文体学e.e.cummings诗歌分析报告

1、Analysis on (E. ec) um! Mi, n, g-s' poem:r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-rr-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-rr-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-rWhoa ) s w (e loo)kUpno wgathPPEGORHRASS eringint( o-laaThe:) l eAp:sgrasshopper;atoA possible tran slati on:A grasshopper who we look up now gatheri nga GRASSHOPPER into leaps:arriv ing grass

2、hopperrearra ngin gly becomea grasshopperIn troductio nE. E. Cummin gs, born in 1894, was an America n poet, pain ter, essayist, author, and playwright. His body of work en compasses approximately 2,900 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays and several essays,as well as numerous drawings an

3、d paintings. He is remembered as a preem inent voice of 20th cen tury poetry, as well as one of the most popular.He loved cubism and futurism in painting, while all the achieveme nts he made in other areas can hardly be compared with what he did in poetry.In general, his poems can be classified into

4、 3 categories: Blues Poetry, which just like the Blues music, utilizes lyric, rhythm and rhyme, and sharessome similar themes such as lost love; concrete poetry, in which typographical arrangement of the words is important in conveying the effect and eleme nts of the poem; futurist, which believes t

5、hat the con stra ints of syn tax were in appropriate to modern life and that it did not truly represe nt the mind of the poet. Syntax would serve as a filter in which analogies had to be processed and so analogies would lose their characteristic "stupefaction". In his poetry, meter was rej

6、ected and the word was the top concern. In this way, he was able to create a now Ian guage free of syn tax pun ctuati on and full of free expressi on.Attached to his free and creative way of relating, I would like to give a brief stylistic an alysis of his famous poem: "r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r&qu

7、ot;. The exam in ati on will deal with phono logical, graphological, lexical, syn tactical, and sema ntic an alyses respectively.Graphological Features1) PunctuationE.E. Cummings had a con sta nt love for pun ctuati on, especially in a ran dom way. Hyphe ns are used to link the randomly spelled lett

8、ers, which creates an impression of coherencq brackets are used to limit the letters into a certain space, such as (e loo), in order to create an effect of closure which coperate with the phrase of "get in to". Exclamatory marks are used to create an effect of bouncing, which characterizes

9、 the moti ons of the grasshopper. Colo ns are also used to attract readers' attention. The punctuation takes up an organic part of theCummings's poems；however, it consists only an auxiliary part some other poems. It seems clear that from the perspective of modernism, every part of the poem c

10、an contribute to the wholeness of its poetic effect. Punctuations are endowed with a sense of freshness and novelty in cummings' poetry.2) CapitalizationIn this poem, there are two outstanding capitalizations which catch my eyes: PPEGORHRASS and gRrEaPsPhOs.These two achieve the effect of foregr

11、ounding. Seen from a distance, these two words can call readers' attention more easily and successfully. PPEGORHRASS, through proper arrangement, can form the word "grasshopper". The first grasshopper in this poem is decapitalized and is linked by hyphens so that create a picture of a

12、grasshopper crawls or stays with no apparent motions, while by highlighting the word PPEGORHRASS, the picture suddenly become dynamic, and the grasshopper all of a sudden become active, which arouses the interest of the readers and adds vitality into the poem.Another example is gRrEaPsPhOs. As we ca

13、n see, the second half of the poem takes the shape of a grasshopper( I will cover this point shortly afterwards.), and through the picture I gave above, this word gRrEaPsPhOs is exactly the abdomen of this insect. Judging from our common sense, we know what external form it is. And arrangement of th

14、e letters in this way can just depict the abdomen of an insect with stripes.Here, we can see that through the devices of capitalization and decapitalization, the poet can achieve a far-reaching denotative meaning as well as a picturesque effect.3) ParagraphingBy paragraphing, we mean the way in whic

15、h a text is divided into paragraphs. And this poem is divided into two halves. The first half is in words and in the second half, the shape of a grasshopper is composed. The result is that when we read this poem, we are welcomed by a short introduction and a grasshopper at the bottom of the poem. Th

16、e way he divided this poem is quite creative and imaginative. It makes a breakthrough in the traditional form of poetry and set foot in combining poems with pictures, or composing pictures in letters. It challenges people's com mon un dersta nding of poetry and provides a broader view of moder n

17、i sm.4) Graphic sig nsGraphic sig ns are freque ntly used in cum min gs' poems, for this part is an in dispe nsable component in his expression of his thoughts. This poem is a visual poem. The shape of his poem can also con vey certa in meaning, for example, this poem is arran ged in the shape o

18、f a grasshopper; ano ther poem of his took the shape of a cat. The graphic sig n in dicates the theme of his poem and also becomes a trick to the readers' eyes and creates a different and imagi native way of compos ing as well as read ing a poem.Another trick played by cummings is enjambment, in

19、 which the words jump from line to line randomly and wait for the reader to rearrangethem. In this poem, this feature is quite obvious. This poem is said to create a figure of an erratic grasshopper and jumping is involved in its n ature. Our eyes move from side to side to catch the trace of the gra

20、sshopper, otherwise, we run the risk of losing ourselves in the poem.5) SpellingMisspelling is another device enjoys cumming's favor. In each line of his poem, one should not take its spelling into serious consideration, but to read it out loud as a whole and not in parenthesesas one word. For e

21、xample, r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r, only by understanding with proper in sight can we catch the real form of the word and follow the poet's in ten tio n.lexical features1) The use of specific wordsIn cumming's poems, subordinate words are used more regularly than the superordinate ones. In this p

22、oem, such as grasshopper, look up, leap and so on. Subordinate words are easier for people to understand and give people a more specific view of the content of the poem.2) The use of connotative wordsIn poems, especially in modern poems, we are encountered tons of symbols, which have connotative mea

23、ning as well as denotative meaning. Such words call for reader's pausing and retrospective. However, in cumming's poems, there are hardly any word with denotative meaning. , Grasshopper is simply the insect and leap is just the motion of this little insect. The words here do not carry a far-

24、reaching symbolic meaning and thus, the poem is plain and direct enough for readers to understand.3) The use of dynamic wordsIn this poem, as it depicts the figure of a grasshopper,the poet uses dynamic words to recapture the erratic and jumpy manner of this insect, such as the verb "look up&qu

25、ot;, "gather", "arrive", "become", all of which make the picture full of vitality. These words, together with the emjambment, make the picture quite vivid and it seems that the whole poem just jumps out the paper and becomes alive. These words are to cumming's poems

26、 what strokes is to his paintings.4) The use of monosyllabic wordsThe simple words characterize the poems of cumming's, ranging fromin Just- to a like a . All his poems avoid the use of polysyllabic words. In this poem, simple words like leap, now, look up are applied. Short and simple, these wo

27、rds add the bouncing flavor to this poem rather than long words, which make the poem heavy and awkward.5) Non - formationThe word "rearrangingly" is a word newly created by cummings, like the case of "balloonMan" in in Just- . By forming a new word, the poet can successfully catc

28、h the eyes of readers. And this word lies at the bottom of the poem, which indicates that the key of understanding the poem is to "re-arrange" it. What is more, non-formation adds a senseof newness to the poem, attracting the readers and expressing the poet's idea in a creative way, th

29、us, fulfills the characters of moder ni sm.6) AccessibilityWe ofte n use Fog In dex to test the accessibility of an article or a passage, for accessibility is more ofte n tha n not a problem for non-poem work. We take it for gran ted that poetry are always accessible. In this poem:Fog In dex= 0.4 (L

30、+H)=0.4*(9+0)=3.6Merely referring to this index, we can say that the poem should be quite accessible; however, the fact is far from the case. The reas on lies in Un grammaticality, which characterizes most of cum min gs' poetry. Un grammaticality makes the poem inno vative and creative, lexicall

31、y and sema ntically, on one hand; on the other han d, it decreases the accessibility of the poem. By decreasing the accessibility of the poem, the poet wins the attention and curiosity of the readers, for poetry must be read whole-heartedly and creatively. Proper in accessibility can help to achieve

32、 the poetic effect and artistic sophisticati on and in creases the readers' aesthetic comprehe nsion.Syn thetic features1) Word orderHis poem is full of words in verted in to the sen ten ce. The words are arran ged ran domly so as to a sense of deliberate mass. Especially for this poem, the in v

33、erted words eve n letters help create an effect of bouncing and the disorder of the words help make the poem a visual poem.2) GrammaticalityActually, cum min gs's poems hardly follow any strict grammatical rules. The non-grammatical way of compos ing characterizes his poetry and erects cum mings

34、 as one of the most eminent poets of the 20s cen tury. This not only shows his disti nguished way of creati on, but also his very quality of innovation, which constantly challenges the convention. He strongly opposed the traditional way of writing poems. It is his poem that gives us a brand-new un d

35、ersta nding of poetry. That is ano ther way of realiz ing foregro unding or defamiliarizati on, thus drawing attention to how he says something rather than to what he says and giving unu sual sig nifica nee to the visual effects of the poetry.3) Sentence lengthAs I have men ti oned above, cum min gs

36、's poems are famous for its visual effect. Based on this foundation, his poems all share a similarity, namely, understandability. Let alone its newfangled form, as long as one get the letters or words right, it would not be difficult for people to understand it. In addition, the words in the poem are also comparatively short corresp onding to the moti ons of the in sects. There is no complex sentence or hard words in the poem which set no verbal obstacles. Thanks to the short senten ces, his poems are creative and do not set artificial obstacles to the understan