Literature 1A – final term
Three classic concepts in Literary Criticism:
1. Defamiliarisation (Shklovsky, 1917).
2. The Intentional Fallacy (Wimsatt & Beardsley, 1946).
3. The Affective Fallacy (Wimsatt & Beardsley, 1949).
Examining texts
- Diction: the word choice, the register
- Structure: lines, stanza’s
Defamiliarisation =The effect of cognitive estrangement
Affective Fallacy = Beginning and ending with your emotional response
Intentional Fallacy = Asking only what the author may have meant
The building blocks of metaphorical language:
The Vehicle: A word or phrase used in such a way that it becomes the carrier of a meaning not usually associated with it.
The Tenor: the implied meaning that the metaphorical word or phrase (the vehicle) carries with it, in the context of the
work in which it appears.
Dead Metaphors
A metaphor works on the level of equation: one thing is Equated with another.
Explicit: You (tenor) numbskull(vehicle)!
Implicit: Listen to your heart (vehicle)!
“Literary” Metaphors
Explicit: “If music (tenor) be the food of love (vehicle), play on.”
Implicit:
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day (vehicle).”
A Simile (similar…)
A simile is a comparison: one thing is like another.
An everyday simile:
The frantic football thugs (tenor) moved like a herd of mad cows chased by a rabid sheepdog (vehicle), when the police
moved in to arrest them.
A literary simile:
“The water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was abenign immensity of unstained light; the very mist on the Essex
marsh was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded rises inland, and draping the low shores in diaphanous
folds” (from Heart Of Darkness) .
Rhythm, according to Baron Wormser & David Cappella:
“Rhythm literally defines life for us as human beings: Blood circulates within us, we breathe in and out, we lie down and get
up, we chew our food and walk down the street and make love [….] We humans convey all manner of rhythm as we chat,
dance, strut, orate, sing, clap hands, whistle, drum, run, chant. Rhythm expresses emotions that range from a parent’s
intimate, calming pat on an infant’s back to the chilling, mass display of goose-stepping Nazis.”
Stress
• You say ‘ACcent’, not ‘ acCENT’.
• ‘WINter is COMing’
• ‘ Donald Trump is a BASKet case’, not a ‘ basKET case’.
Meter
• Meter is a way of structuring the rhythm of speech into a regular pattern of stress units.
• Verse is a composition written in meter.
• In verse, you can see in each line a particular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep.”
You can divide this line into separate syllables:
The - woods - are - love-ly, dark - and - deep.
, (Un)stressed syllables
Two basic rules:
• in ordinary speech, each word of more than one syllable has its own word accent, as we have seen.
• in speech we tend to put stronger stress on nouns, verbs, and adjectives, rather than on articles or prepositions
(unless we want to emphasize a particular word). And long vowels are often stressed, and short vowels are not.
The WOODS are LOVEly, DARK and DEEP.
• We generally use the sign / to indicate a stressed syllable, and U for an unstressed one.
• So:
U / U / U / U /
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
In verse you can group syllables into so-called metric feet according to the pattern of stressed and unstressed
•
syllables.
• A FOOT is a combination of a strong stress and one or more weak stresses. So Frost’s line consists of four feet:
U / U / U / U /
The woods/ are love/ly, dark/ and deep.
• iamb, or iambic foot: U / (stressed + unstressed syllable).
• The iamb is by far the most common foot in English poetry, as it is closest to the ordinary speech rhythm of the
English language.
Examples of iambic lines
• William Shakespeare:
U / U / U / U / U /
When I / do count / the clock / that tells / the time
(sonnet 12)
U / U / U / U / U /
Shall I / compare/ thee to / a sum/mer's day?
(sonnet 18)
Six standard metrical feet
In Klarer (53):
• Iamb: U / (unstressed, stressed) [I amb]
• Trochee: / U (stressed, unstressed) [Tro chee]
• Anapest: U U / (unstressed, unstressed,stressed) [A na pest]
• Dactyl: / U U (stressed, unstressed, unstressed) [Dac ty lic]
• Spondee: / / (stressed, stressed) [Spon Dee]
Not in Klarer:
• Pyrrhic: U U (unstressed,unstressed) [just mumble this one]
The trochee (trochaic foot)
/ U / U / U / U / U
There they / are, my / fifty / men and / women,
/ U / U / U /U /U
Naming / me the / fifty / poems / finished!
/ U / U / U / U /U
Take them, / love, the / book and / me to/gether;
/ U / U / U / U /U
Where the / heart lies, / let the / brain lie / also.
(Robert Browning, “One Word More”)
Iamb and trochee
Both the iamb and trochee have 2 syllables = disyllabic foot
There are also feet that have 3 syllables (trisyllabic feet): anapest and dactyl
Three classic concepts in Literary Criticism:
1. Defamiliarisation (Shklovsky, 1917).
2. The Intentional Fallacy (Wimsatt & Beardsley, 1946).
3. The Affective Fallacy (Wimsatt & Beardsley, 1949).
Examining texts
- Diction: the word choice, the register
- Structure: lines, stanza’s
Defamiliarisation =The effect of cognitive estrangement
Affective Fallacy = Beginning and ending with your emotional response
Intentional Fallacy = Asking only what the author may have meant
The building blocks of metaphorical language:
The Vehicle: A word or phrase used in such a way that it becomes the carrier of a meaning not usually associated with it.
The Tenor: the implied meaning that the metaphorical word or phrase (the vehicle) carries with it, in the context of the
work in which it appears.
Dead Metaphors
A metaphor works on the level of equation: one thing is Equated with another.
Explicit: You (tenor) numbskull(vehicle)!
Implicit: Listen to your heart (vehicle)!
“Literary” Metaphors
Explicit: “If music (tenor) be the food of love (vehicle), play on.”
Implicit:
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day (vehicle).”
A Simile (similar…)
A simile is a comparison: one thing is like another.
An everyday simile:
The frantic football thugs (tenor) moved like a herd of mad cows chased by a rabid sheepdog (vehicle), when the police
moved in to arrest them.
A literary simile:
“The water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was abenign immensity of unstained light; the very mist on the Essex
marsh was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded rises inland, and draping the low shores in diaphanous
folds” (from Heart Of Darkness) .
Rhythm, according to Baron Wormser & David Cappella:
“Rhythm literally defines life for us as human beings: Blood circulates within us, we breathe in and out, we lie down and get
up, we chew our food and walk down the street and make love [….] We humans convey all manner of rhythm as we chat,
dance, strut, orate, sing, clap hands, whistle, drum, run, chant. Rhythm expresses emotions that range from a parent’s
intimate, calming pat on an infant’s back to the chilling, mass display of goose-stepping Nazis.”
Stress
• You say ‘ACcent’, not ‘ acCENT’.
• ‘WINter is COMing’
• ‘ Donald Trump is a BASKet case’, not a ‘ basKET case’.
Meter
• Meter is a way of structuring the rhythm of speech into a regular pattern of stress units.
• Verse is a composition written in meter.
• In verse, you can see in each line a particular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep.”
You can divide this line into separate syllables:
The - woods - are - love-ly, dark - and - deep.
, (Un)stressed syllables
Two basic rules:
• in ordinary speech, each word of more than one syllable has its own word accent, as we have seen.
• in speech we tend to put stronger stress on nouns, verbs, and adjectives, rather than on articles or prepositions
(unless we want to emphasize a particular word). And long vowels are often stressed, and short vowels are not.
The WOODS are LOVEly, DARK and DEEP.
• We generally use the sign / to indicate a stressed syllable, and U for an unstressed one.
• So:
U / U / U / U /
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
In verse you can group syllables into so-called metric feet according to the pattern of stressed and unstressed
•
syllables.
• A FOOT is a combination of a strong stress and one or more weak stresses. So Frost’s line consists of four feet:
U / U / U / U /
The woods/ are love/ly, dark/ and deep.
• iamb, or iambic foot: U / (stressed + unstressed syllable).
• The iamb is by far the most common foot in English poetry, as it is closest to the ordinary speech rhythm of the
English language.
Examples of iambic lines
• William Shakespeare:
U / U / U / U / U /
When I / do count / the clock / that tells / the time
(sonnet 12)
U / U / U / U / U /
Shall I / compare/ thee to / a sum/mer's day?
(sonnet 18)
Six standard metrical feet
In Klarer (53):
• Iamb: U / (unstressed, stressed) [I amb]
• Trochee: / U (stressed, unstressed) [Tro chee]
• Anapest: U U / (unstressed, unstressed,stressed) [A na pest]
• Dactyl: / U U (stressed, unstressed, unstressed) [Dac ty lic]
• Spondee: / / (stressed, stressed) [Spon Dee]
Not in Klarer:
• Pyrrhic: U U (unstressed,unstressed) [just mumble this one]
The trochee (trochaic foot)
/ U / U / U / U / U
There they / are, my / fifty / men and / women,
/ U / U / U /U /U
Naming / me the / fifty / poems / finished!
/ U / U / U / U /U
Take them, / love, the / book and / me to/gether;
/ U / U / U / U /U
Where the / heart lies, / let the / brain lie / also.
(Robert Browning, “One Word More”)
Iamb and trochee
Both the iamb and trochee have 2 syllables = disyllabic foot
There are also feet that have 3 syllables (trisyllabic feet): anapest and dactyl
