Файл: Key Theme.docx

There's no discharge in the war!

Don't — don't — don't — don't — look at what's in front of you

(Boots — boots — boots — boots — movin' up an' down again!)

Men — men — men — men — men go mad with watchin' em,

An' there's no discharge in the war!

Try — try —try — try — think of something different —

Oh — my —God — keep me from goin' lunatic!

(Boots — boots — boots — boots — movin' up an' down again!)

There's no discharge in the war!

I — 've — marched — six — weeks in 'Ell an' certify

It — is — not — fire — devils, dark or anything

But boots — boots — boots — movin' up an' down again,

An' there's no discharge in the war!

3.4.2.4. Euphony vs Cacophony

Both, alliteration and assonance may produce the effect of Euphony – a sense of ease and comfort in pronouncing or hearing, an effective combination of sounds capable of producing a certain artistic impression; or Cacophony: harsh joining of sounds, producing a strain and discomfort in pronouncing or hearing.

Cacophony: We want no parlay with you and your grisly gang work wicked will.

Sometimes a competent reader, if unable to decipher the implied purpose of the alliteration, may grow irritated if it is overdone and be ready to discard it from the arsenal of useful stylistic devices.

E. g. «We wonder whether the wether will weather the weather, or whether the weather the wether will kill».

Or: «The skunk sat on a stump, the skunk thought the stump stunk, but the stump thought the skunk stunk».

An interesting example of the overuse of alliteration is given in Swindurn’s «Nefelidia» «Nefelidia» where the poet parodies his own style:

«Gaunt as the ghastliest of glimpses that gleam through the gloom of the gloaming when ghosts go aghast».

There's no discharge in the war!

Don't — don't — don't — don't — look at what's in front of you

(Boots — boots — boots — boots — movin' up an' down again!)

Men — men — men — men — men go mad with watchin' em,

An' there's no discharge in the war!

Try — try —try — try — think of something different —

Oh — my —God — keep me from goin' lunatic!

(Boots — boots — boots — boots — movin' up an' down again!)

There's no discharge in the war!

I — 've — marched — six — weeks in 'Ell an' certify

It — is — not — fire — devils, dark or anything

But boots — boots — boots — movin' up an' down again,

An' there's no discharge in the war!

3.4.2.4. Euphony vs Cacophony

Both, alliteration and assonance may produce the effect of Euphony, - a sense of ease and comfort in pronouncing or hearing, an effective combination of sounds capable of producing a certain artistic impression; or Cacophony: harsh joining of sounds, producing a strain and discomfort in pronouncing or hearing.

Cacophony: We want no parlay with you and your grisly gang who work wicked will.

W.Churchill

Sometimes a competent reader, if unable to decipher the implied purpose of the alliteration, may grow irritated if it is overdone and be ready to discard it from the arsenal of useful stylistic devices.

E. g. «We wonder whether the wether will weather the weather, or whether the weather the wether will kill».

Or: «The skunk sat on a stump, the skunk thought the stump stunk, stump thought the skunk stunk».

An interesting example of the overuse of alliterationis is given in Swindurn’s «Nefelidia» where the poet parodies his own style:

«Gaunt as the ghastliest of glimpses that gleam through the gloom of the gloaming when ghosts go aghast».

Phonestheme

«PHONESTHEME is a repeated combination of phonemes, similar to a morpheme on the ground of associated meaning or content. (O.S. Akhmanova).

«Phonestheme is defined as a phoneme or a cluster of phonemes shared by a group of words which also have in common some element of meaning or function, though the words may be etymologically unrelated» (F. Householder. Opp. cit.) Words, partially close in their sounding, are called the «paronymic attraction». The term «phonestheme» was initially used by the English linguist John Firth. (Firth, 1957. See also: Bolinger, 1950; Householder, 1946; Marchand, 1966; Harris, 1960; Nida, 1951).

J.Firth first introdused the notion of the phonoaesthetic function of the sounds, i.e the ability of certain sound to correlate with more or less regularity with certain context of situation thus giving birth to definite associations; e.g.: crank, cross, crick, crab – words with initial SL, SN, SM bring negative connotations: smoke, smirk, smirch, smug,sniff,sap, snub, slip, slap, slum, etc.

D. Bolindger correlates phonestheme with «affective morphemes»: hear — ear; see — scene; cover-hover-over; crape-drape; sway-swasion; bloat-blow; strut-straight, etc. Phonestheme «st» often is used in alliterations, expressing immobility: «No STAR STEER us», or: to stay and stare (Swinburn); phonestheme BR» — energy and brilliancy: ex.: Back to the flower-town, side by side, the bright months bring, New-born, the bridegroom and the bride, «Freedom and spring»; phonestheme — FL — «light movement»: ex.:

Far flickers the flight of the swallows, Far flickers the weft of the grass.. .Flickering flame-wise through the clear live calm... or: Like flowers upon flowers, in a festival way, when hours after hours Shed grace on the day, white blossom-like butterflies hover and gleam through the snows of the spray. Like snow-coloured petals Of blossoms that flee from storm that unsettles The flowers as the tree. They flutter, a legion of flowers on the wing, through the field of the sea. (A. Ch. Swinburn. «Off shore»).

E.g. The faint fresh flame of the young year flushes

from leaf to flower and from flower to fruit;

And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire...

Swinburn

3.4.2.5. Phonetical Iconicity

Problem Question:

1. Which phono-graphical means are predominantly used in prose and which one in poetry?

2. What is sound-instrumenting?

3. What cases of sound-instrumenting do you know?

4. What is their stylistic function? Bring your own examples.

Check yourself:

Read and analyze the following passages from V. Wolfs novel «Between the Acts». Indicate the stylistic sound-instrumenting means and devices imitating the following sounds: a) of an airplane; b) of a butterfly beating on the pane window; c) of a foxtrot; d) of a rain; e) of broken mirrors; f) of a waltz.

1. And then the shower fell, sudden, profuse. No one had seen the cloud coming. There it was, black, swollen, on top of them. Down it poured like all the people in the world weeping. Tears. Tears. Tears, (p. 125)

2. Suddenly the time stopped. The tune changed. A waltz, was it? Something half known, half not. The swallows danced it. Round and round, in and out they skimmed. Real swallows. Retreating and advancing. And the trees, О the trees, how gravely and sedately like senators in council, or the spaced pillars some cathedral church... Yes, they barred the music, and massed and hoarded and prevented what was fluid from overflowing. The swallows — or the martins were they? — the temple—haunting martins who come, always come… Yes, perched on the way they seemed to foretell what after all The Times was yesterday. Homes will be built. Each flat with its refrigerator, in the crannied wall. Each of us a free man; plates washed by machinery; not an airplane to vex us; all liberated; made whole... (p. 127)

3. The tune changed; snapped; broke; jagged. Foxtrot was it? Jazz? Anyhow the rhythm kicked, reared, snapped short. What a jangle and a jingle! Well, wit the means at her disposal, you can't ask too much. What a cackle, а сасоphony! Nothing ended. So abrupt. And corrupt. Such an outrage; such an insult; and not plain. Very up to date, all the same. What is her game? To disrupt? Jog and rot?Jerk and smirk? Put the finger to the nose? Squint and pry? Peak and spy?O the irreverence of the generation which is only momentarily — thanks be — the young». The young, who can't make, but only break; shiver into splinters the old vision; smash to atoms what was whole. What a cackle, what a rattle, what a yaffle — as they call the woodpecker, the laughing bird that flits from tree to tree.

V. Wolfe. Between the Acts. L.

1929 : 127-128

4. Look! Out they came, from the bushes — the riff-raff. Children! Imps - elves — demons. Holding what? Tin cans? Bedroom candlesticks? Old jars? My dear, that's the cheval glass

from the Rectory! And the mirror — that I lent her. My mother's. Cracked. What's the notion? Anything that's bright enough to reflect, presumably, ourselves?

Ourselves! Ourselves!

Out they leapt, jerked, skipped. Flashing, dazzling, dancing, jumping. Now old Bart... he was caught. Now Manresa. Here a nose... There a skirt…hen trousers only... Now perhaps a face... Ourselves? But that's cruel. To snap as we are, before we've had time to assume... And only, too, in parts… what's so distorting and upsetting and utterly unfair.

Mopping, mowing, whisking, frisking, the looking glasses darted, flashed, exposed. People in the back rows stood up to see the fun. Down they sat, caught themselves.

...What an awful show—up! Even for the old who, one might suppose, hadn't any longer any care about their faces... And Lord! The jangle and the din! The very cows joined in. Walloping, tail lashing, the reticence of nature was undone, and the barriers which should divide Man the Master from the Brute were dissolved. Then the dogs joined in. Excited by the uproar, scurrying and worrying, here they came! Look at them! And the hound, the Afghan hound... look at him! (p. 127-128)

It was the cheval glass that proved too heavy. Young Bornthorp... stopped. So did they all — hand glasses, tin cans, scraps of scullery glass, harness room glass, and heavily embossed silver mirrors — all stopped. And the audience saw themselves, not whole by any means, but at any rate sitting still. The hands of the clock had stopped at the present moment. It was now. Ourselves.

So that was her little game! To show us up, as we are, here and how. All shifted, preened, minced; hands were raised, legs shifted. Even Bart, even Lucy, turned away. All evaded or shaded themselves — save Mrs Manresa who, facing herself in the glass, used it as a glass; had out her mirror; powdered her nose; and moved one curl, disturbed by the breeze, to its place...

The mirror bearers squatted; malicious; observant; expectant; expository...

Each tried to shift an inch or two beyond the inquisitive insulting eye. Some made as if to go. «The play is over, I take it».

V. Wolf. Between the Acts. L., 1929 : 129-130

5. She returned to her eyes in the looking-glass. «In love», she must be; since her presence of his body in the room last night could so affect her; since the words he said, handing her a teacup, handing her a tennis racquet, could so attach themselves to a certain spot in her; and thus lie between them like a wire, tingling, tangling, vibrating — she roped, in the depths of the looking-glass, for a word to fit the infinitely quick vibrations of the aeroplane propeller that she had seen once at dawn at Croydon. Faster, faster, faster, it whizzed, whirred, buzzed, till all the flails became one flail and up soared the plane away and away....

«Where we know not, where we go not, neither know nor саrе», she hummed (P. 15).

6. A foolish, flattering lady, pausing on the threshold of what she once called |«the heart of the house», the threshold of the library, had once said: «Next to |the kitchen, the library is always the nicest room in the house». Then she added,

tepping across the threshold: «Books are the mirrors of soul».

...Thus the mirror that reflected the soul sublime, reflected also the soul boured. Nobody could pretend, as they looked at the shuffle of shilling shockers that week-enders had dropped, that the looking-glass always reflected the anguish of a Queen or the heroism of King Harry...

The fire greyed, then glowed, and the tortoise-shell butterfly beat on the lower pane of the window; beat, beat, beat; repeating that if no human being ever would be mouldy, the fie out and the tortoiseshell butterfly dead on the pane (p. 16).