A Stylistic Analysis Of Pound’s Poems

Modern stylistics presents the current development of this discipline as an integratedstudy blending linguistics, literary criticism, psychology, cognitive science, social studiesand philosophy. Nowadays, it is quite mature and energetic, with a scientific theoreticalsystem and it has been more widely applied in interpreting literature. During the courseof giving literary interpretation, literary critics extend their evaluation through intuitiveaesthetic comments, giving more importance to its contents and the idea of the work,while stylisticians lay stress on the relationship between the such elements of thelanguage as, morphology, phonology, syntax, semantics, lexis and the ideas, emotions,feelings, opinions and thoughts of the work, focusing on modality and form. A stylisticanalysis of literary works can reveal the painstaking process of the author in choosingwords, and also provide a way of digging out the language behind the language, andleads the reader to get the exact emotions of the author.This thesis aims at giving a comparatively detailed analysis of the poetry of EzraPound, the famous American literary expatriate. He is often considered as the poet who ismost responsible for defining and promoting a modernist aesthetics in poetry. He hasgreat influence on many famous and important American and British poets. He waserudite and versatile whose reading reached the ancient classic works of Greece, Italyand even China. His poetry is unique, open and spontaneous, with a personal tone andwriting style. However, his poetry is so difficult for doing study and research. So far, theprevious critical study on this great artist is not that deepgoing. This thesis just gives it atry to explore and analyze his works with foregrounding as its theoretical methodology.The applied theories, including deviation and overregularity, reveal the individual writingstyle of Pound as well as showing the readers the mystery of language at comparativelycomprehensive levels.The whole thesis can be generalized in a tripartite structure, which covers anintroduction, the main body and a conclusion.The introduction offers a brief summary of the theme and content of this thesis. Itsummarizes the comments on Ezra Pound and his work, introduces the newly rising discipline of stylistics, and brings about the theory on which this thesis settles.The main body consists of three chapters which form the second part of the paper.Chapter One gives a comparatively more detailed introduction of Pound’s lifeexperiences and his works. Next to this part follow some stylistic theories. This sectionpresents theories about stylistics, which include its definition, its function and some maintheories applied in this thesis. It also gives more explanations of the uniquecharacteristics of poetry as a literary genre and, at the same time, shows the relationshipbetween literature and linguistics. The most important key word in this thesis isforegrounding which refers to a basic theory in stylistics used in analyzing literarylanguage, especially in poetry. The term foregrounding is the theory which this thesisrelies on in explaining Pound’s poetry. Terms like deviation and overregularity are alsotwo very important concepts, which are the major ways in achieving foregrounding. Thewhole thesis would be structured and conducted by finding out the charm of the use ofdeviation and overregularity in Ezra Pound’s poetry at phonological, graphological,lexical, semantic and some other levels and the way they enhance the meaning.Chapter Two extends the analysis of the surface-structure deviation in Pound’spoetry. Quite a number of Pound’s poems are quoted as typical examples of Pound’sskillful creation by the use of deviation and overregularity. Meanwhile, the analysis ofphonological, graphlogical, syntactic and lexical deviations as well as phonological andsyntactic overregularity presents the significance of his poetry. These poems are mainlycut out from Pound’s poetry anthology or cantos of which the language is so pregnantand archaic but deep and charming. These linguistic devices have been skillfully carriedout, and they deliver his luxuriant emotions to its utmost. Although his poetry is in blankverse, Pound attaches much importance to music of his poetry.Chapter Three brings forth the stylistic analysis of Pound’s poetry at thedeep-structure level, the semantic deviation. It also unfolds some vivid and classicalimages in Pound’s poetry with metaphor as its focus. Pound’s images are mainly createdthrough metaphor, for which Pound has given his own definition and style. The mysterywould be unclosed when his metaphors are made clear. This thesis is ended with a conclusion which summarizes the preceding analysis,and thus highlights the main idea of this thesis. This thesis aims at giving a more detailedanalysis of the great American poet Ezra Pound’s poetry from some new perspectivesthrough the analysis of linguistic deviation and overregularity. Thus this thesis providesconvenience for Chinese readers to learn about Pound and his works. All great worksshould not come out of adventitious feelings or emotions but from painstaking researchand study based on a life long experience. Pound’s great accomplishment and reputationin literature is due to his lifetime hardworking in contributing his heart to his hometownand fellow citizens. The reason of saying this is that he pours his true love for his countrythroughout his writings. His works center around the purpose of enlightening thewesterners and even rejuvenating the fading cultures of human being. It is his grandambition and strong love that makes him shine like a star in the sky.