Poetics and Ethics: the Saying and the Said in the Linguistically Innovative Poetry of Tom Raworth

Abstract

What this essay offers is not a definitive way to read a McGuckian poem, as not only is this an unfeasible task but it would compromise McGuckian's deliberate refusal of a single voiced, univocal reading. Rather, what this essay provides is a consideration of McGuckian's application of metaphor and metonymy in relation to the work of Roman Jakobson and Jacques Lacan, which takes into account the indeterminacy and displacement of meaning that is a predominant feature of her work. Roman Jakobson 's study 'Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasie Disturbances' led to the formulation of the metaphoric and metonymie axis of language, a formulation which significantly influenced Lacan, for like Lacan, Jakobson 's focus rests 'not on the object of reference, but on the relations of the signifying elements in the sign itself'. 1 A brief overview of Jakobson 's study is thus both valuable in relation to McGuckian's poetry and provides the foundation from which a movement into a Lacanian reading becomes possible. Jakobson's distinction between metaphor and metonymy is founded on the Saussurean differentiation between the syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations between signs. When we compose a sentence we employ both the practices and conventions of grammatical regulations (the syntagmatic chain of combination and contiguity), and make choices regarding the possible variations between signs at each moment of composition (the more flexible paradigmatic chain of selection and substitution). Jakobson aligned the process of selection and substitution with metaphor, and combination and contiguity with metonymy, claiming that both are needed for meaningful communication and constitute the axis on which all language rests. Jakobson also maintained, however, that as much can be learned from linguistic communication when it ceases to function effectively, as when it is intact. The impairment of the metonymie axis of language, states Jakobson, can lead to combination deficiency, a condition which priv-