Jakobson's Poetics In The Horizon Of Aesthetic Modernity

The present dissertation has Roman Jakobson's poetics as the object of study, with a purpose to look into the inter-connection between Jakobson's poetics and the evolution of modernity in Western society. The dissertation's focus is not to clarify whether a set of hypothesis in Jakobson's poetics are valid or not, but to delve into the historical forces behind the formation of the hypotheses. A truly effective dynamic interpretation explains not only what external forces are behind the formation of a theory, but also how the external forces are internalized and absorbed into the theoretical system, thus becoming the internal generative forces of the system itself. Therefore, the dynamic interpretation can only be built on the basis of strict morphological description and comparison. Out of such an understanding, the present dissertation picks out four aspects of Jakobson's poetics, namely structure, function, text, and metaphor as the target of analysis. Through analysis of the four aspects, hopefully, the dissertation could look into the inter-connection between Jakobson's poetics and the evolution of modernity in Western society.Chapter One gives a brief introduction of Jakobson's academic history, together with the setting in of the pivotal thesis underneath the dissertation as a whole—the tension between enlightenmental modernity and aesthetic modernity, and the overall influence of the tension on Jakobson's poetics.Chapter Two discusses the central point of Jakobson's structuralism—binary oppsition, which, as the basis of Jakobson's methodology, plays a pivotal role not only in his linguistics but in his poetics as well. Careful analysis shows that in his idea of binary opposition is implemented the opposition between enlightenmental modernity and aesthetic modernity, through which his poetics exhibit as a part of the discourse of aesthetic modernity.Chapter Three first of all tries to clarify the two often intermixing terms—structure and function. Afterwards, the chapter tries to trace the evolution of Jakobson's functional linguistic ideas, especially the evolution of his ideas on the poetic function. Then, the chapter tries to give a reinterpretation of his definition of poetic function, with its being situated in the context of modernist culture. With a comparison with Adorno's aesthetic theory, Jakobson's definition of the poetic function shows as part of the radical aesthetics of modernism.Chapter Four makes a summery of the set of unique theories on the literary texts, in the core of which can be found a series of spatial metaphors. By imagining the literary texts as entities in three-dimensional space, Jakobson made extraordinary remarks on the literary texts. Meanwhile, the spatial metaphors made Jakobson's theories on the literary texts a part of the modernist cultural context.Chapter Five tries to approach Roman Jakobson's theory on metaphor from the perspective of cultural theory. Jakobson rigidly divides metaphor and metonymy, pushing metonymy from the side of figurative language to that of non-figurative language. As a result, his concept of the poetic function is biased for verse and against prose. Viewing from the perspective of poetics, this is a major drawback; however, viewed as cultural theory, the very existence of the drawback stages on the tension between two cultural discourses—enlightenment modernity and aesthetic modernity, and makes Jakobson's theory on metaphor a part of the discourse of aesthetic modernity.