Convergence

The principles of reiteration and redundancy are at play in foregrounding called convergence. In convergence several stylistic devices converge to produce one striking effect, to create one image or to fulfill some other function together. The concept is due to M. Riffaterre. The type is very interesting because in it the relationship and difference between foregrounding and stylistic devices is most transparent.

In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man J. Joyce depicts his protagonist in the state of exaltation:

“His cheeks were aflame, his body was aglow, his limbs were trembling. On and on and on he strode far out over the sands singing wildly to the sea, crying to greet the life that had cried to him”.

The reader feels how excited the hero is as he perceives the anaphoric parallel constructions, high-flown archaic metaphoric synonyms “aflame” and “aglow” used as epithets, but insistent repetition of “on”, rendering unstoppable energy of motion, metaphorical personification of life – all these make the reader share the hero’s feelings.

The type of foregrounding to be taken next is a modification of the so-called “philological cycle” described by one of the most widely known stylistic critics of the beginning of the XX-th century Leo Spitzer. The method is based on the emphasis created by some salient feature of the text. Spitzer developed it as a way to concentrate on individual styles, indicative of the outlook of the writer, We shall make use of Spitzer’s procedures for a different purpose, namely that of solving the basic question of all text interpretation – how can we check our intuition and prove that our understanding is correct.

Salient Feature

The metaphorical term philological cycle or “cycle of understanding” is justified because the procedure demands a to-and-fro movement from linguistic peculiarity to a literary explanation. Linguistic observation stimulates and checks the literary insight, and this in turn stimulates further observation in which lexical proof is especially important.

In illustrating the way in which the philological cycle and the salient feature are used in Decoding Stylistics it must be emphasized that a salient feature proves a convenient starting point for an analysis that is further continued on the basis of other types of foregrounding. To see this let us examine the Sonnet 66in the first line of which W. Shakespeare “cries for restful death”. We shall not attempt a complete interpretation but we shall only try to show how effective the salient feature may prove. There are several salient features in this famous poem. One of the most obvious peculiarities is the polysyndeton, i.e. the repetition in close succession of the conjunction “and” in the beginning of ten lines out of fourteen.

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,

As, to behold desert a beggar born,

And needy nothing trimmed in jollity,

And purest faith unhappily forsworn,

And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,

And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,

And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,

And strength by limping sway disabled,

And art made tongue-tied by authority,

And folly doctor-like controlling skill,

And simple truth miscalled simplicity,

And captive good attending captain ill:

Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,

Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

Searching for an explanation, one sees that “and” links together object clauses to the verb “behold” and reduces a multitude of things to unity in one vast canvas.

But a canvas of what? To explain this one pays attention to the fact that the canvas is structured as a coupling in a series of parallel constructions. Its equivalent elements – a series of nouns given prominence by the preceding “and” have a common denominator – a strongly marked evaluative seme of ethical character, they are also semantically equivalent because they denote ethical categories (virtue, faith, perfection), a third point of equivalence is that they are marked by syncretism, they denote not only the qualities but also people personifying them.

One more salient feature is that the sonnet is divided vertically; there is a pause after each of the noun phrases. In the right-hand side of the poem another set of parallel constructions is correlated with the first. It has a predicative force. The pattern is again clear-cut. Participle II of the verbs meaning “to do great wrong to” is enhanced by adverbs of the strongest negative evaluation: “unhappily”, “shamefully”, “rudely”.

A third type of foregrounding present is that of contrast. Everything good is wronged and everything evil prospers. This prompts the most important step of interpretation – the canvas drawn is that of universal injustice and cruelty that makes the poet indignant. The first insights thus justified the reader is stimulated for further careful interpretation of every linguistic detail.

In conclusion of this brief description of foregrounding it is important to stress that there is a strong tendency for various types of foregrounding to occur and interact within the same text.