Poetic Syntax

Stylistics also invoices a theory of poetic syntax-that is, a theory of how poets
use syntax and how this syntax contributes to our experience of poetry and
therefore our judgments of poetic value. The distinctiveness of this new
theory is the claim that syntactic form, like the lyric itself, is rhythmically
ordered and therefore essentially temporal rather than spatial. This temporal
theory of poetic syntax is a part a new temporal poetics (Cureton) that
includes other aspects of poetic language as well-visual form, meter and
rhythm, versification, sound, intonation, trope, archetypal imagery, etc.

Syntax (i.e., the structure of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences) is one of
the major determinants of poetic experience. Much more so than in prose
fiction and drama, syntactic choices in poetry are thematized and therefore
participate centrally in articulating a poem’s defining metaphysical,
psychological, and historical commitments.

There have been many approaches to the description and evaluation of

poetic syntax, Perhaps the most well-known approach is Jakobson’s
”projection principle,” which treats poetic syntax primarily as an instrument
of parallelism and therefore of textual divisioning and semantic ”coupling”. If
similar syntactic forms are limited to certain parts of a text, they help define
that part of the text; and if related meanings occur in similar syntactic forms,
they are implicitly held up for comparison and contrast. We might also
include here the many studies of how syntax helps constitute the poetic line.

Related to Jakobson’s approach, albeit as an inverse, are the many studies of

enjambment, the lack of fit between the metrical/visual line and what it fails
to contain (intonation, syntax, etc.). Several scholars have expanded this
concern for the ”scissoring” of meter by syntax (and vice versa) into a more
general theory of poetic dynamism (tension, discontinuity, surprise, etc.),
what they call

grammetrics.

Given the centrality of linear dependencies in syntax, another important

approach to poetic syntax focuses on real-time processing and related
effects: anticipation, extension, ambiguity, garden-path effects, etc. The
classical concern for ”periodic” vs. ”loose” syntax, while more often applied
to prose, is also relevant to poetry and many scholars have shown this.

With its complex constraints on well-formedness, syntax is also a major locus

of linguistic creativity/deviance in poetry, and many have approached poetic
syntax from this’ viewpoint. While the effect is more important than the
cause, most metaphor begins with some type of syntactic deviance, and
because of the close relation between syntax and semantics, almost all
creative uses of syntactic deviance have strong semantic effects.
Syntax can also be used as a powerful icon, and many have argued for the
significance of these effects in poetry. Syntactic structures can be extended,
deepened, thickened, repeated, broken, inverted, interlaced, merged,
truncated, and so forth. All of these formal arrangements then can serve as
analogues of experience in some other mode (emotional, perceptual,
volition?!, etc.). We

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A HANDBOOK OF STYLE AND STYLIST

can include here those who have been interested in the role of syntax in
articulating the standa catalogue of classical syntactic ”schemes” (anaphora,
epizeuzis, ploce, epistrophe, symploc anadiplosis, etc.) and their respective
poetic values, whatever these might be.

Finally, poetic syntax has also been approached as a type of finely grained
semantics, as standard practice in functional/cognitive linguistics. Where
consistent contours of meaning ai carried down into the fine detail of
syntactic choice, larger semiotic intentions (ideologica aesthetic, etc.) are
given detailed embodiment, increasing their unity, clarity, and intensity.

All of these established approaches to poetic syntax are substantial and

significant. The synta of poetry does indeed do all of these things-and more.
As in many areas of the humanities todaj the major difficulty is the diversity,
fragmentation, and relative isolation o.f these theories, both fror one another
and from the structure and effect of other aspects of poetic language. While
each o these approaches does not necessarily exclude the other, their basic
presuppositions often conflic and there has been no suggestion as to how
these conflicts can be resolved.

The most prominent area of conflict is the dichotomy of form and function
mentioned previously, a dichotomy that is creating increasing dissonance -in
linguistics and stylistics more generally. As Helen Vendler has articulated
most clearly and repeatedly in recent years , the subjective orientation of
lyric demands a distinctive mode of representation, one that draws primarily
upon the subjective values of linguistic forms and only secondarily on their
more objective (conceptual, referential, pragmatic) values. By selecting,
concentrating, and arranging linguistic forms, the lyric articulates a type of
”linguistic algebra” that constructs experience from the inside out, from
subjective experience to objective representation, rather than the other way
around, as in prose fiction and drama. In the lyric, syntax is always a
significant part of this inwardly oriented form.

Given this, it seems reasonable to suggest that linguistic forms have some
coherent organization, that they derive from some distinct world/field/
universe of structured relationships that can give each individual form an
articulate significance when these forms are used in concert to achieve their
larger lyric purposes. However, in both linguistics and stylistics, little has
been suggested about the nature of this formal, non-referential universe and
therefore, where linguistic forms have been treated closely, as in studies of
poetic syntax, by and large, their significance has either been left
unarticulated (e.g., Jakobson’s textual divisioning) or reduced to
referential/conceptual/functional terms- iconicity, semantic coupling, the fine
detailing of meaning, trope, ambiguity, polysemy, semantic focus/ surprise/
revision, etc. As Taylor and Toolan point out, stylisticians have consistently
failed to articulate a ”criterial perspective” from which to observe, describe,
and evaluate the subjective, non-referential significance of selectively
structured linguistic forms, both in poetry and elsewhere. Our principal
approaches to poetic syntax are just instances of this more general
theoretical lack.

The solution to these difficulties is to take seriously the claim that the
orientation of poetic language is not primarily outwardf reinforcing and
complicating spatial reference, but inward, creating and elaborating temporal
worlds. Being a product of rhythm, these temporal worlds are defined in
rhythmic terms. They elaborate the naturally cohesive features of our
rhythmic constitution.

In its technical detail, this amounts to a claim that syntax is organized into
tiers of quadratic choices motivated by our four rhythmic/temporal
capabilities, with each tier being a fractal elaboration of some unitary choice
at a higher level. For instance, temporally, syntax itself is a linear reflex
within the tiered quadratic organization of linguistic form:
POETIC SYNTAX

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4 Semantics

3 Syntax

2 Prosody

1 Paralanguage

The clause is a linear (level 3) reflex within the quadratic array of structures
that make up syntax.

4 Sentence

3 Clause

2 Phrase

IWord ”””’”

Complementation is a linear (level 3) reflex within the the quadratic array of

elements that make up the clause:

4 Adverbial

3 Complement

2 Verb

1 Subject

Transitives are the linear (level 3) reflex within the four basic types of clausal
complements. (S=subject; V=verb; O=object; C=complement; A=adverbial).

4 Adverbial (SVA)

3 Transitive (SVO)

2 Copular (SVC)

1 Intransitive (SV)

And ditransitives are the linear (level 3) reflex within the four basic types of
transitives.

4 Complex-transitive with adverbial (SVOA)

3 Ditransitive (SVOO)
2 Complex-transitive with object complement (SVOC)
1 Monotransitive (SVO)

Layerings of this sort occur throughout syntax, creating highly modulated

systems of stylistic choice and therefore stylistic effect.

The organizational power of rhythm, vis-a-vis syntactic structure, comes from

the number and diversity of features that define its four component forms.
Each syntactic structure/function is usually related to many of the features of
its associated temporality, not just one, and which features are involved can
vary depending on the syntactic structure/function being considered. For
instance, the noun is related to several features of meter and cyclical time:
similarity, repetition, fixity, passivity, etc.; just as the phrase is related to
many of the features of grouping and centroidal time-- difference-in-
simuiarity, emblematic/part-whole relations, prominence, medial positioning,
locality, constrained volatility, etc.

This rhythmically-based approach overcomes many of the weaknesses in our

current theories of poetic syntax.

First, this approach overcomes the usual tendency in these theories to reduce
formal, lubjective values to referenttaV«emantic concerns. Like poetry itself,
the temporal values developed in this rhythmic approach are inherently
psychological. They do not derive from communication but from the structure
and development of one of our major cognitive capacities.
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