An Excercise in Cognitive Poetics
Descripción
An Exercise in Cognitive Poetics By Janna Hooke The following portfolio is both a demonstration of cognitive poetics and an experiment in dismantling the forms and methods writers are conditioned to rely upon in academia. This nonlinear and occasionally informal style of analysis and response promotes dialogue in writing and provides a flexible platform through which writers can explore their reactions to and analysis of a text outside the confines of traditional academic writing forms. Done as a final writing project in the Literary Scholar: an undergraduate English course at Brown University. Sir Walter Scott – Lay of the Last Minstrel (1771-‐1832) Breathes there the man with soul so dead Who never to himself hath said This is my own, my native land! Breathes there the man with soul so dead, who never to himself hath said, "This is my own, my native land!" What happens when we turn the verse line into the sentence? "There" is an adverb modifying "breathes." In sentence form, I am inclined to switch the wording to adhere to more conventional sentence grammar: "the man there breaths." "There" becomes an adjective modifying the man. With this restructuring, inspired by sentence form, we get the sense that an occurrence is being explained. Yet, if we leave the grammar as is, adhering to the original form of the line, with the verb and adverb coming before the noun, we get a sense that the author is gesturing towards the man, asking us to observe him. The first line contains an active verb, breathes, and a preposition, there, two words that facilitate world-‐building by giving us a present moment from which to observe our subject, the man. The text then becomes reflective, as the question of why the man's soul is so dead is addressed, seemingly within the mind of a reflective narrator (the narrator we sensed was pointing out the man in the first line, and is now reflecting on his condition in the second line): the dependent clause serves to explicate the dependent. Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd As home his footsteps he hath turn'd From wandering on a foreign strand? Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd as home his footsteps he hath turn'd from wandering on a foreign strand?
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Janna Charles 5/2/13 6:07 PM Comment [1]: Traugott and Pratt talk about the grammar of a text, not always having predictive power, like grammar of language. Nevertheless, what happens when you compare grammar of a text to grammar of a language? What can you learn about the function of the line, as opposed to the sentence? Janna Charles 5/2/13 6:18 PM Comment [2]: Practical (Fowler) Janna Charles 4/26/13 11:11 AM Comment [3]: Intransitive verbs…there are a series of these in the poem. Signifies finality and factuality. Statements that end on intransitive verbs appear almost as a series of factual statements. Perpetuates a sense of realism. This is what is happening. It cannot be changed. It is true and final.
An Exercise in Cognitive Poetics By Janna Hooke Again, we experiment by turning the lines into a sentence, to understand what the line itself is truly doing. It begins with the pronoun "whose" which we again connect back to the noun "the man," though they have been separated in both sentence and line form. Although the first three lines seem a complete sentence, this fourth line is the beginning of a dependent clause that connected to the first sentence. The repetition of "who" and "whose" generates a sense of expectation. We understand that the line beginning with "whose" will also serve to illuminate why the man's soul is dead. As a rhetorical strategy, repetition also has an emotive quality that seems to hammer in the tragedy of this man's life more emphatically than if there had been no repetition present. The question mark at the end of the line is unexpected. The line feels like the latter dependent clause of a declarative sentence, all the way up until my eye sees the question mark. Because it begins with "whose" we sense that the statement is an explanation of a previous line or an elaboration on a subject. Then we see the question mark, so intentionally staring us in the face. The question mark at the end is startling, and asks the reader to reexamine the statement and to pose further questions – why are these statements true? Why has his heart never burn'd? Why have his footsteps turned from wandering on a foreign strand? Why did he not partake in these wondrous things? Then a return to the scene, drawing us from reflection to the present, and it feels as though the narrator is addressing us, or fate: If such there breathe, go, mark him well! A call to action. A note of caution. Be rid of him, For him no minstrel raptures swell; high though his titles, proud his name, boundless his wealth as wish can claim,-‐-‐ and again back to reflection, further explication of his condition, a listing sense that generates expectation, a musical quality, and carries us forward -‐-‐ produced by: -‐the semicolon, which suggests clarification of the independent clause before it (why do minstrel raptures not swell for him?) -‐the parallel structure of adjectives and the nouns they modify, that come after the semicolon, establishing a grammatical norm within the text (Traugott and Pratt): adj (high) noun (titles), adj (proud) noun (name) adj (boundless) noun (wealth). -‐the rhythm of the words. Not only are the phrases grammatically and semantically parallel, but they also maintain a parallel metrical structure, dominated by stressed syllables: ///o, //o, ///o, ///o -‐the rhyming of "name" and "claim" Then the dash. On one side of the dash are the fruits of his life, everything after it explains why these fruits are in vain. Consumed by selfishness, the subject then turns to a description of his demise. The structure of the poem begins in the present, with a man and a soul so dead. The subject shifts to reasons why his soul his dead, though these are more subtle than the latter explanations.
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Janna Charles 5/2/13 6:25 PM Comment [4]: Impressionistic (Fowler)
Janna Charles 5/2/13 6:39 PM Comment [5]: "Find its purest expression in the imperative." The imperative is not liable to a truth test. It demands an action that has not yet happened, and may not happen, depending on the will of the addressee.
Janna Charles 5/5/13 8:37 AM Comment [6]: Leech claims that underlying any talk of rhythm is the notion of a regular periodic beat; and the very fact that we apply this term to language means that an analogy is drawn between the property of language and the ticking of a clock, etc.
An Exercise in Cognitive Poetics By Janna Hooke Then the subject shifts again to a parallel structure that outlines why he thought his life was good, another shift to a clear explanation of why it isn't, and then a description of his fate. Sticking to a pattern of iambic tetrameter (with two small deviations), the poem emulates a rhythm, created by a minstrel. This rhythm is helped along by pairs of alliterative words like " forfeit fair," "doubly dying," "home his," "heart hath"—segmentals that cue rhythm (Chatman). The rhyme scheme aabccbddeeffgghh also assists with this. Contrary to what the poem says—that the man's life will remain "unsung," – it seems that the poem itself is in fact doing the opposite. His life is indeed being sung, though not in the way one would expect. "unsung" is perhaps not literal, but representative of the fact that his life is "unwept" and "unhonour'd" which appear in a succession of negated verbs. Basically, "selection" references the words one chooses from a list of potential words that all serve the desired denotative function but carry connotative differences. "Combination" is how the selected words are juxtaposed, and how they thus interact, as with unwept, unhonour'd, unsung. It is interesting that the rhyme scheme reverses in the beginning of the poem, moving to a pattern of rhymed couplets. The shift occurs right after the question mark. Perhaps it can be seen as—here we are contemplating the situation, and here we are drawing our conclusions. Ben Jonson – Epigrams: To John Donne (1572-‐1637) While these poems are very different, I see this epigram as almost a eulogy (though I don't know if John Donne was still alive when it was written). I see it as an ode or eulogy written by a minstrel – perhaps what the minstrel is Scott's poem would've written about a more worthy subject. Jonson's poem is written in iambic pentameter, though like Scott's, he has two small deviations in the first line: Donne(/) the(o) del(o)ight(/) of(o) Phoe(/)bus(o) and(/) each(o) Muse(/), and also a line in the middle that begins with oo/ (anapest). The first is perhaps just to emphasize the first line, inclusive of the subject "Donne." The second deviation distinguishes the final line in a series of lines connected by semicolons. The deviation signals the end of the sentence (the line ends in an exclamation point), and also a shift that moves from Donne to the poet. Deviant sentences: Donne, the delight of Phoebus and each Muse. And which no affection praise enough can give!
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Janna Charles 4/26/13 11:11 AM Comment [7]: What do these deviations achieve? A small break in the rhythm of the poem. These breaks in rhythm seem to occur more and more in poetry as we read our way through time. The style of the poem, though strict, still allows for some wiggle room.
Janna Charles 4/26/13 11:11 AM Comment [8]: Jakobsen-‐the combination of verbs beginning with the prefix "un." A sense of negation. We draw associations with similar words. Unfinished. Janna Charles 4/26/13 11:11 AM Comment [9]: Deviation is something many authors bring up when discussing stylistics. Traugott and Pratt specifically discuss the relevance of "departures from linguistic norms" or even departures from the norms set up within the grammar of a text. These deviations, no matter how small, always seem to affect aesthetic and/or meaning, as in this case. Even the small departures from iambic tetrameter serve a function.
An Exercise in Cognitive Poetics By Janna Hooke Unlike Scott's poem, which has distinct shifts and uses only one semicolon, Jonson's lines appear in a sort of list proceeding "Donne." However, like Scott's poem, these lines serve to elaborate on the condition of a subject in the first line of the poem. In this case, it is why Donne is the delight of Phoebus and each Muse. Donne, the delight of Phoebus and each Muse Who, to they one, all other brains refuse; Whose every work of they most early wit Came forth example, and remains so yet; Longer a-‐knowing than most wits do live; And which no affection praise enough can give! Like Scott, he uses the repetition of "who" and "whose," which serves an emphatic purpose and establishes an expectation as described in the analysis of Scott's poem. Also like Scott, Jonson uses a rhyme scheme in couplets, deviating only once in his use of slant rhyme (wit and yet). This deviation seems to establish a rule that deviance in a poem is a norm , though he seems only to allow for very slight deviations in rhyme and rhythm, as does Scott. This deviance could serve to perpetuate a sense of authorial authenticity; or perhaps it is simply to draw emphasis on a line, or sharpen the reader's attention to the aesthetic of the rhythm by jarring them slightly. Double-‐take. The "listing" produced by the semicolons (similar to the listing in Scott's poem) gives us a sense that Donne is much accomplished and revered by Jonson, and is perpetuated by the line immediately following the end of the list: To it, thy language, letters, arts, best life which maintains a more condensed grammatical listing of Donne's accomplishments (establishing an air of praise that is seemingly eulogiac or odeish). Finally we have: All which I meant to praise, and yet I would; But leave, because I cannot as I should! It is interesting that Jonson's final two lines end in auxiliary verbs (would and should both modifying praise). This implies the possibility of something that hasn't yet occurred or hasn't been fully achieved. Although Jonson claims he would praise Donne, but must "leave" because he doesn't feel he can properly do so, the act of writing the poem contradicts this. Perhaps it is a persuasive strategy – he claims he is not a poet worthy of praising Donne in verse and therefore will not, yet does so regardless, indicating that he does indeed possess the qualities but would like to appear humble. William Shakespeare – Sonnet 18 Upon reading the sonnet, I get the sense it is a complete body. I almost don't realize it's a sonnet; it flows so smoothly from line to line, as speech. Let's explore why. Shakespeare
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Janna Charles 5/5/13 8:37 AM Comment [10]: The concept of style as deviance, the idea that style is constituted by departures from linguistic norms (Traugott and Pratt)
Janna Charles 5/5/13 8:37 AM Comment [11]: Listing – a distinguishable feature (Fish)? We do not see a text and assign a category, we assign a category and then apply our interpretations based on our world of perception and cognition…a social construct (Fowler).
Janna Charles 4/26/13 11:11 AM Comment [12]: Or perhaps I recognize it as a persuasive strategy only because I have been informed by cultural and social norms that set up my expectations for what writing is attempting to achieve (Fowler, Fish)
An Exercise in Cognitive Poetics By Janna Hooke doesn't depart, even minutely, from the traditional iambic pentameter – 10 syllables in each line, and a rhyme scheme of ababcdcdefefgg. The rhythm is so subtly achieved it is musical (Hopkins, Leech). This lack of even slight deviations (seen in Scott and Jonson) contribute to this cohesive aesthetic (Traugott and Pratt, Carter). However, because it's strict, one would think it would generate less of a speech-‐like sense. I think what I am observing as a "speech-‐like" quality, not present in Scott or Jonson, comes less from the rhythm and rhyme scheme and is more a product of the direct indication of a speaker and addressee (I and thou). The tone is therefore, more personal and conversational because of subject and diction, and perhaps not as reliant on the strict rhythm and structure. The meter of this sonnet is part of a larger systemic literary convention in which certain aspects of phonology are organized for aesthetic purpose. I feel myself, a reader, following the sequence of Shakespeare's segmental phonemes. (Chatman). His repetition of particular words, alliterative sounds, rhyming—they produce a sense of music, intentional and yet wandering. Thoughts building off thoughts. Shall, And And And, Nor Nor. By chance, OR. But. These words move the poem forth like a growing, swelling thought that comes to fruition in response to the opening question – Shall – SHOULD I? Well let's see…I will explore this question in the rest of the poem. I feel like many poets deviate from the norm of the sonnet in places, whether in meter or rhyme scheme (reversing the rhyme scheme, using slant rhyme, one extra syllable in the fourth line, etc). In the Scott and Jonson poems, though not sonnets, the authors use small deviations that break the norm of the rhythm and rhyme schemes they set up. Even though it is strictly adhering to the sonnet form, it doesn't feel confined. Modality – Shall I compare these to a summer's day? Should I? Would this be adequate? Would this be accurate? Is the subject deserving of this comparison? This modal text world, beginning with the auxiliary verb "shall, sets up possibilities (Gavins). Shows the speaker's uncertainty with regard to the subject. Then the world shifts to a subject itself – thou. The subject of the sonnet. Because of my interactions with other sonnets, I expect the subject is a lady. An unattainable lady. An unrequited love. Many of the lines end with intransitive verbs: "heaven shines, every fair…declines, summer shall not fade, thou growst." This produces a feeling that many things are taking place at one. Occurring without restraint. Occurring infinitely, with no direct object to stop them. Parallels the notion of the "eternal summer." These verbs do not fade. Arguably, the period restricts them. But I do not think this is so. I think ending a sentence with a verb allows the verb to go on existing. There are also intransitive verbs in Scott's poem, which accomplish a different affect given the context. Summer is short – but you are not. It seems still as though the speaker is unsure of this, as he was in the beginning. "But they eternal summer shall not fade – again the modality
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Janna Charles 5/2/13 7:29 PM Comment [13]: Jakobson talks about the presence not only of an author and reader, but also the addresser and addressee – the you or thou, the I. Virtually any poetic message is a quasi-‐quotes discourse with all those peculiar, intricate problems which "speech within speech" offers to the linguist. So what does it do here?
An Exercise in Cognitive Poetics By Janna Hooke around the word shall. Equate it to will? Or to should? It is possible that it will not fade? Or it will not fade? Parallel structures, repeated words perpetuate the sense that the poet is speaking, a side of a conversation with either himself or his muse. While the other poems included repetition of words and punctuation, the parallelism of sentence structure and the repetition of words that create the building of thought are unique to this poem. I sense that Shakespeare is moving beyond the restrictive feel of the sonnet, without breaking from the traditional arrangement. The thoughts are in motion, changing mid line, being reaffirmed. By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed. The "or" indicates a shift in thought – another possibility. The speaker considering all options and possibilities. Similarly: But thy eternal summer shall not fade and then coming upon another thought, inspired from that one: Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st. And another still, growing from the last: Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade. The lines build on one another, like thoughts. Repetition of nor. The same is accomplished in the earlier parts of the poem with the repetition of And often is his gold complexion dimm'd, And every fair from fair sometime declines. The parallel structure of the last two lines begin with "So" – again – modal worlds. A qualifier – So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see. As long as men breathe, and eyes see. So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. Than this will live and give life to you. What is the deixis? (Green). What will give life to her? The eternal lines of the poem? Will she remain immortal in as long as the poem continues to be read, unlike summer, which is fleeting? These last two lines are conditionally performative (Culler). The poem itself is conditionally performative in that the subject of the poem will live eternally in the lines of the poem. If the poem is read, she lives. This is the poem. There is agency in beauty, described so intricately and compared to a summer's day at the beginning of the poem. But there is more agency in the words of a poem. The metaphors are short lived unless they are preserved in writing. Summer is short lived unless preserved in writing. As is anything. Saying that summer is short lived is contradictory, for the summer in his poem will live eternally, just like the subject. I decided not to put everything in the commentary bubbles and try to instead incorporate these things into the piece itself – more continuity. Exploring as I ask myself questions. Not pausing to ruminate, but continuing to add to the growing conversation. Clytie – Eudora Welty It was late afternoon, with heavy silver clouds which looked bigger and wider than cotton fields, and presently it began to rain.
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An Exercise in Cognitive Poetics By Janna Hooke With the first four words, we enter the initial text world. Encountering the past tense of the verb "to be" I immediately know I am entering a single moment, a recounting of a past event. Late afternoon. Temporally, I am now positioned. Then, as the sentence unfolds with a description of the clouds, I begin to sense the presence of a narrator. Why? It "unfolds" in front of me, the reader, because I have a sense it is unfolding in front of the eyes of the narrator. Almost as though it is being described as the narrator or character comes upon it. The visual sensations of the printed words give rise to image associations that emerge in my mind (Richards). Linguistic indicators, such as the drawing of a comparison instead of mere description – "the clouds looked bigger and wider than cotton fields" – indicate the presence of an awareness (Gass), a thoughtfulness, behind the statement. 'Descriptive assertions' (Gavins) i.e. "it was late afternoon" take us from a single past moment, into a larger environment with clouds and cottonfields, being viewed and described by a larger body of consciousness – The author's construction of a present, omniscient, narrator? A character? We receive descriptions as the viewer comes upon the scene, and therefore our encounters with the setting are limited within the spatial and temporal realm of the viewer (Gavins). Subworld shift because of the preposition – the prepositional phrase takes me into more of a present feel, and then…"presently it began to rain." Presently means after a short time, but it also means now. In the present. When I say presently, out loud, or in my head, I cannot help but place myself in the present, regardless of the intended denotation of the word. The scene then gives way into what feels like a quilted view of the setting. Pieces patched together. Images, one after another. The creation of a holistic image from little bits. Subjects followed by verbs, either in strings of independent clauses, or supported by supplemental phrases: "A hen…ran in great alarm across the road," "dust turned river brown," and "the birds flew down…" "The bird dogs got up," "the few people…moved…into the post office," "A little boy kicked…" Generates a sense that lots of actions are occurring all over the town. Lots of regular actions that occur in the presence of rain, though all actions are equalized, whether or not they involve people, perpetuating a sense of regularity in the design of nature – this is what is SUPPOSED to happen to the dust, and the hen, and the people. This is the reaction they are SUPPOSED to have. Almost all the action clauses involve some kind of simple but urgent, natural reaction to the rain (predominantly movement out of the way of the rain), indicated by verbs like: "ran," "flew," "moved," "kicked."
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Janna Charles 5/2/13 7:31 PM Comment [14]: Gass talks about the observed word, the spoken word, and the silent sounds we make within the hall of our heads when we take any poetry or prose seriously enough to perform it, or "listen to it with our brains."
An Exercise in Cognitive Poetics By Janna Hooke The verbs are also transitive and part of prepositional phrases that specify location through relocation: across the road, down into the dust, the doorways of stores, inside, on the level road, into the post office, through the town, furthering the construction of the text world through descriptions (prepositional phrases) and physical actions (action clauses) (Halliday, Gavins). The listing sense, produced by beginning each sentence with an article followed by a noun, also gives a sense that it is a check list of actions in which there should not be deviations. Almost a rhythm with the presentation of the articles and supporting phrases, achieving a pattern the same way poets do with meter and rhyme. Therefore, I find myself waiting for a strange action to occur. All of these regular descriptions make me expect that there will be a deviation from the norm. A break in the rhythm. And here it is! The paragraph breaks and we encounter another world switch brought on by a zooming in on the subject. The narrator, who has been omnisciently observing the town in its entirety, zooms in on a specific individual and action: Miss Clytie Farr stood still in the road. We move from a grand scale view of the town created by a parallel structure of actions performed by many nameless figures doing things all at once in generalized setting…to a single, named figure, Miss Clytie Farr. The specificity of the subject, produced by naming, contributes to this zooming quality. Clytie is also the subject of a clause that includes a verb that does not imply movement (stood), which sets it apart from the verbs modifying the other, nameless subjects, furthering the specificity. While everything else in the town is moving, she is still. Why everything else is nameless, she is named. We move from a series of many moments in a paragraph (creating the sense they are happening simultaneously) to a single moment, occurring temporally after everyone else had gone under cover and set apart in its own, small paragraph. We also get a sense that the narrator knows Clytie, drawing our attention to her, as we approach the next part of the sentence: a dependent clause containing the first active verb associated with her: peering. This brings Clytie into the present, further distinguishing her from her nameless counterparts, modified by passive verbs. We sense that the narrator knows Clytie because she is described as peering ahead in her near-‐sighted way. The word "way" suggests that the narrator has encountered her before, and can predict her behavior. Deviation continues in the last dependent clause, when we learn that she is as wet as the little birds, the only creatures who did not avoid the rain in the first paragraph. Whereas their behavior was normalized (by lumping it into the first paragraph along with all the other normal actions and suggesting they wanted to take baths in the rain), Clytie's stands out. She is the only subject still in the rain without an observable purpose. By decoding the language of the sentence, relating it to contextual factors, and applying my own subjective interpretations (Green), I can pinpoint the deixis in this part of the text, as described above.
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Janna Charles 5/5/13 8:37 AM Comment [15]: Fish claims text is both objective and subjective. It is objective because it's recognition and interpretation relies on universals. It is subjective because these universals are cultural.
An Exercise in Cognitive Poetics By Janna Hooke As the narrator continues to reveal familiarity with Ms. Clytie, so do we. There is a text world shift: would it be embedded epistemic modal? Because it is something typical but not definite. She (the subject) usually (modal shift) came out of the big old house this time in the afternoon. Something that reoccurs. We are then shifted into the perspective of two ladies, suddenly. It is a dialogue of sorts, but we are not given any indication at the beginning of the sentence that it is dialogue. There are no quotation marks. I expect the next sentence to be coming once again from the omniscient narrator, who seems to know as much about Miss Clytie as anyone else: "it might simply be that Miss Clytie's wits were all leaving her," but suddenly there is a direct-‐ speech world-‐switch "said the ladies standing in the door to feel the cool." Again, the consciousness of the narrator surfaces in this moment that seems so intentionally ambiguous. The text intends to be ambiguous and surprising. To move from one text world into another without immediately revealing the indicators. To convince me that I am still in the same text world (told by the narrator) and only after I reach the end of the independent clause do we realize it is not the narrator speaking, but the ladies. This produces a sense of mystery and unease. The text becomes unpredictable. The ladies are unnamed, the narrator is present but also unnamed. This sense of unease is furthered by the final line in the section of text. A line of dialogue that shifts us from one text world to the next using a direct-‐speech world shift: "Well there goes Miss Clytie," the ladies said, and one of them had a premonition about her. This direct speech not only brings us into the present, but also provides a new perspective through which to view Clytie – we shift from the narrator's view to that of the ladies. This phrase furthers the notion, reinforced by what the text established previously, that Clytie's behavior is deviant, and known to be deviant by the narrator and those living in the town. And then the sense of unease is furthered by the final part of the sentence, seeming almost an addendum to the line of dialogue and the speaker: "and one of them had a premonition about her." It is strange that such a proclamation is left unexplained. Premonitions are not something within the realm of the commonplace, which everything aside from Clytie in this text world seem to be. Someone having a premonition seems of some significance, yet the text sets it up as an addendum. Then we shift again into the perspective of Miss Clytie. We enter her perspective through third person narration, unsure of when the omniscient narrator will jump in again. "Through the rushing water in the sunken path under the four wet black cedars, which smelled bitter as smoke, she ran to the house." It seems as though the observations being made are Clytie's, but they also sound like the narrator's initial descriptions of "heavy silver clouds." I notice now that each of these descriptions are very specific, indicating that there is an active consciousness observing them. In the first description, again, it was the specificity of the image and the comparison that indicated consciousness and familiarity.
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Janna Charles 5/5/13 8:37 AM Comment [16]: We rely on the cues (Chatman) set up my the grammar of language (Traugott and Pratt) until we recognize these cue are misleading us.
Janna Charles 5/3/13 3:38 PM Comment [17]: Rhetoric = a response from a text v. the idea of a dynamic process that includes the reader. How do words join together? What words do you expect the author to use? Wales.
An Exercise in Cognitive Poetics By Janna Hooke This same consciousness and familiarity is produced again, leading us to believe it is Clytie who is the observer, but also suggesting that it could be the narrator. Even more so than the first description of clouds, we sense that this is a present observation unfolding before us, an observation of an environment the observer is familiar with. She runs through THE rushing water not some vague rushing water she has never seen before, which is in THE sunken path under THE four wet black cedars. Four is a specific number that would take time to count if one were running by, as Clytie is. Therefore we get a sense that she is already familiar with this environment (supposing it is through her perspective we are viewing this). Again with the ambiguity of perspective, the subtle world shifts, the downplaying of the important (i.e. that the ladies were speaking is important, yet it was not immediately apparent at the beginning of that sentence. That the ladies had a premonition was important, yet is written as an addendum. The important things seems to fall in odd places, between the lines, drawing even more emphasis on them perhaps than if they were made more obvious and perpetuating even more a sense of unease in the reader as to what the text is up to and whose perspective it is we are viewing the action through. What is reliable? What is true? At times the question of "what is actually happening" emerges. Clytie's abrupt death at the end of the novel, therefore, seems fitting. This is what the unease was leading us to, preparing us for. It happens so quickly, so subtly, barely breaking with the flow of action, and occurs without direct explanation. "She bent her angular body further, and thrust her head into the barrel, under the water, through its glittering surface into the kind, featureless depth, and held it there." We view the water momentarily through Clytie's perspective. The depths are "kind" and we learn that she perceives sticking her head in a bucket of water as a completely rational action, something she sees no way around. We first think – this is just one of those odd things that Clytie does, like standing in the rain, those things that both the narrator and the ladies observed in the beginning. That everyone in the town knows is odd but accepts. We do not necessarily believe that she is doing anything that will put her in any kind of real danger. Her death is not outrightly stated, but suggested in a line. We may have to read the line a few times to fully digest that this is what happened. But once the initial surprise wears off, and we look back at the rest of the text, we realize it is not so surprising. The way the text views her from multiple perspectives as deviant, the setting up of a norm she does not fit in, her strange interactions with the world around her, the sense of unease and ambiguity produced by the sudden, subtle switching of perspectives (the narrator, the ladies, Clytie), the downplaying of the important for emphasis, addition the descriptions from Clytie's perspective that indicate what we perceive is strange is in fact normal to her (i.e. the way she describes why she was standing in the road – thinking of the face of the child she had just seen – her observations of faces in general – The first thing she had discovered about a face was always that she had never seen it before. Impossible).
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An Exercise in Cognitive Poetics By Janna Hooke The Artificial Nigger – Flannery O'Conner As with Clytie, we are suddenly thrust into a text world at the beginning of The Artificial Nigger, though this one begins much more closely to the protagonist. While Clytie's name stands out among the many nameless figures in the opening paragraph, the protagonist of this text is named outright: Mr. Head awakened to discover that the room was full of moonlight. We enter a text world, beginning with our subject followed by the passive verb "awakened," which lends itself to our initial perception that we are encountering Mr. Head's perspective from third person omniscient. Also suggesting this is the immediate sense that Mr. Head is projecting his thoughts onto his surroundings, noted in the descriptions that follow the opening line i.e. The moon rolled forward and cast a dignifying light on everything. The moon, first of all, is an inanimate object that is suddenly given agency with the verb "roll," an action enabled based on it's positioning from where Mr. Head is located. Therefore, we can conclude that this rolling forward is his own perception, and not, perhaps, a separate narrator. The light is labeled as "dignifying," a personification that suggests, not that it is literally dignifying, but that the perceiver is reading is as thus. This adjective aligns with other adjectives in the passage, used to describe inanimate objects: Straight Stiff Attentive Noble Great which perpetuate a sense that this is indeed the way Mr. Head perceives himself, or his involvement in the action to come. These descriptions that help us construct the initial text world have structural similarities to those in the beginning of Clytie: a list of descriptions in a parallel arrangement that includes nouns modified by adjectives with similar denotations (as opposed to nouns/verbs in Clytie), and the occasional accompanying verb. Yet this listing does not serve to generate a norm from which the protagonist can deviate (as in Clytie). It serves a different purpose: to give us insight into the mind, mood, and self-‐perception of Mr. Head, and to foreshadow events to come. Similar to Clytie, the opening paragraph and that sets up the initial text world with description is followed closely by a short, emphatic paragraph. In the Artificial Nigger, it is a thought passing through the mind of Mr. Head that serves to further our understanding of his character and the coming events (as mentioned above): Mr. Head could have said to it that age was a choice blessing and that only with years does a man enter into that calm understanding of life that makes him a suitable guide for the young. This, at least, had been his own experience.
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Janna Charles 5/3/13 11:29 AM Comment [18]: Ricoeur notes the role of imagination and feeling in metaphor, that make up for it's "lack of informative value." Metaphors contribute to a sense of ambiguity already, simply on account of their nature, which does lack a literal value and relies heavily on the imagination and feeling of the reader.
An Exercise in Cognitive Poetics By Janna Hooke At this point we start to depart from our initial idea that the story is being told exclusively from Mr. head's perspective, without the presence of a conscious narrator or author. Are they separate? Are they one in the same? But, as in Clytie, we begin to sense the voice of something beyond Mr. Head himself. This is indicated with the text-‐world shift into an embedded epistemic modal world (Gavins) indicated by could have. But it is not Mr. Head directly accessing the hypothetical – we are viewing the hypothetical, the choice, from the outside. A narrator with access to Mr. Head's thoughts, and is laying them out to expose Mr. Head as self-‐important and almost arrogantly all-‐knowing. This tone is established by the connotations of the adjectives in phrases like "choice blessing" and the association he draws between age and "a calm understanding of life," that only some are able to achieve (This, at least, had been his own experience). This self-‐important tone continues with observations like his physical reactions, like his moral ones, were guided by his will and strong character leading to his absolute assurance that he will awaken at four. These adjectives insert opinions into the phrases that contain them. The separation of the narrator from the protagonist, done in both stories, is furthered in The Artificial Nigger in places where different words are used by Mr. Head and the narrator to describe the same thing. The intentionality of these juxtapositions gives us a sense that the text wants us to recognize there are multiple perspectives at work here. Observe the following shift: We begin with a direct-‐speech world shift: "You ain't ever seen a nigger," Mr. Head repeated. "There hasn't been a nigger in this county since we run that one out twelve years ago and that was before you were born." We then confront another world shift created with a shift into action (passive verb looked) and yet another as we encounter the word "negro" in place of the word "nigger." This achieves a jarring affect at the end of the sentence (a similar affect we get in sentences in Clytie that compel us to confront a shift in perspective within a single sentence). Our suspicions that another voice is a work here have been confirmed – the narrator is announcing its presence. Are we to assume that this narrator is the author, showing the reader that they do not hold the same perspectives as the protagonist? Are to we to assume that this narrator is not the author, and is serving an entirely different purpose? Perhaps to compel the reader to examine the scene from two perspectives, not wholly immersed in either one? Or to compel the reader to contemplate the subject of perspective in general? i.e. how perspective can change with something as simple as a word: Mr. Head: What kind of man? Nelson: A fat man. An old man. Mr. Head: That was a nigger. Nelson jumped up on the seat and stood looking backward to the end of the car but the Negro had gone. Not only are the words "nigger" and "negro" once again placed next to each other, but also we observe a shift in Nelson's behavior. A shift that occurs solely in response to the labeling of the man as a "nigger." Nelson describes the black man as "fat" and "old." These are
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Janna Charles 5/3/13 3:40 PM Comment [19]: A text can be simple, but with complex effects. The writer can develop a subjective identity through syntax (Carter).
An Exercise in Cognitive Poetics By Janna Hooke simple adjectives a child might use to describe someone, suggesting that this description is indeed the most accurate, most unsocialized description we can come across. The text seems to be pointing out that the word "nigger" is therefore heavily socialized. You could almost call this a text world shift the character's mind – the way Nelson reads his world abruptly changes when Mr. Head calls the man a word laced with social connotations. This compels the reader to think about their own reaction to words; the power of words. The way perspective can change based on such arbitrary, small alterations. The connotations and juxtaposition of both words further the idea that narrator wants to indeed remain separate from the characters, divorced from the associations he/she knows "nigger" might inspire in the reader. Ambiguity, and unease in Clytie often comes from linguistic "round aboutness" and the dancing around or apparent glossing over of important moments, outlined above. The Artificial Nigger also achieves ambiguity, but rather by lingering on particular moments, setting up a system of disharmonious juxtapositions within syntactically parallel structures. The thoughts, moods and emotions of the characters are revealed in an almost surrealist manner, within a fairly regular infrastructure. Take Mr. head and Nelson's encounter with the statue, for instance: We begin with a parallel structure, creating a rhythm of sorts that carries us into a contemplative reverie. Perhaps epiphany is a better term here. Mr. Head looked like an ancient child (N, V, opposite adj), And Nelson like a miniature old man (N, V, opposite adj). The adjectives note a physical change in both characters, indicating they have been altered by this encounter. Despite the syntactic presentation of each clause, the semantic relation between the noun and the adjective moves towards non-‐ synonymy (Stockwell). However, together, the two clauses re-‐establish harmony and reaffirm the fact that each character has undergone a transformation – we are not quite sure the extent to each characters' transformation, but this structure makes us aware that they are experiencing something other-‐worldly in the presence of the statue that is disharmonious with their understanding of how the world is supposed to be. The characters seek to correct this disharmony. There is a shift from reverie/reflection into dialogue, abruptly. This direct speech world shift brings the characters, and the reader, back into the present. They ain't got enough real ones here. They have to have an artificial one. The previous sentence is eloquently delivered by the narrator: Nelson's eyes seemed to implore him to explain once and for all the mystery of existence. The juxtaposition of the narrator's elegant language and profound question with Mr. Head's colloquial delivery (ain't,, got) in response consisting of two simple sentence seems to almost mock him in his desperation to return to his oversimplified view of the world (mirrored in syntactically simple answer); his efforts to right the universe. We know what's in his head does not align with what he is saying, affirming the unreliability of the dialogue in the entire narrative. The mocking, and our sense that it is the
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Janna Charles 5/3/13 3:54 PM Comment [20]: Halliday: Simple, stylistic features set up a norm from which the novel can then deviate. I also think style can come from deviating from the larger grammatical norms. My expectations of fiction writing help me identify stylistic deviations.
Janna Charles 5/3/13 3:48 PM Comment [21]: "The pragmatic technique of working back and forth from text to linguistics serves to create a process of contextualizing, in order to avoid the trap of text-‐context binarism" (Stockwell) Janna Charles 5/3/13 3:55 PM Comment [22]: This cuts off the potential of the statue being read in multiple ways – I almost want to use the term monosign, as though he is trying to force a physical plurasign (statue) to become a monosign. This is a totally strange way of reading Wheelwright, but I suppose I'm borrowing his language and giving it my own definitions. Janna Charles 5/3/13 3:56 PM Comment [23]: The statue is incongruent with the norm. It inspires endless possibilities, it draws fresh life and meaning from each new context – new observer.
An Exercise in Cognitive Poetics By Janna Hooke narrator's voice speaking, is generated in part from a previous sentence in the paragraph in which Mr. Head had never known before what mercy felt like because he had been too good to deserve any. The tone of this statement, produced namely by the statement "too good," suggests the narrator is conscious that Mr. Head is self-‐ righteous, and wants the reader to know this. So, did his efforts right the universe? We are unsure, We are left only with dialogue, which we know not to be an accurate reflection of what's actually happening in the characters'' minds, along with the ambiguous structure of descriptions and character reactions in odd moments the narrator chooses to linger on.
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