Stylistics Stories and Style
Foregrounding – Deviation and Parallelism
"Extensive consideration of these peculiarities today has very little importance, carries almost no reference to the meaning of the poems." (Blackmur 1954). This is a statement made by literary critic R. P Blackmur in regards to the works of E.E Cummings. He argues that the linguistic choices made in Cummings' works have no significance to the way in which a reader interprets the text. One may say these peculiarities are no more than decorative pieces and add no meaning. Daniel McIntyre on the other hand argues that Blackmur's observations are outdated and Cummings' use of such extreme deviation do hold significance. He states further that Willie Van Peer has conducted research which validates the notion of foregrounding as readers do in fact pick up on intricate details in a text and create their own interpretation (McIntyre 2012).
This essay will analyse the foregrounding devices, deviation and parallelism and how they behave within a text, examining the way in which these devices contribute to a meaningful interpretation. The foregrounding devices discussed will be put into practice through an in depth analysis of Wilfred Owen's poem Mental Cases to observe how such strategies create meaning.
As suggested by (Jefferies et al 2010) the study of stylistics aims to isolate the properties and characteristics of literary language and juxtapose them with every day and non-literary language. As a result, foregrounding was established via the application of linguistic analysis as a mechanism which resulted in the concept of defamiliarisation. Defamiliarisation can simply be defined as a variant of foregrounding which evokes feelings and prolongs reading time as (Miall et al 1994) suggests. In addition, (Simpson 2014) expands on the definition and states that it is the process of "making strange" within a text. Essentially, this means deviating from language norms and this can occur at an array of stylistic levels. Viktor Shklovsky, a Russian Formalist critic argued that stylistics do more than convey familiar feelings, he added that "is not to make us perceive meaning, but to create a special perception of the object - it creates a 'vision' of the object instead of serving as a means for knowing it" p. 391. This view is validating the notion of defamiliarisation, and in turn, foregrounding, as Shklovsky is analysing the practices of the foregrounding strategy and demonstrating how a reader could create their own interpretation of a text through this technique. (Miall et al 1994)
In literary texts, stylistic variations can occur at all levels of language, such as the grammatical level, phonetic level or semantic level. Looking at E. E Cummings' poem Listen, semantic deviation is observable via the noun usage. This particular poem is heavily made up of concrete nouns, meaning they are referring to physical objects such as houses, people and streets. However more abstract nouns occur throughout such as miracle and sunlight. The vast noun usage proposes semantic deviation and (McIntyre 2012) suggests they can be divided into two categories in order to understand the semantic deviation, nouns related to nature and nouns related to humans. The mixture of concrete and abstract nouns could represent the interconnection between man and nature, thus creating semantic deviation, validating the notion of foregrounding even more so as the semantics alone help a reader to create their own interpretation.
In addition to this, Cummings breaks grammatical conventions throughout this poem with the use of bracketed phrases and noun groups which are ran together with no punctuation, for example line five reads "faces streets", which are two nouns with no separation of a comma. As well as this, lines seven and eight sees the division of the word "tumbling" so that the progressive morpheme "ing" appears on a separate line which in turn, foregrounds the verb to create a homological effect, such evidence of grammatical foregrounding further solidifies McIntyre's counter argument to Blackmur. Features such as those listed above have been dismissed by Blackmur as "peculiarities" but McIntyre suggests that the foregrounding techniques observed throughout the poem create systematic deviations that do in fact contribute to meaning.
In regards to Blackmur's statement on the significance of foregrounding, (Azhar 2014) states that he was amongst many other literary critics that rejected Cummings' poetic style and argued that the foregrounding techniques employed added no significance to the way a reader would interpret the text, a similar statement made by McIntyre. In addition, Blackmur also claimed that the deviation techniques used in Cummings' poems were not relevant to the plot or theme, thus adding no significance to the text. (Childs et al 2006) argues that foregrounding is a crucial concept in stylistics as it provides a bridge between the relative objectivity of linguistics and the relative subjectivity of literary judgment. Childs states further that foregrounding is a principle by which the features of deviation and parallelism relevant to literary effect can be selected. However, he states that it is not an entirely precise paradigm as the contrast between foregrounding and backgrounding is relative and only the reader of the text can subjectively decide what is foregrounded and what is not. Although Childs claimed that foregrounding is a vital element of stylistic analysis he does make the suggestion that not all areas of the theory are clear. He raises the question, can foregrounding be equated with artistic significance? Childs answers this question by pointing out two difficulties in regards to foregrounding on the basis of a comprehensive theory of literary style. Firstly he claims that deviations and parallelisms tend to have a background function as opposed to a foregrounded function and resist vital justification apart from vague principles such as variation. Secondly, he claims that with prose, a probabilistic approach to style is more suitable than foregrounding as significance does not lie in individual features of language. He expands further to suggest that foregrounding in prose applies more at the levels of theme, plot and character as opposed to the level of linguistic choice.
As (Jefferies et al 2010) stated, Willie Van Peer conducted extensive research into the notion of psychological foregrounding and aimed to tackle the question of the functional role of foregrounding and how the device enables readers to engage in successful communication with writers of poetry. The results of the empirical studies confirmed Van Peer's theoretical assumptions relating to psychological foregrounding. As stated by (Hicks 1988), Van Peer's results implied that certain lines of a text with clear foregrounding elements appeared more striking and had a greater discussion value as opposed to backgrounded elements. Hicks states further that Van Peer's findings demonstrated that important elements of the text according to the reader were heavily correlated with stylistic analysis. The conclusions drawn from these tests indicate that strikingness, discussion value and importance are measures to support the psychological notion of foregrounding. R. P Blackmur's claim that foregrounding devices add no significance to a text has been disproven many times by a number of literary theorist and linguists. Van Peer's studies give a strong argument to the legitimacy of the theory of foregrounding, backing up the claims from literary theorists and linguists in favour of the notion.
Wilfred Owen's poem Mental Cases implements many forms of foregrounding throughout. Owen's participation in The First World became a large influence on his poetic work, the landscapes described within his poems as well as the motifs observed throughout, create the phenomenon of war as a literal and metaphorical No Man's Land. (Knowles et al 1994) stated that Wilfred Owen himself expressed that his role in the war influenced his poetic work, he stated that "It's like the eternal place of gnashing of teeth; the Slough of Despond could not be contained in one of its crater holes. No Man's Land under snow is like the face of the moon, chaotic, crater-ridden, uninhabitable, awful, the abode of madness." (Owen 1917). This highly detailed quote taken from Letter 481 denotes Owen's awareness of the cataclysmic consequences of modern warfare. The intricate detail and description in the quote threatens to beggar conventional language, existing mythology and existing evidence of patriotic warrior poetry, thus establishing the underlying factor that influenced Owen's poetic career.
As a result of his military involvement, Owen's was a sufferer of shell shock which became another big influence in his poems. His recurrent nightmares and trauma served as the main motivation for his poem Mental Cases and he was brought to contemplate the links between trauma and poetry. During his time in a military hospital, which played a vital role in the construction of his works, he was provided with the distance and detachment needed in order to take advantage of the shell shock he was suffering from to create his pieces. In Letter 512, Owen's stated that "a conscientious objector with a very seared conscious" p. 12. Here he is making the distinction between simultaneously being a criminal and a victim, which could be interpreted as the basis of his poetic work. Knowles suggests further that through his poetic work, Owens is being characteristically personal without being autobiographical.
Upon further analysis of Mental Cases it's evident the poem utilises archaic language, which is not uncommon in poetic discourse. However, the distinctive foregrounding devices, paired with complex syntax help drive the archaic style as well aiding in creating meaning. The first and second line of the poem read "Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight? Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadow" which upon close inspection is very reminiscent of Shakespeare's famous line "O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" One may say that this use of lexical deviation through the use of Shakespearian English helps Owen's depict the tragedy and despair of a shell shocked solider, as the play Romeo and Juliette is a tragic piece with death as an end result. In addition to the lexical deviation, the Shakespearean language implemented is also evidence of archaic language. However, the archaic language extends to lines two and nine in which biblical connotations are observable. In line two, the use of the word "purgatorial" could denote the uncertainty of war. The uncertainty of whether or not one would make it out alive and the uncertainty of whether or not the blood shed will end. In addition, "purgatorial" along with the theme in general, could create a vision of the soldiers' situations parallel to that of Dante's Inferno (Knowles et al 1994). This in turn, semantically deviates the word as it is a metaphor for the First World War and could be interpreted either figuratively or mentally, meaning Owen's could simply be describing his surroundings or he could be indirectly giving readers an insight into the mind of a shell shocked solider. Line nine makes reference to hell which could also denote biblical vocabulary, however, one may say that Owen's use of the word "hell" and "hellish" as both a noun and an adjective could depict his unstable mental state. In addition to the possible semantic deviation depicted through the word "hell", line nine demonstrates grammatical deviation through the sentence "Sleeping, and walk hell; but who these hellish?" The latter phrase, "who these hellish", which is missing a verb and a noun following the adjective "hellish" is a clear example of a grammatical deviant. My initial interpretation of the unusual line was that Owen's was comparing either his mental state or the actual war and his fellow soldiers to hell, which once again intertwines with the biblical vocabulary observed earlier. Another hypothesis of such extreme grammatical deviation throughout the poem, albeit not as extreme as E.E Cummings, could be to depict the carnage of war.
Parallelism and alliteration are implemented throughout the text, however, alliteration is used sparingly throughout. Upon further analysis, alliteration is employed in order to draw attention to particular points of horror. For example in the line "Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter" could depict the horror of deceased soldiers on the battlefield. Parallelism is implemented similarly to alliteration. Owen's is drawing the reader's attention to areas he wants to make known, such as the dread and destruction war creates. This is evident in line five "Stroke on stroke of pain, — but what slow panic" which denotes the severity of the pain inflicted both mentally and physically in battle.
Another interesting foregrounded element was the structure of the stanzas. Unlike normal poetic texts, the first stanza is a question beginning with "Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?" Here Owen's is questioning the nature of the Mental Cases, or soldiers he observed in battle. The second stanza answers the questions, who, why and wherefore observed in the first stanza. This answer denotes that the men Owen's observed have forgotten normal behaviour due to shell shock but remember the unrelenting horrors of the war. In addition, the second stanza concludes with "therefore" and illustrates the realisation Owen's has come to in regards to the events depicted in the first stanza. This abnormal structure is a clear example of structural deviation which in turn creates a meaningful interpretation of the text.
While gathering research for this essay from an array of scholars with differing views on the theory of foregrounding, I've come to the conclusion that the stylistic devices, deviation and parallelism do in fact contribute to the way in which a reader interprets a text. Speaking in regards to poetic discourse, analysing the foregrounding devices in Wilfred Owen's Mental Cases demonstrated classic examples of how the interplay between linguistic variations drives the reader to create their own unique interpretation of a poem. While the opposing view of R. P Blackmur may seem justifiable, especially in regards to the extreme deviations in the works of E. E Cummings, there is far more evidence to suggest that foregrounding techniques do play a pivotal role in discourse analysis as scholars such as Roman Jakobson and Jan Mukarovsky demonstrated through their work in stylistics.
References
Azhar, M. (2014). FOREGROUNDING OF THE THEME OF LOVE IN "IN THE RAIN". 1st ed. [eBook] Sargodha, Pakistan: University of Sargodha, p.14. Available at: http://www.idpublications.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Foregrounding.pdf [Accessed 14 Nov. 2017].
Childs, P. and Fowler, R. (2006). The Routledge dictionary of literary terms. 3rd ed. London: Routledge, p.20 - 21.
Hicks, D. (1988). Stylistics and psychology: Investigations of foregrounding. Willie van Peer. London: Croom Helm, 1986. pp. 99 - 100. Applied Psycholinguistics, 9(01), p.98.
Jeffries, L. and McIntyre, D. (2010). Stylistics. 1st ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, p.31.
McIntyre, D. (2012). Linguistics and literature: stylistics as a tool for the literary critic. 1st ed. [PDF] Huddersfield: University of Huddersfield, pp.1 - 11. Available at: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5f77/2d0df008cca80af6f7493bda4ad78fcc0bf1.pdf [Accessed 14 Nov. 2017].
Miall, D. and Kuiken, D. (1994). Foregrounding, defamiliarization, and affect: Response to literary stories '. 1st ed. [eBook] Edmonton, Alberta: University of Alberta, p.1. Available at: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.595.8502&rep=rep1&type=pdf [Accessed 12 Nov. 2017].
Owen, W. and Knowles, O. (1994). The Poems of Wilfred Owen. 2nd ed. London: Wordsworth, p.6.
Owen, W. (1917). Letters to Susan. [Online] The First World War Poetry Digital Archives. Available at: http://ww1lit.nsms.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/collections/document/5234. [Accessed 17 Nov. 2017].
Simpson, P. (2014). Stylistics: A Resource Book for Students. 1st ed. London: Routledge, p.50.
Sofia Alexiou 1608538
