An Analysis Of The Foregrounding Features Illuminating Themes In Warren's Poems

The thesis is an analysis of the themes of poems written by the famous Southern poet Robert Penn Warren,based on the theory of foregrounding.As one of the most important concepts of stylistics and necessary means in stylistic analysis,foregrounding is an in-depth study from different levels and views,which has become one of the most heated research subjects.Foregrounding,originating from the concept of painting mainly refers to highlighting the painting elements that express the author's creative intentions and form a sharp contrast with the background.Applied to literary analysis,it mainly refers to the “defamiliarization” of things in daily life,aiming to highlight the author's writing intention.Modern stylistics extends this concept to stylistic analysis.With innovation in various theoretical researches,scholars have provided new ideas and methods for literary theory.As the art of language,poetry,which reflects people's life,thoughts,and feelings,is full of imagination.And the poetry with a unique language style is a reflection of the features of foregrounding.Therefore,the main theoretical features of foregrounding and the better understanding of poetry can be intuitively embodied by using poetry as a text for study.This thesis focuses on the study of the foregrounding features in Robert Penn Warren's poems,using Warren's selected poems as the text,combining current relevant foregrounding theories and research on Warren's poems,aiming to explore the themes and aesthetic effects of Warren's poems from a unique literary perspective.Robert Penn Warren is the first poet laureate in the United States,a famous novelist,critic,etc.As a renowned poet representing the Southern literature of the United States after World War II,Warren shows broad and profound themes in his poems,with an analysis of human nature,heart-searching reflection of war,praise of nature,and nostalgia for the homeland,etc.Through foregrounding analysis,not only the features of foregrounding can be embodied easily,but also the writing intention and profound themes of Warren's poems can be discussed.This article is divided into three parts,the introduction,the main body,and the conclusion.The first part is the introduction,in which the research status of stylistics and foregrounding theory at home and abroad are introduced,and Robert Penn Warren's life,works,and research summary are also introduced,thus leading to the topic and research significance of this thesis.The second part is the main body,made up of four chapters.The first chapter is the literature review which is the theoretical basis of this paper,mainly a brief introduction to stylistics,a systematic exposition of the foregrounding theory,and the ways to achieve foregrounding in poetry—deviation and overregularity.Stylistics is an interdisciplinary study on style through linguistic methods.Therefore,when applied to literary analysis,it possesses superiority by combining both literary sensibility and linguistic rationality.As the main theory in stylistics,the foregrounding theory is widely used in literary criticism.Through foregrounding,the author's writing intentions can be reasonably speculated,its theme can be also well analyzed.Deviation and overregularity are two important features of foregrounding.This chapter gives a brief introduction to the two features,mainly focusing on its theoretical development.The detailed analysis will be mentioned combining with Warren's poems in the latter two chapters.In the second chapter,the foregrounding features in Warren's poems are mainly studied from the perspective of deviation and the themes of his poems expressed through deviation.Phonological deviation,graphological deviation,and semantic deviation will be discussed.Deviation is mainly a violation of the routine.It is used in poetry for innovation in reading,writing,and structure,to enhance the readability of poetry,and to highlight the author's creative intentions.Therefore,in Warren's poems,the themes of modern wasteland,self-cognition,reflection on war,and childhood recollection are reflected through deviation.In the third chapter,the foregrounding features of Warren's poems are analyzed from the perspective of overregularity at phonological and syntactic levels,themes of poems expressed through overregularity is also discussed.Overregularity is overuse of language conventions,designed to highlight the focus of a text and enhance the words with rhythm.In this chapter,the overregularity features in Warren's poems are analyzed,and the themes on the harmony between man and nature,dream for freedom,and escape from modern society illuminated through overregularity features are also discussed.In the fourth chapter,the aesthetic effects of Warren's poems are analyzed from the perspectives of beauty in form,beauty in image and beauty in cohesion.Beauty in form mainly lays emphasis on the harmony of rhythm,color and shape in Warren's poems;Beauty in image shows analysis on the symbolic images in Warren's poems;Beauty in cohesion is an analysis on the ingenious arrangement between lines in Warren's poems on the textual level.Therefore,the themes are better illuminated.The third part is the conclusion,which is a systematic summary of the thesis,reaffirming the writing purpose and expounding the research value and shortcomings of the thesis.