Analyzing Rhetoric Technique in Burns’ Works.doc

analyzing rhetoric technique in burns works摘 要语言修辞在文学中有着重要作用，它有助于提高语言素养和语言艺术的水平.对于我们来说，学习修辞并善于运用各种修辞手法就可以有力的提高我们的阅读欣赏水平.这在彭斯的诗歌作品中有着充分体现，了解其语言修辞在诗歌中的运用，对于理解诗歌主题至关重要.通过分析彭斯诗歌作品中的主要修辞运用，从而逐步确定语言修辞在文学中的重要作用，并且总结出了行之有效和比较全面的关于其在诗歌作品中修辞运用的方法，以促进对诗歌文学的深入理解.关键词：语言修辞；运用；诗歌文学abstractrhetoric plays an important role in the literature. it can help us to improve our level of language literacy and language arts. for us, learning rhetoric and being good at using a variety of rhetorical figures of speech can strengthen our reading and appreciation level. it was reflected perfectly in the poems of burns. its the key to learn the rhetoric. according to analyze the main rhetoric application of burns poems, we can gradually certain the important role of rhetoric in the literature. so, we can summarize effective and more comprehensive work on poetry in order to promote the deep understanding of poetry of verse literaturekey words: rhetoric; application; verse literaturecontents摘 要 .iabstract .iiintroductioniiichapter 1 the general outline of rhetoric51.1 the meaning and sort of rhetoric 71.2 looking back the past searches.10chapter 2 the rhetorical usage and function in burns works.102.1 the main rhetoric technique in burns verse works132.2 comparing with other verse works.162.3 analyzing the verse works by using rhetoric technique.18chapter 3 analyzing rhetoric technique in burns works.183.1 examples for rhetoric technique of burns work .20三级标题：times new roman、四号、不加粗、缩进约3个字母 3.2 the meaning for understanding and appreciating burns works with using rhetoric techniques.223.3 impacting upon the contemporary literature of burns works.23 conclusion.25 bibliography.26acknowledgements.27introduction the study of rhetoric, with a long history in western countries can be traced back to ancient greek in 55bc.it is visible to see that people has already pay more attention to rhetoric studying. till today, for peoples interest in studying rhetoric is not decreasing. because we should see that language plays an important role in communication and cultural developments are keeping pace with economic ones. the significance of language is obvious as it is associated human production. this subject is, through the observation and analysis of the mainly rhetoric devices in burns works to settle rhetoric has an important action in literature. through the analysis of rhetorics concept, meaning and characteristic to provide a systematic skill on appreciating and reading. most of people regard it as a skillful, deceptive eloquence/fraudulent practice intended to give some people an advantage over others by appealing to their emotions or prejudices. it deals exclusively with flowery use of language/figures of speech, rather than the real questions or ideas. but important public speeches or declaration, great works of literature all adopt it to express the consensus of people, poke fun at human frailties, command peoples support for important issues. therefore, we should recognize the significance on rhetoric.chapter 1the general outline of rhetoric1.1 the meaning and sorts of rhetoricetymologically, rhetoric derives from the greek word “rhetorike”, which in turn comes from the greek word “rhetor” , meaning “to speak” as a verb or “orator or public speaker” as a noun. oratory is the foundation of rhetoric. unlike the ordinary speech, it is a special kind of public speech, having greater level of appeal and emotional impact intended to impress, convince or move the audience to action. the word rhetoric often refers to the art of effective public speaking. it is a tool or method more concerned with the hows of what people are talking about, rather than the whats of what people are talking about. rhetoric has three types of definitions; a. rhetoric as the art of oratory in aristotle and elsewhere rhetoric was primarily concerned with oral discourse, the earliest mode of verbal expression. rhetor in greek means orator, public speaker, rhetorike means public speaking. b. rhetoric as the art of writing rhetoric began to be associated with writing from the middle ages when rhetoric did produces sets of rules for the legal letters through which the church and secular governments were administered. c. rhetoric as the art of style with the decline of democracy in rome, rhetoric entered an era when it essentially was divorced from civic affairs. it became an art concerned with style and delivery rather than with content. therefore，figures of speech are ways of making our language figurative. when we use words in other than their ordinary or literal sense to lend force to an idea, to heighten effect, or to create suggestive imagery, we are said to be speaking or writing figuratively. in classical rhetoric, the figure of speech was termed trope. tropes have to do with the way words are made to mean other than what they would normally imply. the term figure of speech was the synonym of scheme, which was first used in english in the sixteenth century. schemes comprised at the time the figures that arranged words into schematized patterns of fore grounded regularity of form, syntactic(which including repetition , anaphora, parallelism, climax, anticlimax, syllepsis, chiasmus, asyndeton etc.) ,phonetic (which including alliteration, assonance ,consonance, onomatopoeia, aposiopesis, apostrophe etc.) or semantic(which including simile, metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, antonomasia, personification, synesthesia, transferred epithetic etc.)thus, we can understand those meaning through its functional classification. such as:a. those involving emphasis, association, clarification and focus. they are used to convince the reader and help them remember. b. those involving physical organization, transition, and disposition or arrangement. they are intended to enhance the understanding on the part of the reader. c. those involving decoration and variety. they are mostly to draw readers attention. 1.2 looking back the past searchesin fact ,ancient greek rhetoricians had already has their theory early. western rhetoric originated in ancient greece. corax(539-443 b.c.) and his students tibias were the first rhetoricians in history. corax was generally thought to have composed the first written rhetoric to help sicilian landowners win at court. according to him, legal arguments should consist of four parts: introductory, explanation, argumentation and conclusion. it was later inherited by aristotle and was stretched by cicero to six parts. and then, on roman rhetoricians, marcus tallies cicero (106-43b.c. ) ,was believed to suggest three levels of style: high, middle, and low-intended respectively to move, and intended the use of rhetoric to argue legal cases. he had special influences during renaissance with his emphasis on humanistic training of clergy and statesman.when the rhetoric came into the middle ages, this ages are often called the “dark ages” because the great civilizations of greece and rome had fallen. in the middle ages, rhetoric became an important subject of learning for both the undergraduate students and those graduate students. the study of rhetoric was divided into two arts, letter-writing and preaching, both of which were heavily influenced by the so-called “second sophistic tradition (a.d. 100-500)figures were used to ornament sermons and letters. the figures were of two kinds: tropes or figures of thought or sense (metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche), and scheme of words and arrangement (climax, repetition, alliteration, assonance). however, as we all know, rhetoric in the renaissance.it refers to the intellectual and economic changes that occurred in europe from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries. it is also an age in which artistic, social, scientific, and political thought turned in new directions. renaissance rhetoricians were preoccupied with words, particularly with the distinction between words and the things they stood for, between form and matter. sister miriam joseph divided renaissance rhetoricians into three groups: the traditionalists, the futurists, and the racists. the difference among them center on whether they viewed the topics of invention as belonging to rhetoric, to logic, or to both. but in new classical rhetoric (17th 19th), has three points of view shaped about the rhetorical theory: the scientific perspective, the elocutionary perspective, and the literary perspective. the representative men are george campbell and bacon. george campbell incorporated principles from social and behavioral sciences. his philosophy and rhetoric regards rhetoric as a process of effecting change in an audience. to be effective, rhetoricians must understand human nature and analyze the audience they hope to influence. based on locke and humes discussions, campbell proposed a hierarchy of four mental faculties common to all human beings: an understanding, an imagination, passions, and a will. he was best known for re-establishing an important connection between rhetoric and psychology, between the arts of eloquence a speaker uses and their effect on an audience. he also explored the use of wit, humor and ridicule as rhetorical strategies and established the doctrine of usages. and bacon writings suggest new directions for rhetoric in the service of scientific studies. he advocated a seneca style, i.e. a plain, direct style characterized by short sentences, simple words, and little ornamentation. according to bacon, a plain style, a code similar to mathematics, best expresses the precise, objective observations of scientists. it should suit the subject matter and audience. chapter 2the rhetorical usage and function in burns works 2.1 main rhetoric technique in burns verse worksindeed, robert burns is one of the greatest poets in late 18th century.the 18th century is a period of comparatively peaceful development in england. after the glorious revolution, england entered the golden age. the state power passed from the king gradually to the parliament and the cabinet ministers.therefore, capitalist system was established in england. a vast expansion abroad of british colonies in asia, africa and north america and acts of enclosure at home caused the industrial revolution.so, towards the middle of the 19th century, england had become the first powerful capitalist country, the work-shop of the world, flooding the markets both at home and abroad with its manufactured goods.popular uprisings again and again hit ireland; in scotland people were threatening of independence from the british government; and the american people started their war of independence in 1776 and finally broke away from the british government. as the industrial revolution went on in its full swing, more and more people joined the rank of the middle class or the propertied class through much hard work. morally, they stressed the virtues of self-discipline, thrift and hard work. people divided into the liberal whigs, who were determined to safeguard popular liberty, and the conservative tories, with tender memories of kingcraft. on the extreme of toryism were jacobites. and almost all writers of the age were servants of whigs or tories during their competition. the main literary stream of the 18th century was realism. what the writers described in their works were social realities. the main characters were usually common men. most of the writers concentrated their attention on daily life. literature included book, newspaper, magazine, and pamphlets. prose had a rapid development in this age, so the 18th century was an age of prose. in 1786, at age 27, robert burns went through a major turning point in his life. he suffered a disappointing love affair with jean armour, who was pregnant with his twin sons. the local community and armours father were outraged by the affair and her father rejected burns offer of marriage. dejected and depressed, burns made plans to leave scotland and sail to jamaica in the west indies. to finance the trip, burns submitted a volume of his poetry for publication. the publication of 612 copies in a simple, unbound volume was called poems chiefly in the scottish dialect, also sometimes known as the kilmarnock edition. the poems were well received in edinburgh by socialites who were enchanted by the poems and amazed that a poor farmer could write so well. so, instead of planning his escape to a new world, burns planned a trip to edinburgh. his confident manner, ingratiating style, and his obvious wit and intelligence brought burns popularity and admiration. soon, a second publication of his work was executed in edinburgh.during his stay in edinburgh, robert burns met printer james johnson, who planned a project to print all of the folk songs in scotland. this project enthralled burns and embarked upon a journey throughout scotland to collect as many folk songs as possible. burns collected over 300 songs and wrote a few himself, including a red, red rose.” actually, in his poems he used lots of rhetoric, such as simile, metaphor, metonymy, personification, synesthesia, repetition so on and so forth.many poems among him, a red, red rose” is the most wonderful love poetry. in the aspect of rhetoric , the methods mainly have metaphor, exaggeration repeated,synesthesia and so on.robert burns is remembered mainly for his songs written in scottish dialect on a variety of subject. most of burns poems are lyrics on love and friendship. they have a great charm of simplicity. his best-known lyrics are a red, red rose, and auld lang syne.burns wrote some poems to express his hatred for the oppression of the ruling class and his love for freedom. a best-known poem of this kind is a mans a man for that” and some patriotic poems, in which he expresses his deep love for his motherland; such as my hearts in the highlands”. in addition ，burns wrote a number of poems on the theme of revolution, such as “the tree of liberty” and “a revolutionary lyric”, among his works, those rhetoric makes them very colorful and magical 2.2 comparing with other verse works most of burns lyrical short poems. he often used in scottish dialects. his works shows the emotions of civilians classs and the sympathy for working-class. he put forward that the inspiration of his poems came form the nature and the romantic view of the value of his poems was the sincere affection in his poems ,he also used many rhetoric ways such as ,metaphor, exaggeration repeated, synesthesia and so on to praise the ever-lasting love. however，in contrast with robert frost, he is an american famous poet in the twentieth century. he used to utilize concise language and plain poetic form: vocabulary in his poems is mainly informal, and most of them belong to monosyllables; on syntax, frost mainly adopts normal, prosaic lingual orders and strict and orthodox grammars; on the poetic form, he often writes traditional blank verse, sonnet and pays more attention to the phonetic natural rhythm, lines musical effect and the relations between sound and meaning, which form his unostentatious artistic style. frost often adopts some figures of speech, especially metaphor and symbol. through them, he uses concrete things to explain abstract thought or conception, and makes ordinary scenes become typical and abstract, which can stimulates readers thought. although frost often describes ordinary things, he dissolves deep meaning in commonness, and reveals profound philosophy of life from trifles in daily. this thesis will be helpful to understand frost and his poetry well.as we all know , burns is a short lyrics poet. burns combines calvinist predestination with his own notion which is so characteristic of burns poetry. while theres no denying that their homespun rustic idiom and conversational vitality do qualify them for the title of burns most characteristic poems, or that they played a important role in defining his public identity as man and poet, theres a danger that an over-candid reading will miss a trick in ignoring the rhetorical and generic expectations attached to these poems. therefore, his writing technique is differ from other poets, such as william blake. william blakes poems also have lots of differences from burns. blake was the son of a london tradesman. he never went to school but learned to read and write at home. his favorite writers were shakespeare, milton and chatterton. when he was fourteen, he was apprenticed to an engraver, but his business never became prosperous. blake was a lover of poetry. he devoted some of his time to writing verses. in 1782, he married an illiterate girl, who helped him a lot.blake also be famous for his short lyrics. they are remarkable and highly individual. he looks toward an anarchistic society and a religious mysticism seems to be the source of his inspiration. his poetry strikes us with its childish vision and simplicity. his first collection of poems, “ poetical sketches”, was printed in 1783. songs of innocence and songs of experience are two other groups of blakes short lyrics. the marriage of heaven and hell (1790), is a prophetic satire in prose. under the impetus of the french revolution, blake wrote a series of long poems, which he called the “prophecies”. in 1827, blake dies in obscurity and poverty. songs of innocence is typical of his work. this collection contains poems written for children. through the mouths of the little children, the poet expresses his love for the beauty of the world. using the language of small babies, blake expr