Poetic Devices Research Articles

Trauma e poeticità nella narrativa di Herta Müller

"Among the many ways in which Herta Müller engages in reconstructing historical memory in her prose is her extensive use of poetic devices. This article will focus on illustrating the role of words-images and the collage technique, in short, on the functioning of the visual medium, with its varied signifying potential, in conjunction with words, according to a logic in which the montage encapsulates a fragmentary, exploded, alienated identity. This study will therefore shed light on some central aspects of Herta Müller’s prose concerning the problematic layering of the characters’ consciousness. These are victims of the most lacerating historical traumas that marked the 20th century and they often appear within the frames of an autobiographical narrative that does not separate ethics from imagination, or the representation of the wounds of history from poeticism and fiction."

Notes on growing love: Cherríe Moraga’s “If,” a world-making incantation conjuring collective consciousness through Chicana lesbian po(i)esis

This essay introduces the embodied ceremonial practices of deep presence and sustained attentiveness as Chicana lesbian poetic devices that shape-shift Chicana lesbian subjectivities, socialities, and simultaneously the violence of colonial capitalist racial heteropatriarchies. My reading of the poem “If” in Carla Trujillo’s rendering of Chicana lesbian desire in Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About, delves into the shape-shifting and time-bending potentiation at the heart of Chicana lesbian poetics. Cherríe Moraga’s “If” generously offers a map that stalls time with the magnificence of sustained attentiveness. The poet’s observations entice the reader with a depth of presence that illuminate the subject, casting life-sustaining reimagined meanings onto otherwise commodified individuated bodies. Moraga’s “If” refracts the meaning of loss, ghostly pasts, and unimaginable futures through embodiment, imbuing a vivid and deep presence capable of casting spells on futures yet to come. The poem posits total immersion in being—ecstasis, that blooms with the transformational potential of the ecstatic. This essay reads the poem “If” in the context of Moraga’s oeuvre as ceremonial world-making incantation conjuring collective consciousness through Chicana lesbian po(i)esis.

Translatio Materiae: Spenser’s Poetics of Matter

Abstract This article argues that sixteenth-century humanist depictions of Rome’s decay, together with paradigms of translatio imperii et studii, shape Edmund Spenser’s poetics of matter. The article identifies a new translatio in Spenser’s corpus, translatio materiae—matter’s movement or change—born from Spenser’s contact with and Complaints (1591) translation of Joachim du Bellay’s sonnet sequence, Les Antiquitez de Rome (1553). Where earlier humanists represent the recovery and reincorporation of Rome’s material remains as a metaphor for carrying forward antique power and artistry, Spenser transforms this image of material translatio into a law governing depicted matter’s movement and change in his Faerie Queene (1590/96). Translatio materiae runs through Spenser’s corpus as represented matter’s resurrection from states of decay into material afterlives as narrative object or poetic device. I examine this phenomenon in key heroic episodes of Faerie Queene Book One, episodes which I treat as exemplary of matter’s preservation, proliferation, and translatio as compositional strategies in the poem’s narrative and structure. Translatio materiae’s use in the poem thus points to a Spenserian theory of imitation that resists the teleology of prior translatio paradigms and instead understands Renaissance imitation to exhibit all the waywardness of matter.

Bruce K. Waltke and Ivan D.V. De Silva. Proverbs: A Shorter Commentary

Bruce K. Waltke and Ivan D.V. De Silva. <i>Proverbs: A Shorter Commentary</i>

Graphological Deviation: A Defamiliarizing Trope in Timothy Wangusa’s Poetry

This article attempts to examine the use of graphological deviation in Timothy Wangusa’s poetry as a style of foregrounding in Timothy Wangusa’s poetry. It is hoped to fill knowledge gaps in the Wangusaic scholarship as previous studies on Wangusa are on issues of originality of his poetry and conclude that the trajectory of his poetry is mainly Christian, African, and English traditions. The studies conclude that Wangusa’s poetry was greatly influenced by classical and western literary traditions (Alfredo Okello 2005). Some studies are on Wangusa’s novels and short stories, and as such, they focus on aspects like themes and narrative techniques but not graphological deviation. This leaves much to be studied on the variable of graphological deviation in Wangusa’s poetry. This justifies why this research article is worthwhile as it evaluates how Timothy Wangusa employs graphological deviation to create foregrounding. Besides, the researcher used the theory of defamiliarisation proposed by Viktor Shyklovsky throughout the study. The theory emphasises the use of poetic devices, which makes it an apt one as this study is on graphological deviation (which is used as a poetic device to achieve emphasis/foregrounding). The researcher used a textual analysis method and a descriptive research design in an attempt to explicate and make sense of the variable of graphological deviation. The results and findings from the data analysis prove that Wangusa uses graphological deviation to emphasise his message, shock or surprise readers (estrangement) and create mood in his poetry. This study recommends that studies be carried out on Timothy Wangusa’s use of deviation of register

An Ironic Abuse of the Oppressive Form: John Ashbery and the Sestina as an Occasion for Postmodern Ars Poetica

ABSTRACT This article attempts to illuminate a coherent aesthetic principle that informs Ashbery’s continued commitment to, if not respect for, the sestina form, among other traditional poetic forms. Examining two representative sestinas of John Ashbery through close reading that focuses on the inevitable interrelation between form and meaning, this article will discuss how Ashbery asserts poetry’s ways of existing in and out of itself and endows the sestina form with newfound relevance as a structural and rhetorical means to his meta-poetic ends. It will then demonstrate how Ashbery transforms the old-fashioned fixed form into a charming poetic device for the younger generation of poets who not only writes with playful and parodic rage but also experiments and engages with traditional forms in a more serious and ambitious fashion.

PARAPHRASES AND PARALLELS IN THE 1917–1918 FEUILLETONS BY A. V. AMFITEATROV

The article focuses on the poetic devices that are a part of the artistic system of A. V. Amfiteatrov, a well-known publicist and prose writer, a leading feuilletonist of the early 20th century. The subject of the study is his feuilletons of the post-Revolution period published in Russia until August 1918. The paper reveals the political stance of the publicist on the revolutionary events of 1917, his attitude to the February and October revolutions. The paper provides an overview of the themes and plots of Amfiteatrov’s printed speeches of this period — these are the responses to socio-political events and social issues. Further, the paper analyzes specific examples of rhetorical devices from his articles — direct parallels, paraphrases, deliberate citation of works of classical literature. The author’s artistic and ideological goal-setting paradigms are traced; the critical attitude of the author to the post-revolutionary reality that emerges through comic techniques is revealed. The main sources of paraphrases and parallels for Amphiteatrov are, first of all, satirical works from Russian classical literature — N. V. Gogol, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin; as well as G. I. Uspensky, A. P. Chekhov and L. N. Tolstoy, M. Gorky. He extrapolates the quotes and specific situations from these texts onto contemporary reality. The article also provides unknown biographical facts related to the life and work of the publicist in 1917–1918.

Проблематика и поэтика творчества А. Мариенгофа для детей («Такса-клякса», «Мяч-проказник», «Бобка-физкультурник»)

The aim of the study - to identify the contribution of A. Mariengof to children’s literature - is achieved in the article by analysing the specifics of titles, plot organization, characters, poetic devices in the poems “Dachshund-Blot”, “The Prankster Ball” and the cycle “Bobka-Athlete”. The correlation of A. Mariengof’s texts with the later works of S. Marshak is established. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that the analysed material for the first time becomes the subject of literary research, the texts of A. Mariengof and S. Marshak for children are compared, the connection between the works of A. Mariengof for children and the works of the poet of the Imagist period is revealed, the techniques used by the author to attract the attention of children’s readership are indicated. As a result, it is proved that A. Mariengof’s poems for children contributed to the formation of Soviet children’s literature, because in a number of cases, the author used or even foresaw techniques that were later fixed as indicative of such texts (veiled didacticism, humour, game motifs, plot entertainment, attention to the objective world, etc.).

Analysis of Metaphorical Representation in Wordsworth’s Major Poems

This study focuses on similes and metaphors that turn a simple language into a special one, known as a figurative language. This article deals with similes and metaphors executed in the major poems by William Wordsworth, one of the most influential English Romantic poets. This type of figurative language is often used in his poems with an aim to express meaning with an emphasis on the impression the poet wants to convey. The purpose of this study is to identify similes and metaphors used in his major poems. The research is based on the qualitative research to explore similes and metaphors employed in his poems and the meaning contained in each of his poems. The study mainly gets information by focusing on his four poems and pinpoints the certain words or phrases, which indicate the metaphors and similes in the poems. This research makes an effort to identify the similes and metaphors in the poems, interpret their different comparative and suggestive meanings as intended by the poet and finally turn out to be their implications. This study obviously eases the learners to gather the ideas of the figurative languages and provide them with the information to interpret the complex use of similes and metaphors. The learners will be able to define and identify metaphor and simile as the two prominent the poetic devices and write about their contribution to creating meanings in the poems.

Gone with the (West) Wind: Shelley, Apostrophe, and Inept Interpellation

ABSTRACT In this essay, I read Shelley’s ‘Ode to the West Wind’ as dramatizing the paradox of the apostrophe as a poetic device. Shelley presents a case where the speaker fails to understand the limitations of apostrophes before eventually realizing the revolutionary possibilities the serious (and embarrassing) employment of this device opens up. I read the poem alongside Althusser’s formulation of ‘interpellation’ and his ‘theatre’ of the encounter with the Police. Thus, reading Shelley’s ‘Oh hear!’ in the poem, alongside Althusser’s ‘Hey, you there!’, I argue, helps us better understand Shelley’s dramatization of the failure of the speaker’s attempts at interpellating the West Wind. This failure, however, quickly turns to admiration for the revolutionary non-subject that the Wind is in the poem. I show that Shelley’s desire to be the West Wind is not because it functions as a revolutionary subject but in fact because it doesn’t.

#Instapoetry in India: the aesthetic of the digital vernacular

ABSTRACT This article will study the evolution of Instapoetry within the Indian digital sphere and trace its trajectory of growth and development. It will take a close look at how local and historical issues find expression in a global, digital mediascape through this emerging body of writing. The article further argues that Indian Instapoetry is characterised by a peculiar aesthetic shaped by a combination of ancient traditions of oral poetry and digital affordances of a platform like Instagram. The merger of these influences results in the formation of a digital vernacular mode of expression constituted by a set of thematic and formal poetic devices. Owing to these features, Instapoetry comes into its own as the poetry of the people which echoes their concerns, anxieties and aspirations. At the same time, the digital vernacular facilitates the creation of radical spaces where novel forms of poetic expression and affective engagement are made possible.

Слово и музыка: жанр авторской песни (на примере творчества Владимира Илюшенко)

The article by E. Chigareva is devoted to the phenomenon of the author’s song on the example of the work of the poet Vladimir Ilyushenko. Poems-songs are considered in parallel from the point of view of poetic devices and their reflection in the melody of songs. Particular attention is paid to the syntactic and compositional levels of poetic and musical organization, on which this similarity is especially noticeable (syntactic parallelism, various kinds of repetitions, sometimes modified lines and stanzas). The article raises the problem of the creative process and the peculiarities of its manifestation in the genre of art song. For this, the poet’s comments are used (in particular, an interview with Vladimir Ilyushenko). Analytical observations are supported by concrete examples.

Milk and ashes poets Paul Celan and Nelly Sachs confront the trauma of the shoah

Both Paul Celan and Nelly Sachs were survivors of the Shoah who emerged deeply traumatized by the phenomenon. Both poets were thus displaced from their country of origin and linguistic environment. Their poetic strategies post-Holocaust were defined by the unspeakable enormity of the crime of genocide and the (contradictory) need to bear witness. In Celan’s famous poem “Todesfuge” (Death Fugue) the poet adopts the voice of a prisoner in a German death camp. Celan subsequently abandoned traditional formal poetic devices. His poetry became increasingly hermetic. The title of Celan’s poem contains the word “death,” as does that of Sachs’s first post-Shoah cycle “In den Wohnungen des Todes.” it is the unspoken thread in their work. Sachs turned to her Jewish background to construct a historical vision of the people of Israel and applied the notion of metamorphosis (Verwandlung) to articulate her status as a survivor. In his poem “Und mit dem Buch aus Tarussa” Celan links his fate to that of Marina Tsvetaeva, adumbrating his future suicide. Sachs survived the trauma, by embracing a solid set of religious values. Keywords: Celan; Sachs; Shoah; trauma; suicide

Bridging the hiatus: Dramatic and poetic elements in Malalo’s kirari

The theme of this paper is farautar jarumta ‘heroic hunting’ in the north-western part of Nigeria. The paper pays particular attention to the kirari ‘praise-epithets’, also called koɗa kai ‘adulation of the self’, of the mafarauta ‘hunters’ as one of the cardinal features of this kind of hunting. It traces certain dramatic elements, such as stage/space, costume and props, dramatis personae, plot, impersonation, and the spectacle as well as the singing and drumming that are an important part of performance of kirari. It further examines poetic elements in Ummaru Usman Malalo’s famous kirari Saka-cira; these elements are grouped into genealogy-based, action-based, and metaphorical yabo ‘praise’. The paper shows that, although the delivery of kirari has, in some studies, been analysed as a song text, it requires performance along with the dramatic elements which belong in a performance. The analysis of Saka-cira – which has never previously been studied – shows that in their kirari, mafarauta utilise poetic devices to portray, embellish, and exaggerate events, comparing themselves with, or even declaring themselves to be an animal or a natural phenomenon. The analysis in the paper relies on the Hausa version of the kirari. It utilises a transcribed version of Saka-cira, interviews, observations, and secondary literature.

Коров’ячі й божі: таємні імена в “Риґведі”

In the poems of the Rigveda (Ṛgveda) not only are the gods of the Vedic pantheon praised and in return asked for the fulfillment of various wishes, there are also numerous statements about the poetry by means of which these requests are brought forward. In many Rigvedic hymns reference is made to poetic language and its special character and already at this early stage a terminology is developed with which this language is analyzed. One of the key terms is nā́man, usually translated as the cognate “name”, but with a much larger scope of meaning, comprising “essence” as well as “form of appearance”. Furthermore, its use is not restricted to concrete beings, as it has also been applied to e. g. denote state of affairs. These features have already been extensively treated in the literature yet it might be worthwhile to take a closer look at a seemingly paradoxical circumstance: On the one hand, some of these names are said to be secret, and they are mentioned, but never quoted. On the other hand, Rigvedic poetry accompanies ongoing ritual activities and is recited in public. After a survey of the most important features of names it will be argued that these names are simultaneously secret and recited in public, and that the Rigvedic poets used the full range of poetic devices to achieve this.

The Unpleasant Taste of Death: The Challenge of Industrial Livestock to Literature

Industrial livestock production with its communication strategy aimed at concealing a filthy death and the bad taste of the meat produced has become an important motif in contemporary literature. How to create a narrative about the quiet life of animals that blend in a large herd? A life that is ruthlessly framed by a beginning (insemination) and an end (slaughter) lacks deviation and adventure—it lacks the possibility of becoming the material for a novel. The aim of this article is to examine the poetic devices and ethical aspirations of an emerging genre called the ‘agroalimentary novel,’ which depicts animals for profit and recreates their unique existence worthy of a story. Agroalimentary novels have become increasingly common in Europe and the Americas in the last decade. They raise the issue of taste very plainly: in Latin (gustus) and Old French (in the 12th c., gost and in the 13th c., goust), ‘taste’ is understood literally and figuratively, and is linked to the sense and appreciation of taste. The meaning of taste is associated with aesthetics, and not only with the senses, but also with art, not only with the body, but also with social issues; it refers to both practical activities and norms. How do the themes of livestock production and slaughterhouses relate to the issue of taste? Writers and readers find the aesthetics of the traditional novel problematic. When depicting it, some become inarticulate, while others are confronted with the inability to talk about it. In both cases, they confront the impossible symbolic act of appropriation. Loathing and disgust that is physically expressed and less humanly focused, even more distinctly than in the work of Jean Paul Sartre or in the various accounts of war, have entered literature.

Autobiographic Resonances in the Orks of Fadwa Tuqan

This study explores autobiographic resonances in the works of Palestinian writer and poet Fadwa Tuqan who wrote her biography in two parts: A Mountainous Journey, 1985, and the Most Difficult Journey 1993. Focusing on a range of devices that combine narrative, dialogue, and straightforward documentation, her autobiographic works merge the literary and the historic, the social and the political, with protest poetry featuring as a prominent form in her oeuvre. This study focuses on exploring the following themes: The Sisyphean aspect: Incorporating the semantics of futility of perseverance using the symbolism of the Greek myth Sisyphus entailed in her poetic works: A Mountainous Journey and the Most Difficult Journey. The Interior World: Focusing on familial oppression as well as colonialist practices and political oppression. Breaking Taboos: Subverting societal patriarchy and unleashing emotional expression are two prominent aspects of her poetry; representing her quest for liberation and ridding herself of the shackles of societal confinement in a male-chauvinistic society. By exploring these three components in Tuqan’s works, the study unveils the inner workings of the poet’s world as she quests to find intellectual enlightenment whilst confronting political and personal strife. The autobiography reflects not only her personal confinement as a female in a male-dominated society but also her confinement in an occupied nation. By combining a multitude of poetic devices, Fadwa Tuqan’s works evoke her deep and personal existential angst.

Namibian Poetry as an Expression of Agony: A Postcolonial Analysis of Thaniseb’s Searching for the Rain, Kahengua’s Dreams and Iizyenda and Kinahan’s (ed.) My Heart in your Hands

This paper analysed how different Namibian poets have utilised different poetic devices to depict the theme of agony in Namibian post-independence poetry. Guided by the postcolonial theory, the paper looked at the use of different poetic devices in selected poems from three Namibian anthologies, Dreams, My Heart in your Hands and Searching for the Rain. The study found that certain socio-political and socio-economic issues act as the main catalysts for the agony prevailing in post-independent Namibia. Such issues include poverty, unemployment, inequality and disillusionment. These issues are the most prevailing themes in the selected poems. In the same vein, the study found that these postcolonial issues play a significant role in the struggles of the masses in post-independence Namibia. Furthermore, the study established that most poets have employed similar poetic devices to portray different dimensions of suffering experienced in the postcolonial era. The commonly used devices are onomatopoeia, imagery, irony, repetition, simile as well as personification. Lastly, the study established that Namibian poets have successfully employed different poetic devices to highlight and emphasise the struggles faced by Namibians in the post-independence era.

Pustá země T. S. Eliota ve dvou českých překladech

The article analyses two Czech translations of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, both by members of the Group 42. Jiřina Hauková and Jindřich Chalupecký were the first to translate a complete text, including author’s notes. Jiří Kolář and Jiří Kotalík translated the fifth part of the poem. After a brief introduction describing the genesis of the original text and listing the existing Czech translations, the article analyses both translations separately, as well as in comparison, considering all the relevant criteria. Through a detailed analysis of the poetic devices used by Eliot and his translators, the article delivers a complex description of the methods used by respective translators showing that Hauková and Chalupecký emphasize meaning to the detriment of sound, the translation lacking rhythm and rhymes. The version by Kolář and Kotalík is much more condensed, rhythmical, and more accomplished.

From Adfectatio to “Affectation”: Affection as Catachresis in Shakespearean Texts

This article argues that the catachrestic usage of “affection” to mean “affectation” in Shakespearean drama may be best understood with reference to Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria, which employs catachresis in using the existing Latin word adfectatio to render the Greek word κακόζηλον [cacozēlon]. Quintilian’s influential picture of the all-encompassing rhetorical vice of adfectatio, his catachrestic practice, and his descriptions of catachresis as both a necessary extension of the meaning of an existing word and a poetic device, appear to have influenced Shakespeare’s portrayal of some of his most complex and articulate characters, among them Hamlet and Leontes (of The Winter’s Tale). Through these characters and their catachrestic speeches, we are forced to contend with the possibility that their “affections” may be nothing more (or less) than “affectations.”