Stylistics

Chapter 3: The Puprose of Stylistics

Why should we do stylistics?
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.
 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.
 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.
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.
 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.
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.
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.
 Level of Language Branch of Language Study

The sound of spoken language; phonology; phonetics

The way words are pronounced.

The patterns of written language; graphology

The shape of language on the page

The way words are constructed; morphology

Words and their constituent structures.

The way words combine with other words syntax

to form phrases and sentences.

The words we use; the vocabulary of a Lexicology

language.

The meaning of words and sentences. semantics

The way words and sentences are used in pragmatics; discourse analysis.
everyday situations; the meaning of
language in context.
 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.
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.
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)
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

‫كوكب‬
‫ُ‬ ‫منهن‪ ‬‬
‫‪ّ ‬‬ ‫طلعت‪ ‬ل‪ّ ‬نهنم ُدبي م‪ ‬يبد ‪ ُ ‬‬
‫‪ّ ‬نهنم ُدبي مل ْ‬ ‫كواكب‪ُ ‬كولملاو ‪ ،‬إذا‪ ‬‬
‫ٌ‬ ‫ك‪ ‬‬
‫س‪ُ ‬كولملاو ‪  ،‬والملو ‪ُ ‬‬
‫ك‪ ‬شم ٌ‬
‫فإن ‪ُ ‬كولملاو ‪ٌ،‬سمش َ‬
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.
 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.
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.
 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’
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.
 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.
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!
 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.
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).
What is the function of literary texts?
 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.
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.
If this is the case, we might conclude that the function
of literature is not socializing but rather individualizing
 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.
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.