Indian people while giving the public talk. Onomatopoeic
words used in the poem enable the poet to project the typical Indian rustic
scene in front of readers.
26. Hunger
Jayanta Mahapatra
The use of zeugma in the expression ‗trailing his nets and nerves‘ reveals the
idea that one can trail net in real sense of the term but not nerves. However,
it hints at the carelessness of the father to sell his daughter.
27. Delhi
R. Parthasarthy
The poet poses the rhetorical question in the poem to disparage the squalid
identity of Delhi and to lament on the loss of identity, power and glory. The
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use of personification in the poem facilitate the application of the action with
abstract ideas or other unanimated objects and furnishes the ground to
discover ruthless corruption in Delhi.
28. Grass Words
Gopal Honnalgere
The poet employs Chiasmus in the lines ‗State gambles with men / Men
gamble with the state‘. The poet brings to the notice of readers the duplicity
of manmade world by reversing the ideas in the second line.
Africa
29. The Mystic Drum
Gabriel Okara
The poem makes a deviant use of ‗but‘ and ‗and‘. The poet is able to create
plurality of meaning and of obscurity. The repeated use of ‗and‘ creates gap
of meaning to allow the scope to readers to perceive a new meaning
themselves. The poem is dialectically variant. The poet uses expressions like
‗fungoid sequences‘ which seems to have originated from the African
language, Yoruba. The parallel structure in the poem enables the poet to
comment on the transformation of men into fishes and vice versa.
30. A Negro Labourer in Liverpool
David Rubadiri
The metaphorical comparisons develop new semantic values of the objects
of comparisons.
31. Refugee Mother and Child
Chinua Achebe
The poet achieves semantic deviation on the expression on the word, ‗ghost
smile‘ to comment poignantly on the draught affected situation in Africa.
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32. To My First White Hairs
Wole Soyinka
The graphological deviation in the poem with respect of ‗THREE WHITE
HAIRS!‘ enables the poet to attract the attention of his reader towards the
emphasis that he lays on the inevitability of the race mixing. The semantic
repetition of black colour is used in order to hint at the immense black
population in Africa. Epigrammatic expression ‗interpret time‘ reflects the
idea that there is every possibility of culture assimilation, race mixing and
society merging.
33. Africa
David Diop
A typical syntactical repetition of NP with the structure ‗The + noun + of +
your + noun‘ describes the definite plan in the mind of the poet. The internal
linking is employed by repeating the last word as the first word of the next
line. The internal linking of such type also marks the thematic linking in the
poem. The pun achieved on ‗grave‘ explores the idea of seriousness of what
ancestors told about ‗liberty‘ achieved through hardship. The poet has used
sarcasm in the phrases ‗my Africa‘ and ‗your Africa‘ that enables him to
satirize his own country for the loss of liberty.
Australia
34. Surely God Was a Lover
Shaw Neilson
The syntactical parallel used in the poem enables the poet to mark the
comparison between nature and woman. The syntactical shift of register
occurs where Shaw Neilson prefers prosaic register for every first line of
each stanza of two lines. The second line is written in the register of verse.
One interesting point about the poem is that the title of the poem forms the
main clause of the first line.
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35. Australia
A.D.Hope
The grammatical parallel structure in the lines of the poem ‗we live‘ and ‗we
survive‘ assert the theme of survival.
36. Woman to Man
Judith Wright
The repetition of various kind used in the poem hints at the limitation
imposed on her for expressing the sexual act through feminine point of view.
She has to express the act through masculine point of view. Paradoxes used
in the poem help the poet to comment on the complicated relations of man
and woman.
37. Exit
Bruce Beaver
The dominant stylistic feature in the poem is grammatical deviation. The
words ‗fast‘ and ‗slow‘ are used as nouns rather than as adjective or adverb.
Canada
38. I'm Getting Old Now
Robert Kroetsch
The grammatical parallel used in the poem enables the poet to discover the
relation between the exchange of roles as parent and son.
39. Like an Old Proud King in Parable
A.J.M.Smith
The syntactical deviation used in the poem hints at the difficult structures of
Yeats‘s poetry itself.
40. Adolescence
P.K.Page
The use of antithesis in the poem avails the poet an opportunity to pass
comment on the unformed stage of adolescence of the lovers and annoyed
nature of the lovers.
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41. This is a Photograph of Me
Margaret Atwood
The poem is grammatically deviant because the poet ignores the normal
expression ‗This is my photograph‘, in favour of unusual expression ‗This is
a Photograph of me‘. The reader can read aloud the title of the poem in seven
ways and can ensure seven meanings. The graphological parallelism used in
the poem achieves the blurring effect of photography. It not only achieves
blurring effect on the text but also it represents blurring effect on the mind
that recollects the past.
The West Indies
42. Tizzic
Edward Brathwaite
The poet in order to evoke the West Indian culture employs words like
‗kele‘, ‗kalinda‘, ‗calypso‘, limbo‘, ‗bambalula bambulai‘ etc. from
indigenous language and thus employs dialectal deviation. The employment
of the words from altogether different language and different register too,
enables the poet to link the theme of social slavery to musical slavery in real
sense of the terms. Asyndeton occurs as the conjunctions are omitted. The
omission hints at the idea that the slave loves all these things equally without
any preference to any special object.
43. On seeing the Reflection of Notre Dame
John Figueroa
The oxymoron on ‗night‘s reflection‘ expands the idea that through the
realization of ignorance, one may hope for knowledge. The poet employs
Zeugma as the verb ‗make‘ is only correctly related with ‗tune‘, whereas it
cannot be used with cathedral, image, stone and poem. Yet the figure of
speech reflects the idea that the poet views these different activities as a part
of the same scheme of his universe
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44. A Far Cry from Africa
Derek Walcott
The syntactical and phonetical parallel of the rhetorical question used in the
poem serves the idea that life force is stronger in African people. Mother
tongue influence of placing high tonic accent on words may suggest different
meaning to Kikuyu. They may pronounce ‗colonial policy‘ as ‗colonel
policy‘. The poet places the expression in the poem in such fashion that the
kikuyu people may misread the words. The pun is achieved on ‗read‘ extends
the ideas of reading and bloodshed.
45. Elemental
Edward Baugh
The poem grammatically deviates because though upper limit of a sentence
is not fixed but it should be long enough, as the mind can perceive the idea
easily. The poem ‗Elemental‘ constructs one mega sentence depicting the
wholly trekking scene in which the speaker ascends mountain at night and
descends in sunlight.
Singapore
46. Ulysses by the Merlion
Edwin Thumbo
The antithesis in the line ‗Suffering much, enjoying a little‘, beyond its
contrastive quality initiates the intertextuality. These lines remind readers to
recall lines from Tennyson‘s ‗Ulysses‘.
47. To a Visitor to Singapore
Kirpal Singh
The use of transferred epithet at the end of the poem clearly marks the guilty
consciousness on the part of the host.
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Malaysia
48. On Writing a Poem
E.E.Tiang Hong
The poem is marked by syntactical parallelism. The parallel structures in the
poem simplify the meaning of the world ‗simple‘.
Shrilanka
49. Don't Talk to Me about Matisse
Lakdasa Wikkramasinha
The euphemistic expression used in the lines, ‗woman reclines forever on a
sheet of blood‘ describes typically the death in its mild form.
50. To a Student
Kamala Wijeratne
The repeated construction ‗Let us …‘ enables the reader to understand the
close relations between the teacher and the student.
51. The Uncrossed Bridge
Chand R. Sirimanne
The repetition in the poem suggests the gap of communication between
husband and wife. Oxymoron on ‗accusing regrets‘ typically describes an
irresolvable mystery of the quarrel between husband and wife.
New Zealand
52. The Man with the Wooden Leg
Katherine Mansfield
The morphological deviation in the poem is achieved on the name of the
character in the poem by name ‗Farkey Anderson‘.
53. Time
Allen Curnow
Internal syntactical deviation in the poem comes out with the meaning that
time does change but systematically.
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54. The Postman
Gordan Challis
The poet has used morphological deviation in the poem to convey
disinterested nature of the postman‘s job.
Pakistan
55. I am not that Woman
Kishwar Naheed
‗I am‘ construction and ‗I am not‘ construction are repeated to describe the
exploitation and the struggle of women.
56. My Guests
Faiz Ahmad Faiz
The metaphoric expression used in the poem enables the reader to view
morning, afternoon and evening in its most dejected form.
57. Voice of a Stone
Fahmida Riaz
The metaphorical language used in the poem heightens the suggestive tone
of the poem.
58. On the Tenth Night of the Tenth Moon
Ahmed Ali
The grammatical deviation occurs in the poem where pronouns ‗I‘, ‗you‘ and
‗he‘ stand for the same entity.
59. Hurricane Lamp
Daud Kamal
The metaphorical use of language enables the reader to see the correlation
between the temporariness of life and the objects of nature. The title
‗Hurricane Lamp‘ hints at the idea that one should not try to see the things
closely, lest they be disappointed.
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Bangladesh
60. My Daughter's Boy Friend
Razia Khan
The parallels in NP and PP enable the poet to express the motherly concerns
for the daughters. The poet uses meiosis in the expression ‗The flesh of my
flesh‘ to refer to her daughter. The expression marks the scorn of the mother
to a daughter who is snatched away by the boy friend.
These specific findings have confirmed the idea that the uses of parallels,
repetition, deviance, register, figure of speech, syntactical inversions,
collocation and figures of speech in the poems have highlighted certain
linguistic items for specific effects. For calling the attention of readers, the
poets have foregrounded ideas by employing these poetic devices. It is
noteworthy that the poets first have employed backgrounding of the rest of
the text and the new norms have been set against the established norms. All
selected poems have showed the evidence of foregrounding and
backgrounding without exception.
The linguistic findings in the poems have displayed that deviation,
parallelism, repetition, shift of register and figures of speech work as a
theatrical device of verfremdung to distance the audience from the action.
The use of distancing effect has enabled the poet to shed a new and fresh
light on the overused concepts. The linguistic deviations in the poems like
‗ghost smile‘, ‗Farkey Anderson‘, ‗Richard Cory‘, ‗go-between‘ etc. have
been discovered to be employed for distancing effect to arouse the interest of
readers as well as to shed a new light on the theme of the poems. The same is
true about the employment of parallelism, repetition, shift of register and
figures of speech with their all kinds of modules.
The Russian ‗cuzoj‘, in English ‗alien‘ effect has been discerned among the
poems. The idea is that the words, lines or stanzas that poets employ are half
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someone else‘s. The use of shift of register in the poems not only recalls the
borrowings of the words but also has established the correlation between the
English ideas and the ideas of other countries. ‗Ulysees by the Merlion‘ of
Edwin Thumbo recalls to the mind ‗Ulysees‘ of Tennyson.
The figures of speech used in the poem have served various purposes in
stylistic analysis like verfremdung, distancing, foregrounding, alienation,
intertextuality etc. All selected poems have exhibited the behavior that the
poets find it as a powerful tool of expression. Apart from that, as 9 th century
Sanskrit theory believed that suggestion (vangyartha) is essence of poetry.
Figures of speech achieve ‗vangyartha‘ through ‗Vakrokti‘. As it is evident
that all selected poems have stomached one or other type of figures of
speech. The figures of speech based on comparison have been found almost
in every stanza of every poem. The analysis of figures of speech appeared
elsewhere in the thesis not only has aimed at discovery of the figures but also
aimed at discovery of a system of systems of figures of speech. The figures
of speech are the organic parts of the poem. As it has been demonstrated
from P.B.Shelley‘s ‗Ode to the West Wind‘ that the metaphor and simile
mechanism used in the poem has allowed the poet to explore his theme of
‗life within death‘ or ‗death within life‘.
These linguistic findings, across the selected poems from different countries,
furnish the solid ground for arriving at the following general findings and the
hypothesis stands absolute and intact.
7.2. General Findings
1. It has been explored that literary stylistics, as a discipline, has begun with
the benchmark publication ‗Style in Language‘ as an outcome of a
conference held at Indiana University in 1958. Style is as old as the human
communication itself. Man is believed to have acquired sounds in human
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language through imitation of animal sounds. The imitation of sound
includes imitation of style too. In the western literary tradition, the use of
rhetorical devices and figures of speech are found prevalent in the Bible and
even prior to that in the writings of classical writers, Homer and Horace. In
eastern literary tradition, Veda and Upanishad are discovered embellished
with alamkara. Western and eastern literary traditions have proved the fact
that though, literary stylistics as a formal discipline of applying stylistic
features to interpretation of literature in general and poetry in particular is
20th century phenomenon, stylistic bent of mind is as old as literature itself.
2. It has been discovered that Stylistics is a meeting ground of different
theories in linguistics and its allied disciplines viz. semantics, syntacs,
pragmatics, morphology, phonology etc. on one hand and its application to
texts, especially literary text on the other hand. Therefore, stylisticians have
to be alert regarding the emerging ideas in other disciplines too. Innovative
ideas in these disciplines render a high assistance to stylisticians to interpret
a text of a poem in a new light or to reinterpret a poem in order to support
the previous interpretations or to modify them.
3. Interpretation has been examined as a critical faculty of mind. Stylistic
analysis of poems entrusts linguistic tools of analysis in the hands of
analysts. Hence, stylistic analysis in interpretation, especially of poetry,
offers training to his critical faculty of mind regarding how to analyze
systematically. Therefore, it develops the critical faculty of analyst. These
observations bear many pedagogical implications too. Stylistic analysis of a
poem experimented in a class by a teacher offers a training to students. Later
students can work on stylistic analysis on their own. Such academic practice
by students leads not only to enrich the language of the students but also
results into the development of their critical mind.
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4. The academic practice of stylistic analysis of poems has revealed that
students on their own satiate the academic thirst. It raises their confidence
through intellectual and artistic pleasure. Linguistic analysis gives the learner
intellectual pleasure. In the second chapter of this thesis, under
morphological deviation (point 2.3.4.), the title of E.A. Robinson‘s poem
‗Richard Cory‘ is morphologically analyzed. The word Richard is analyzed
as rich + ardent. The analysis may appear simple but if a learner reaches to it
by discovering with his and only his efforts, it gives him intellectual
pleasure. In that, he learns morphological rules of word formation as in this
case adjective + adjective. Learning, through active participation is in this
sense, is pleasurable and is permanent. Moreover, the norms of language
acquired through stylistic practice also serve principles of the educational
psychology viz. self-learning is a perfect learning.
5. The study has exposed the fact that like linguistic analysis which gives
intellectual pleasure, stylistic analysis gives the reader aesthetic pleasure.
Stylistic analysis involves correlation of linguistic findings and application
of them for interpretation. This process of interpretation enables the readers
to sympathize and to empathize with the poetry. In Indian poetics, this
process is of great importance for the production of ‗rasa‘. During the
process, the reader gets transformed into Sahrdaya. For an instance, when a
reader reads a narrative of the poem ‗Richard Cory‘, he finds a story of a
man who appears to be rich to the onlookers on the pavement but at the end
he commits suicide. When the student/analyst discovers the correlations of
the words ‗Richard‘, ‗Cory‘ and ‗glitter‘(point 2.3.4.) with the theme
‗appearances are deceptive‘, his intellectual pleasure transforms into
aesthetic pleasure.
6. It has been found that Stylistics is a science of interpretation. Like science,
the results in stylistics are replicable. The results are replicable in the sense
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that if two analysts follow the same stylistic feature with the same process of
analysis, they shall arrive at the same interpretation. However, which
stylistic feature should be considered significant for the analysis; it depends
upon individual analyst. It has been validated in the interpretation of the
poem ‗Flying crooked‘ (point 2.3.7.). The mindset of analyst is the
amalgamation of varied experiences that he has undergone as well as the
reading that he has performed in the past. It is also true that not all stylistic
features have been found in a single poem, or not all poems have had the
same stylistic feature. The mindset decides the significant stylistic feature of
the poem. In other word, it is believed that it depends upon intuitive clicks of
which stylistic feature is significant in a particular poem. The fixation of the
significant feature is the most important feature in the determination of the
overall meaning of the poem. Thus, the style of a poem is a perceived
distinctive manner of expression. Indeterminacy of meaning of poetic
language does not only involve poet‘s deliberation to do so but also analyst‘s
perception of the poetic world, which largely differs from analyst to analyst.
Since stylistic analysis gives evidence from text of poem itself, it is more
convincing as compared to other approaches of analysis.
7. The study has revealed the fact that foregrounding is a poetic effect
achieved through conscious effort by the poet. Deviation, parallelism,
repetition, shift of register and figures of speech are major foregrounding
devices. The appropriate employment of the devices highlights certain
important aspects of poetry. It is a kind of distancing effect. It is a
psychological principle that whatever is close to us, it loses its attractiveness.
Therefore, the poets make familiar look unfamiliar and unfamiliar look
familiar by estranging effect and by employing the foregrounding devices. It
is a function of poetic language to throw into relief the linguistic utterance.
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8. The employment of these devices has been found to enable the poet to
invite the attention of his readers to certain important aspects of the poem.
However, when a poet employs a certain device for foregrounding, then
certain portion of the poem or the norms serve as backgrounding for
example; as shown under grammatical deviation (point 2.3.7.), in Robert
Graves‘s ‗Flying Crooked‘, the title is an interesting collocation. The title
violates the norms of collocation. In Standard English, some words go in
company of some words. Their environment, in other words which word
should precede and which should follow, is fixed. It also violates the rules of
compatibility. The adjective should be compatible with the noun. Thus we
can say ‗flying swiftly‘ because ‗swiftly‘ possess such qualities that are
compatible with ‗flying‘, but the word ‗crooked‘ possesses qualities like
‗violent‘, ‗dangerous‘ ‗beast‘ which are incompatible with ‗flying‘. Thus,
these norms serve as backgrounding. Forestalling of the use of norms
appeals the readers‘ conscience, which ultimately activates the interpretation.
9. It has been marked that deviation is a purposeful aesthetic distortion of
standard language. Poets break the normal rules of language to discover
certain poetic truth. It is for this reason that poetic language is considered as
specialized language. Western concept of deviation and eastern concept of
Vakrokti are poetic licenses. Deviation is an unexpected irregularity of
expressions. The poetic language is distorted on different levels of language.
The distorted poetic language appears ungrammatical and unacceptable on
the surface level, but on the deeper structural level, it leads the reader to
some higher kind of truth, which in normal expression would have been
impossible. Lexical deviation is a kind of neologism as it is seen in case of
Wallace Stevens‘s poem, ‗The Emperor of Ice cream‘ where the verb ‗be‘ is
used as ‗noun‘. The phonological deviation in Milton‘s ‗Invocation‘
regarding employing multisyllabic word ‗disobedience‘ in the midst of
monosyllabic words hints at the attention catching devices through deviation.
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The verbless sentence in Ezra Pound‘s ‗In a Station of Metro‘ hints at the
new kind of grammar invented by the poet. In other words deviated use of
language establishes the truth.
10. The study has evaluated the fact that parallelism is an occurrence of
identical structures. The structures are identical on different level of
language like grammar, phonology, semantics, graphology etc. Unlike
deviation, it is an unexpected regularity. The significance of parallelism rests
on equivalence. Parallelism works on both level; similarity and contrast.
Under semantic parallelism (point 3.3.1.), the effect of equivalence on
meaning is described by drawing tree diagrams of noun phrases and
prepositional phrases from Blake‘s poem ‗London‘. The parallel structure of
NP and PP hints at significant interpretations. From tree diagram it can be
viewed NP is a part of PP. and PP is a part of NP. This interdependence is
also true in case of the civilians of London city. The function of parallelism
is so diverse that its multi-diversity cannot be summarized; though its
occurrence chiefly marks emphasis, memorability and aesthetic pleasure.
11. The study has yielded the result that repetition, as a stylistic device of
analysis, is different from parallelism. There is controversy regarding
whether parallelism is a part of repetition or repetition is a part of
parallelism. Notwithstanding, the similarity between them which is
insignificant, the difference between them is important. Parallelism consists
invariables along with variables. Repetition consists only invariables. The
exact repetition of linguistic unit is a hallmark of repetition. On a wider
level, repetition can be extended to analogy and intertextuality. Repetition
expresses diverse kind of emotions like surprise, irritation doubt etc. Though
there is no upper limit to repetition, generally the repeated item depends on
the encoder‘s emotion and decoder‘s endurance.
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12. It has been recognized that the use of shift of register is very useful in
asserting the existence of double perception. It proves the multi-linguality of
the poet. It is an attempt on the part of poet to maintain verisimilitude. Poets
of all ages have employed shift of register. Nonnative poets in English,
whenever do not find equivalent words for indigenous experience, they
employ the words from their native languages by transliteration. Borrowings
from different registers in Eliot‘s ‗The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock‘
prove the psychological imbalance of the person. His split personality is
marked by the shift of register in his speech as discussed under semantic
shift of register (5.3.1.).
13. It has been found that figure of speech is a kind of deviated use of
language. In western literary tradition, it was studied under rhetorics. The
study of figures of speech, though till today is considered as a traditional, yet
recent stylistic studies on metaphors, irony, pun, alliteration and a few other
figures of speech have been initiated in the recent past. Under the new light
of stylistic studies, the studies on figures of speech have reflected a few
significant contributions to the field of psychology. Many scholars believe
that metaphor is a thought itself. It describes the way the poet‘s mind work.
Structural metaphor, Orientational metaphor and Conduit metaphor (6.3.1.2.)
are the new findings. The study of these metaphors arrives at the same basics
of all human languages because the languages have the same grammar called
as universal grammar. People speak different languages but they share the
same bent of mind for critical thinking for example ‗happiness is up‘, this
metaphor is found in all languages.
14. The stylistic analysis of selected sixty poems in English from different
countries has proved the fact that like native poets of English, nonnative
poets too have stylistic competence of English. African poet Wole Soyinka‘s
‗To My First White Hairs‘ is marked by graphological deviation. New
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Zealand poet Allen Curnow‘s ‗Time‘ is marked by repetition. Singaporean
poet, Edwin Thumbo‘s ‗Ulysses by the Merlion‘ is marked, along with other
stylistic features, by intertextuality; this proves the fact that poets of
commonwealth literature too have stylistic competence, sense of tradition
and individual talents. Indian poets in English too are experimental. Dilip
Chitre‘s, ‗Father Returning Home‘ employs the double action verbs in the
phrases like ‗sleep listening‘ and ‗sleep dreaming‘ etc. to show the busy life
of modern man.
7.3. Pedagogical Significance
Stylistic analysis has pedagogical implications since the stylistic devices
activate the readers to interact with the expressions. True learning of
language is always a consequence of the active participation of learner in the
learning process and that is served in stylistic analysis. Stylistic analysis is
originated from formalism and is developed by structuralism, is in fact as old
as criticism and is still developing as a new pedagogical theory of
understanding literature in better manner. Apart from that, it has been found
that it helps the learner to strengthen their linguistic competence,
communicative competence and even stylistic competence. The study has
identified that there is a wide scope of running stylistic methods of poetic
analysis in classroom teaching to develop learners‘ competencies. Teacher
can analyze a small poem stylistically as are given in the thesis and may ask
the students to do stylistic analysis of some other poems.
7.4. Scope for Further Research
Analysis of poetry is a subject that is always expanding and opening new
directions of research. Stylistics is a discipline that expands on the insights of
other disciplines. Psychology, sociology and many other disciplines can
contribute to the research in stylistics. The discoveries of new theories in
these fields can widen the horizons of the interpretations in stylistics. The
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optimistic note about stylistic analysis can be expected in the emerging sub
disciplines of stylistics viz. feminist stylistics, corpus stylistics, statistical
stylistics, psychological stylistics, anthropological stylistics etc. Ideology
and philosophy of a particular community can be studied by applying the
interpretative skills of stylistics and by analyzing the spoken data of the
speakers of that community.
Apart from literary stylistics, the potentials of stylistic analysis can be
utilized for understanding better the language of newspapers, reports, films
and mass media along with the language of advertisement. Cognitive
stylistics is burgeoning every day. Stylistics analysis is a helpful tool in the
hands of scholars to shed new light on how large amount of data can be
analyzed with the help of computers. Over the course of the next few years,
researchers might be expected to do research in comparative mode between
literatures of different languages of the same author. It has been identified
that stylistics of humour, pathos, love and other emotions can avail
dramatists, authors and film scriptwriters the ways to evoke effectively these
feelings in the minds of readers. The future of the research in stylistic
analysis of poetry is bright in order to discover number of ways of teaching
poetry as stylistics is based on actual classroom teaching practice.
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