Part I. General notes on style and linguistic analysis

The study of literature is the study of life through the eyes of an artist, and as such is an important part of a Philological Education. Literary analysis is also known as literary criticism. In this context, ‘criticism’ means a close reading and interpretation of a literary text, such as a poem, a short story, a play, a novel, or even a movie.

When you analyze a literary text, you will deal with basic elements of literature, like plot, theme, character, point of view, and setting. Close study of these elements will then lead to deep understanding of a literary work.

Functional Styles of Language

A close analysis of the interrelation between the language means in a given passage will enable the student to recognize different styles and even to build up a system incorporating them.

A functional style of language can be defined as a system of coordinated, interrelated and interconditioned language means intended to fulfill a specific function of communication and aiming at a definite effect. Each style can be recognized by one or more leading features, which are especially conspicuous. For instance, the use of special terminology is a lexical characteristic of the style of scientific prose, and one by which it can easily be recognized.

However not all texts have boundaries that are easy to identify in the use of distinctive language. For example, the artistic style has a lot of common features with the publicist one, which in its turn is often comparable with the style of humanities, such as political science, history or philosophy.

Within English literary language a number of functional styles may be distinguished. To them belong – the scientific style, the publicist (media) style, the artistic style, the style of official documents, and the colloquial style.

We will now consider two functional styles presented in the texts for analysis in the given book.

Artistic Style

Artistic style, or the style of imaginative literature may be called the richest register of communication: besides its own language means which are not used in any other sphere of communication, artistic style makes ample use of other styles too, for in numerous works of literary art we find elements of scientific, official and other functional types of speech. Besides informative and persuasive functions, also found in other functional styles, the artistic style has a unique task to impress the reader aesthetically. Boundless possibilities of expressing one’s thoughts and feelings make the artistic style a highly attractive field of research for a linguist.

The artistic style rests on certain indispensable linguistic features which are:

1. Genuine, not trite, imagery achieved by purely linguistic devices.

2. The use of words in contextual and very often in more than one dictionary meaning, or at least greatly influenced by the lexical environment.

3. A vocabulary which will reflect to a greater or lesser degree the author’s personal evaluation of things or phenomena.

4. A peculiar individual selection of vocabulary and syntax.

5. The introduction of the typical features of colloquial language to a full degree (in plays) or a lesser one (in imaginative prose) or a slight degree, if any (in poems).

The artistic style is considered a generic term for three substyles in which the main principles and the most general properties of the style are materialized. These three substyles are:

1. Poetry.

2. Imaginative prose.

3. Drama.

Each of these substyles has certain common features, typical of the general artistic style, which make up the foundation of the style, by which the particular style is made recognizable and can therefore be singled out.

Poetry

We are now going to look at the special problems in reading and understanding that poetry may set. People sometimes have fixed preconceptions about and an antipathy towards poetry. They regard it as ‘effeminate’ or ‘arty’ or ‘difficult’. These comments may be true of some poems, but they are not true of poetry as a whole. Sometimes, poems require a greater effort on the part of the reader but equally they can give the reader a satisfaction commensurate with this effort. The more you put into reading a poem, the more you are likely to get out of it.

The image, as a purely linguistic notion, is something that must be decoded by the reader.

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 used. The easier the images are decoded, the more intelligible the poetic utterance becomes to the reader.

Images from a linguistic point of view are mostly built on metaphors, metonymy and simile. These are direct semantic ways of coining images. Images may be 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 aural image in our mind, that is, it will make us hear the actual sounds of nature or things.

A relational image is one that shows the relation between objects through another kind of relation, and the two kinds of relations 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.” (Shelley)

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

Another feature of the poetical substyle is its volume of emotional colouring. The emotional element is characteristic of the artistic 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.

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.