Stylistic Analysis of Agyeya’s Poem ‘sã:s ka: putala:’

Abstract

It is a fact that all literature is manifested in and through language. It is therefore necessary to emphasize on a language-based perspective and not depend solely on philosophical, psychological or biographical perspectives of analysis. The linguistics based stylistic perspective is both analytical and systematic, and this allows us to functionally view the various factors in a text. This language based perspective, however, should not be restricted to the recognition and computing of linguistic elements but should be sensitive to the creative and aesthetic aspects of language use. This can only be done if linguistics is viewed in a global perspective and not in a narrow one. ‘Stylistics’ is the sub-discipline of linguistics that can explicate literary texts by first analyzing the linguistic stylistic features of a text and then studying their functions in the created contexts of the text. Linguistic stylistics needs to be viewed as part of a larger semiotic or semiolinguistic exercise that allows the creation of ‘fictive’ contexts and generates significations in the created contexts. Further, the use of language in poetry is markedly different from the one essentially used in narrative and drama texts. Poetry tends to be more subjective and manifests greater variations in the use of language forms. Keeping the semiotics of poetry in mind, a threefold hierarchical structure has been used for the analysis of poetic texts in such a manner that the second level evolves out of the first level and the third level evolves out of the second. The first level consists of the linguistically identified stylistic features at different levels of language organization, i.e. at the phonological, lexical, syntactic and semantic/pragmatic levels, and this level is termed as the level of the ‘sentence symbol’. The second level views the identified significant features in terms of semiotic entities and this level is called the level of the ‘symbols in art’. The third level consists of a higher level where all the significations get synthesized, giving us, finally, the significations of the text itself, and this level has been termed as the level of the ‘art symbol’. A systematic though interlinked analyses at the different levels of analysis helps us in arriving at the significations of the poem. The present paper will provide a detailed analysis of S. H. V. Agyeya’s poem ‘sa:s ka: putala:’ (An effigy filled with breath) on the above-mentioned lines and will also show how the poem iconizes the state of helplessness and passivity of the poem I, with love providing the only hope for revitalization.