A Study Of W. H. Auden's Academic Graffiti From The Linguistic Perspective Of Foregrounding

Originating from Russian Formalism, the foregrounding theory is one of the most important literary theories in the west. In this thesis, the writer probes into the foregrounding theory put forward by other scholars, and sets her mind on studying how this theory is effectively applied to the analysis of English poetry.As the treasure of human civilization, poetry is the art of language. Poetic language derives from everyday language and at the same time deviates from it. And the foregrounding features in poetic language are the very differences between these two. In this thesis, through the exploration of the concept of foregrounding and also other terms related to foregrounding, such as deviation, prominence and norm, the writer tries to provide a simple but clear outline to the readers who are not familiar with foregrounding.Foregrounding is motivated deviation. In poetry, the relationship between foregrounding and deviation can be summed up as follows: foregrounding is a phenomenon that the poet wants to realize by the purposeful prominence of some linguistic features, while various deviations are the instruments used to achieve foregrounding. The final aim is to draw the readers'attention to the whole theme and the aesthetic effects that the poet intends to create. And only these foregrounding features that play roles in expressing the theme are true foregrounding. Therefore, in the study of Academic Graffiti, the writer adopts the method of deviation analysis to study the foregrounding features appearing in Auden's poems from different aspects. Meanwhile, in order to give those readers who don't know much about deviation analysis, the writer uses examples of other poets (except Auden) to briefly introduce the five deviations which are expected to be found in Academic Graffiti in the part of literature review.W. H. Auden was one of the most significant poets of the 20th century in the United States. He was clever at various kinds of prosody and added new blood to every poetic style at which he tried his hand. His poetry had a deep effect on the succeeding generations. Academic Graffiti was a collection published in his late years and was a masterpiece of his light poems. The whole collection comprises 63 poems, all following the rules of clerihews invented by British poet Clerihew Bentley. The readers are mostly familiar with Auden's early poems, while his later poems are seldom studied. Up to now, no one has ever studied this collection from a linguistic perspective. With regard to this, the writer of this thesis chooses to study this collection from the aspect of foregrounding. By way of deviation analysis, the writer hopes to find out the foregrounding features in Academic Graffiti and analyzes them in order to sort out those features that are useful to express the theme. Therefore, from Chapter Three to Chapter Seven, the writer separately discusses the five types of deviations, and Chapter Eight is the conclusion. Furthermore, in the conclusion part, the writer mentions the limitations of this thesis and suggestions for further study in the hope of supplying some help to those who are interested in Auden's poems.As the study shows, in Academic Graffiti, the poet employed five prominent deviations—lexical deviation, grammatical deviation, semantic deviation, graphological deviation and deviation of register to deliver his ideas. As for each deviation, the writer subdivides it and provides her own interpretation. It has proved that foregrounding is an effective way of realizing the thematic significance and aesthetic value of poetry.