文体学e.e.cummings诗歌分析.doc

湖南大学外国语与国际教育学院 英语四班 马思佳 20081310408

Analysis on (E. ec) um! Mi, n, g-s' poem: r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r

r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r
r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r Misspelling

Who
a ) s w (e loo)k
Upnowgath
PPEGORHRASSCapitalization

eringint( o-
aThe:)Punctuation
l la
eA
!
p:
s
aEnjambment

to
aThe):l
eA
!p:
S aGraphic sign

(r
rIvInG gRrEaPsPhOsCapitalzization

to
rea(be)rran(com)gi(e)nglyNon-formation

,grasshopper;

A possible translation:
A grasshopper who we
look up now gathering
a GRASSHOPPER into leaps:
arriving grasshopper
rearrangingly
become
a grasshopper

Introduction

E. E. Cummings, born in 1894, was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright. His body of work encompasses approximately 2,900 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays and several essays, as well as numerous drawings and paintings. He is remembered as a preeminent voice of 20th century poetry, as well as one of the most popular.
He loved cubism and futurism in painting, while all the achievements he made in other areas can hardly be compared with what he did in poetry.
In general, his poems can be classified into 3 categories: Blues Poetry, which just like the Blues music, utilizes lyric, rhythm and rhyme, and shares some similar themes such as lost love; concrete poetry, in which typographical arrangement of the words is important in conveying the effect and elements of the poem; futurist, which believes that the constraints of syntax were inappropriate to modern life and that it did not truly represent 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 rejected and the word was the top concern. In this way, he was able to create a now language free of syntax punctuation and full of free expression.
Attached to his free and creative way of relating, I would like to give a brief stylistic analysis of his famous poem: "r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r". The examination will deal with phonological, graphological, lexical, syntactical, and semantic analyses respectively.

Graphological Features

1) Punctuation
E.E. Cummings had a constant love for punctuation, especially in a random way. Hyphens are used to link the randomly spelled letters，which creates an impression of coherence；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 into". Exclamatory marks are used to create an effect of bouncing, which characterizes the motions of the grasshopper. Colons are also used to attract readers' attention. The punctuation takes up an organic part of the Cummings'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 can contribute to the wholeness of its poetic effect. Punctuations are endowed with a sense of freshness and novelty in cummings' poetry.
2) Capitalization
Capitalization as well as decapitalization is a device frequently applied in Cumming's poetry. The basic function of these devices is to emphasis. Take his name for example, he usually spelled his name as e.e.cummings to illustrate his own self-identification that he was nothing more important or distinguished than others and in addition, he wanted himself to be modest.
In this poem, there are two outstanding capitalizations which catch my eyes: PPEGORHRASS and gRrEaPsPhOs. These two achieve the effect of foregrounding. 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 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 can 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 the 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) Paragraphing
By paragraphing, we mean the way in which 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. The 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 common understanding of poetry and provides a broader view of modernism.
4) Graphic signs
Graphic signs are frequently used in cummings' poems, for this part is an indispensable component in his expression of his thoughts. This poem is a visual poem. The shape of his poem can also convey certain meaning, for example, this poem is arranged in the shape of a grasshopper; another poem of his took the shape of a cat. The graphic sign indicates the theme of his poem and also becomes a trick to the readers' eyes and creates a different and imaginative way of composing as well as reading a poem.
Another trick played by cummings is enjambment, in which the words jump from line to line randomly and wait for the reader to rearrange them. 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 nature. Our eyes move from side to side to catch the trace of the grasshopper, otherwise, we run the risk of losing ourselves in the poem.
In addition to enjambment, the poems leave much room for margins. The bouncing of the letters in the first paragraph creates large chunk of margin in the middle of the poem. Instead of calling for pausing or introspective as the margins in other literature works, this chunk of margin is not provided for the rest of the eyes but for exercises. By constantly moving the eye from side to side can he understands the poem and also gets a sense of the dynamic movement of the insect as if there were a grasshopper on the paper, before the eye. This is one of the major fun or power of e.e.cummings' poetry. He successfully combines visual effect with written forms.
5) Spelling
Misspelling 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 parentheses as one word. For example, r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r, only by understanding with proper insight can we catch the real form of the word and follow the poet's intention.

Lexical features

1） The use of specific words
In cumming's poems, subordinate words are used more regularly than the superordinate ones. In this poem, 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 words
In poems, especially in modern poems, we are encountered tons of symbols, which have connotative meaning 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-reaching symbolic meaning and thus, the poem is plain and direct enough for readers to understand.
3） The use of dynamic words
In 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", "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 what strokes is to his paintings.
4） The use of monosyllabic words
The simple words characterize the poems of cumming's, ranging from in 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 words add the bouncing flavor to this poem rather than long words, which make the poem heavy and awkward.
5）Non - formation
The 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 catch 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 sense of newness to the poem, attracting the readers and expressing the poet's idea in a creative way, thus, fulfills the characters of modernism.
6) Accessibility
We often use Fog Index to test the accessibility of an article or a passage, for
accessibility is more often than not a problem for non-poem work. We take it for granted that poetry are always accessible. In this poem:
Fog Index= 0.4 (L+H)=0.4*(9+0)=3.6
Merely referring to this index, we can say that the poem should be quite accessible; however, the fact is far from the case. The reason lies in Ungrammaticality, which characterizes most of cummings' poetry. Ungrammaticality makes the poem innovative and creative, lexically and semantically, on one hand; on the other hand, 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 inaccessibility can help to achieve the poetic effect and artistic sophistication and increases the readers' aesthetic comprehension.

Synthetic features

1) Word order
His poem is full of words inverted into the sentence. The words are arranged randomly so as to a sense of deliberate mass. Especially for this poem, the inverted words even letters help create an effect of bouncing and the disorder of the words help make the poem a visual poem.
2) Grammaticality
Actually, cummings's poems hardly follow any strict grammatical rules. The non-grammatical way of composing characterizes his poetry and erects cummings as one of the most eminent poets of the 20s century. This not only shows his distinguished way of creation, 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 understanding of poetry. That is another way of realizing foregrounding or defamiliarization, thus drawing attention to how he says something rather than to what he says and giving unusual significance to the visual effects of the poetry.
3) Sentence length
As I have mentioned above, cummings'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 corresponding to the motions of the insects. There is no complex sentence or hard words in the poem which set no verbal obstacles. Thanks to the short sentences, his poems are creative and do not set artificial obstacles to the understanding and interpreting to his poem.

Semantic features

1）Figure of speech
Semantic features in this poem mainly lie in the rhetorical devices. The most significant one is repetition. The word "grasshopper" occurs three times in this poem. The function of this is to lay emphasis on the title and the theme of this poem. In addition, repetition can achieve the effect of foregrounding. Seen from a distance, these words can arrive at the point of highlighting, visually and sensuously.
If I could put it in this way, the image of "grasshopper" is a symbol of vitality. It symbolizes the liveliness of nature and human society. It jumps here and there in the huzzle and buzzle all across the world, to which it adds luster and laughter and passes on the livelihood and vigor to the readers, which also enlightens the intellectual world of the readers.
2) contextual factors
When it comes to the contextual factors analysis, this poem is quite unique. It belongs to a certain field--literature; tenor as informal. Moreover, most of the poems are written to be read; yet this piece is written to be seen.

Conclusion

e.e.cummings' poetry has always been an ideal material for stylistic analyses for his various uses of language tactics as well as stylistic devices. His poetry provides a broader view of combining visibility with literature and leads a fresh style of expression into modern literature. Reading his poetry is an experience nourishing our eyes as well as our minds and it turns out to be a precious lesson for treating our aesthetic comprehension and stylistic awareness. It is true that literature is like the sunlight which enables us to see the world. e.e.cummings enab