The Study Of Jonathan Culler's Lyric Poetry Theory

Jonathan Dwight Culler,who has been engaged in the research of lyric poetry for years,is an extremely influential scholar and critic in the field of modern Americana literary criticism.Theory of the Lyric published in 2015 is his latest masterpiece.The book focuses on the issues of historical traditions of lyric,the evolution of lyric genre theory,ceremonial and functionality of lyric genre,behavior and performance of lyrical utterance,individuation and socialization of lyric self,etc.,and according to the analysis of western classical lyrics,this book conducts a full-scale explanation of the traditional protocol of lyric,the nature feature,literary concept,and social function,and put forward an insightful theoretical view.Western lyric is never valued even though it has a long history,the reason is that lyric poetry was not defined clearly at the beginning;the genre character of lyric was never clearly combed;and lyric poetry does not possess a complete theory system.First,Culler uses the“genre”as a strategy,has thoroughly observed the history,character,and theory of lyric,and tries to build a poetic criticism method for lyric.“Genre”is one earliest term that was used in the history of western literary theory.Nowadays there are mainly four types of opinions on genre research:institutional theory,intertextuality theory,public institutional theory,and grammar theory.Since the 20^th century,Benedetto Croce,Maurice Blanchot and other theoreticians have led an“anti-genre”thought.Culler insists that genre as a literary system is necessary,its functions are:represent literary knowledge system,rebuild measurement of literary criticism,and instruct the production and acceptance of literature.Culler thinks that the existing genre theory can be divided into two categories:one is“historical”,the other is“theoretical”,but the two categories cannot explain modern literary actions nor effectively restore the history of literature development.Therefore,Culler puts forward the paradigm of“dual construction of historical criticism”,and redefines the genre by using prototype model to replace family resemblance model.Culler uses the redefining of genre concept as the strategy of grasping the literature nature and combing literature development.Second,starting from the perspective of literature,Culler chooses several nodes through which lyric poetry was dragged in development,and restores the long history of lyric poetry.In the period of ancient Greek,there were many lyric sub-genres,but the stable and united genre character was not formed due to the confusion of definition standard.In the ancient Rome period,lyric stably transited to the Latin culture,and was treated as a metaphor,and chanting was no longger the only way to spread lyric poetry.In the period of middle ages,the rhyme of lyric became more standard,and dialect lyrics become popular.Minturno first classified the lyrics one of the into three major genres,which set the orthodox foundation for lyrics.In modern times,lyrics were viewed as performance of subjective experience.At present,there is an intensive trend of anti-lyrics genre in the poetry research field,and lyrics present a kind of obvious cultural break.Culler thinks that as a practice of poetry activity,lyrics are gradually formed in literary history development,and its tradition of emerge,change,and expansion represent its genre justifiability,which are important for interpreting and reading lyric poetry.Third,Culler treats lyric as a language that fits western tradition and lyric statute.According to nine poetries from different times and language,Culler recognizes“four parameters”of lyrics.The first one is indirect speech.Poets cannot speak directly,so they need to speak through the enunciative apparatus and apostrophe.The speaker,addresser and reader conduct a relation of triangulated address,and form the sound patterning of lyrics and reflect the autonomy of lyric language.The second is non-imitativeness.Through the dimension of time,metaphor,reading and content,Culler states that lyric is not statement for event but the event itself.The third is ritual.The ritual of lyric is reflected on the repeat of rhyme,metre,refrains and stanza,and the performance which is similar with singing.The forth is exaggerated expression.From the creative level,exaggeration meets the need of expressive effect of lyrics.From the level of expressive skill,exaggeration meets the need for the effectiveness of aesthetic information delivery of lyric.For the acceptance mechanism,exaggeration fits the need for constructing supplication of lyrics.Forth,Culler systematically combs the related critic literature,and successively focuses the critic on Hegel's aesthetics,Smith's speech imitation,and Austin's speech-act theory.Hegel believes that the nature of lyric is to express self,listen to self,which means realizing the subjectivity of self-consciousness through self-expression.Hegel liberates the lyric from thousand years of imitation,but the lyric subject is not the realistic poet or the experience individual,it is only a“container”of“concept,feeling,impression and insight”.Kate Hamburger thinks that“I”in lyric is also“I”that states,not a real individual,but the subject in grammar.It is a language function that promotes the linguistic or structuralist direction of lyric subject.Barbra Smith suggests that lyric poetry is the imitation of fictional speech act.Culler thinks that Smith's theory not only lacks broad usability but also leads the poetry criticism into the wrong way of“novelistic reading of lyrics”.Roland Green states that lyric is“lyric speech”that is formed by ritual and novel factors.Austin's speech-act theory breaks the relation between meaning and speaker's intension,provides theoretical foundation for interpreting literature as behavior or event,and sets defense for the legitimacy of literature intervening into society.Culler believes that on essence,lyric is nonmimetic,non-fictional or personal expression of feelings,but the language event that can happen repeatedly,and the ritual factor makes lyric's uniqueness.Lyric is public speech,it participates and changes the world,build the imaginary shelter,and has the educational meaning of ethics.Western literary theory enters“post-theoretical”period in 21^st century,and“regression aesthetics”and“neo formalism”become new development trend.Theory of the Lyric is Culler's attempt on advocating the value of“literariness”and regression to aesthetics research,and it has the meaning of reviewing the past,predicting the future and leading a road.The importance of Culler's discussion on lyric history,nature character and social function is clearing seen in concepts,and correcting bias.Culler defines the lyric as public speech that emphasizes metaphor,relates to the real world,and has educational meaning of ethics,which is the break of present model of lyric interpreting.