A Stylistic Analysis Of William Blake's Poems

In the beginning of the 20th century, modern stylistics originated with the publication of the works written by Charles Bally and Sechehaye. Stylistics is now one of the most significant fields of research in linguistics. Linguists now gradually pay more attention to this discipline. The language of literary style is a key factor in the study of stylistics, while foregrounding is a defining characteristic of literary language. The foregrounded devices are not used for linguistic communication. Instead, they highlight the language in the most prominent position. Writers often apply lots of deviative and overregulated devices in their works in order to achieve the effect of foregrounding. Meanwhile, the effects of cohesion, attracting the readers' attention, uniqueness in writing are also achieved. Thus, this discipline has demonstrated a new approach for literary criticism.William Blake was an important poet at the turn of the 18th and the 19th century. His works are characterized with plain and simple language, distinctive images, as' well as profound meanings, and are even loved by his readers nowadays. Before the French Revolution took place, he saw the world with an innocent view like that of a child. While after the French Revolution, his poems were filled with grief and sorrow, as well as his sympathy towards the revolution. He understood the miseries of the English people more clearly, and severely criticized the villainous British society. However, Studies on such a great poet are mainly from the perspective of literary criticism, and few of them are from the linguistic approach. This thesis has analyzed William Blake's poems in the perspective of deviation and overregularity, so as to reveal his unique stylistic features.This thesis consists of an introduction, the main body and a conclusion. Its main contents are as follows:The first part is the introduction, which summarizes the development of stylistics, the comments on William Blake and his works by the predecessors, the previous studies in this field, as well as the methodology of this thesis.The second part is the main body, which is made up of three chapters:Chapter One offers the major theories in stylistics and the development of this discipline. Stylistics is the study of style. Though there are various interpretations toward the word "style", it is generally defined as the variation in a person's speech or writing. Style usually varies from casual to formal according to the type of situation, the person or persons addressed, the location, the topic discussed, etc. A particular style, e. g. a formal style or a colloquial style, is sometimes referred to as a stylistic variety. Some linguists use the term "register" for a stylistic variety, while others differentiate between the two terms. Style can also refer to a particular person's use of speech or writing at all times or a way of speaking or writing at a particular period of time, e. g. the style of Shakespeare, the style of writing in the 18th century, etc.Though there are various understandings of style, three of the theories on style are the most influential at present. This chapter mainly introduces these three views on style, i.e. style as choice, style as deviation, and style as foregrounding.Style as choice is a very popular view on style. The choice includes the choice of linguistic form and meaning. A speaker or writer can consistently choose some certain structures over others available in the language. It is such a tendency that gives rise to style.According to the theory that takes style as deviation, style is the departure from the norm. In the process of writing, authors all try to make their works different from others. Only the extraordinary language can be attractive and can reveal the writer's unique features. Therefore, when a literary work is analyzed, the deviative features must be analyzed. In various literary discourses, there can be different types of deviation, such as phonological deviation, graphological deviation, lexical deviation, grammatical deviation, semantic deviation, dialectal deviation, deviation of historical phase, etc.Foregrounding is one of the most significant terms in stylistics, and this theory plays a crucial role in the analysis in this thesis. Certain parts of a discourse can draw the readers'attention more successfully, and impinge upon the readers'minds. It is because these features possess some distinguishing features which include deviation in language and some special linguistic patterns. Deviation and overregularity are two of the major ways to achieve the effect of foregrounding. The analysis of a text could be carried out from these two perspectives. By finding out the deviation and overregularity on phonological, graphological, lexical, semantic, and other levels, the relationship between these features and literary interpretation could be discussed. Chapter Two is about deviation in William Blake's poems. In this chapter, the deviative features of his poems have been analyzed on phonological, graphological, lexical, and semantic levels. Meanwhile, the significance and the effects of these features are discussed. Although phonological deviation functions restrictedly in English poems, it is worthwhile to notice that the omission of unaccented syllables, such as elision, aphesis, apocope, etc. can be found in poetic language. Graphological deviation is closely related to style. By applying graphological deviation, a writer can attain some certain special effects. In William Blake's poems, graphological deviation is mainly reflected in capitalization and decapitalization, shape of text, and punctuation. Lexical deviation refers to neologism. In each year, new words are coined and added to the English vocabulary. For literary works, new words are coined to infuse some originality. Some coined words are quite popular, thus they are included in dictionaries. While some words are only used by writers in a particular context, such as the words coined by Blake, thus they have not entered the everyday lexicon. Semantic deviation is the most common type of deviation in poetic language. Great poems all have their irrational elements. Irrationality means exactly semantic deviation, i.e. irrationality in logic. In a broad sense, the figures of speech studied in rhetoric, such as metaphor, personification, etc. can all fall into the category of semantic deviation. Moreover, deviation in William Blake's poems mainly occurs on the semantic level. Though the deviative features could also be found out on other levels, but those features are not quite striking.Chapter Three is about overregularity in William Blake's poems. Overregularity refers to the fact that the occurrence of some linguistic phenomena has exceeded its expected frequency. Overregularity mainly occurs on phonological and lexical level in poetry. Similar to deviation, overregularity is also a major way to achieve the effect of foregrounding. This chapter analyzes the overregulated features from the phonological and lexical perspectives, and comments on the special effects achieved by these structures in the poems. Phonological overregularity can be analyzed in two aspects, i.e. sound patterning and rhythmic patterning. The devices include alliteration, rhyme, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia, stress, meter, etc. Lexical and syntactic overregularity is mainly reflected in the use of repetition and parallelism. It can be seen from the analysis in this chapter that overregularity is a major approach to the understanding and appreciation of poetry.The stylistic devices are not just stylistic adornments that one might do without. They can give emphasis to an essay, and they are used with the object of giving force, lucidity, humour, irony, colour or rhythmical harmony. Those devices include deviation from the literal sense of a word, overregularity, figures of speech, etc. Moreover, those devices are frequently used by writers to leave a deeper impression on the reader. Indeed, any piece of writing would be terribly dull without the use of stylistic devices.The last part is the conclusion, which makes a summary of the preceding analysis, and points out the main purpose of this thesis. This thesis has analyzed the foregrounded features in William Blake's poems based on the theories in modern stylistics, and the analysis of his poems is carried out from a new perspective. Though Blake applies simple words in his works, his poems could have a profound impact on the readers. From the analysis we could find out that there are many foregrounded features in his works. By using these devices, Blake has achieved some of the effects, such as the expression of his thoughts. Moreover, the analysis from the perspective of deviation and overregularity can help readers to understand William Blake's poems more thoroughly. The analysis is also helpful to literature and foreign language teaching and the improvement of ESL ability.