Style Evolution: Space and Movement in Longfellow’s Lyrical Poems

Vadim Andreev

doi:10.1590/2176-457350035

Abstract

ABSTRACT Variance of individual style over time and the tendencies in style evolution are important issues in modern linguistics. This paper investigates how parameters of space and movement categorization were deployed by the famous American poet H.W. Longfellow at different stages of his creative career. The attention is focused on lexical units with spatial meaning. The analysis revealed significant changes in (i) the structure of space, (ii) the ratio of horizontal vs. vertical relations of objects, statics vs. dynamics, and (iii) the role of a human being in poetic space. The early verse represents the world as a balanced unity, which then turns into a more complex system with two strata of reality. At the final stage of Longfellow’s creative career, space in his poetic world is integrated again but now acquires a new structural organisation that is different, to a certain extent, from that of his early period.

Highlights

Stylistic differences of texts relating to genre, the gender of the author and the authors’ native language have been extensively studied in stylometry, psycho-linguistics and forensic linguistics
The purpose of research is to establish the linguistic properties of style, which change over the course of time and differentiate texts written by an author during different periods of his life
Space and movement categorization do not belong to stable features of style but undergo considerable evolution which follows a wave-like pattern: the second period of the poet’s creative activity is marked by a radical deviation from the initial balanced spatial structure, and at the final stage the author returns to the integrated view of the world

Summary

Introduction

Stylistic differences of texts relating to genre, the gender of the author and the authors’ native language (when they write in a foreign language) have been extensively studied in stylometry, psycho-linguistics and forensic linguistics (see, for example, Rudman, 2003; McMenamin, 2002; Stamou, 2008; Gliserman, 1983; Pennebaker; Stone, 2003; Fernández-Cozman, 2018) Another interesting problem in stylistics concerns the dynamics of style. The purpose of research is to establish the linguistic properties of style, which change over the course of time and differentiate texts written by an author during different periods of his life (see, for example, Andreev, 2019; Can; Patton, 2004; Goldfield; Hoover, 2008; Hoover, 2004; Stamou, 2008). Count of forms of pronouns was found to correlate with ageing and the state of health of the speaker (PENNEBAKER; LAY, 2002; PENNEBAKER; STONE, 2003), quantitative analysis of most frequent words made it possible to differentiate between different periods of creative activity of a number of English, French and Turkish writers, early and late texts of The Beatles and (CAN; PATTON, 2004; GOLDFIELD; HOOVER, 2008; HOOVER, 2004)

Objectives

Methods

Conclusion