Emotiveness of convergent and divergent poems: a study of late 18th- and early 21st-century English poetry

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of emotiveness of English divergent and convergent poetic texts. Emotiveness is regarded as a category of the poetic text that is formally represented by emotives (verbal means that name, express, or describe emotions). Emotive units combine within the poem creating the dominant emotive image that accompanies the central concept of the poetic text. The way the author processes and then implements his / her emotional images in the poetic text predetermines the type of poetry (according to R. Tsur) as convergent or divergent. The convergent poetry complies with the rules of traditional poetry writing (that include meter and rhythm, rhyme, etc.) while divergent poetry associates with automatic writing. The former is marked by the aesthetic design, presence of aesthetic feelings or so-called “metamorphic passions” (D. Miall). The latter contains immediate or “raw” feelings of the author, in other words, feelings that he experiences at the moment of writing. Analysis of the poems of the late 18th — early 21st century has revealed that the convergent thinking is more typical of classical poetry (for example, of the period of Romance). The genre system destruction and appearance of new trends in arts have brought forth new techniques of imagery formation. The 20th century experimental poetry becomes less convergent and more biphasic which presupposes implementation of both thinking types in poetic texts writing. Thus, the divergent thinking is called forth to shatter stale images and break them to fragments out of which new fresh images can be created due to convergence techniques. Such transformations within poetic texts have also influenced their emotive side which is closely connected with conceptual nodes. The implementation of divergent, convergent, or biphasic thinking shapes the emotive focus of a poetic piece, which may become implicit, explicit, blurred, sharp, etc.