文体学作业

Title: The Stylistic Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe‟s The RavenAbstract: The Raven written by Edgar Allan Poe is a famous romantic poem in American history, which has remained one of Poe‟s most enduring works and it is a good illustration of Poe‟s rhythmica l creation of beauty. The poem weaves its structure, rhythm, refined words, sentence structure and rhetorical devices into a brilliant tapestry that confers on Poe‟s everlasting fame. This paper tends to explore The Raven from a stylistic point of view and the stylistic features on phonological level, lexical level, syntactic level and rhetorical features would be studied respectively. Through the analysis of these aspects, the greatness of the beauty and the sense of melancholy pervaded between the lines in the poem can be all well appreciated.Key words: stylistic analysis; phonological level; lexical level; syntactic level; rhetorical features1. IntroductionThe Raven, is a romantic poem written by Edgar Allan Poe, the topic of the poem is about the death of a beautiful woman and the sense of melancholy pervades the whole poem. It consists of 108 lines and briefly depicts that a young man is grieving for his lost Lenore, his grief being turned to madness under the steady one-word repetition of the taking bird introduced right at the beginning of the poem. After he sees the bird, whose response “nevermore” keeps breaking the psychic wound ruthlessly and ceaselessly as do the waves on the seashore until his depression reaches its breaking point. This thesis will mainly explore the stylistic features of the poem, such as stylistic features on phonological level, lexical level, syntactic level and the rhetorical features.2. Stylistic Features on Phonological LevelThe artistic beauty of the poem not only lies in the language the poem adopted, the beautiful images described, emotion revealed, but also lies in the sound patterns that weave the poem. Researches on the figure of sound about certain poem are usually based on such aspects: alliteration, consonance, onomatopoeia, euphony, rhyme, meter and others. “Music is the perfection of the soul, or idea, of poetry” (常耀信,107). The Raven can be the best poem to embody the musical beauty. Furthermore, the sense of melancholy can also find its good representation through the defined phonological arrangement in the poem. Therefore, the sound and meter as the most important technique succeeds in shaping the poem‟s rhythmical creation and the atmosphere of melancholy. They are like the clothes and buildings to conform to the conventional poetic form.2.1 Alliteration“Alliteration is the repetition of similar sounds, usually consonants or consonants clusters, in a group of words. Sometimes the term is limited to the repetition of initial consonant sounds. When alliteration occurs at the beginning of words, it is called initial alliteration; when it occurs within words, it is called internal or hidden alliteration. It usually occurs on stressed syllables.” (李正栓, 383).This poem‟s applications of alliteration are al so the significant part in constructing the beauty of the poem and give the poem perfect cadence. “As a figure, alliteration is good for sound rhyme, musical effect and significant emphasis, even for twisted expression.” (时贵仁, 89). In addition, the basic tone can also be embodied through the use of alliteration. For instance, “while, weak, weary” in the first line of the first stanza at the beginning of the poem, “w” is the rhyme consonant and it just reflects the man‟s physically and psychologically depres sed mood. In the third line of the same stanza, there is “nodded, nearly napping” describing the young man‟s semi-sleep condition. Thus the use of the alliteration in the first stanza determines the basic tone of the poem, which involves the obscure and magic color. In the tenth line, there is “surcease, sorrow”. In the seventh stanza, such as “flirt” and “flutter” is initiated with the consonant “f”. In the eighth stanza, there are a lot of these kinds of words appearing in the lines like “what this grim, ungainly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore,” in this line, alliteration is used again to indicate that the man‟s mood of the dislike to the black bird after its steady one-word repetition. These alliterations not only make the poem smoothly and fluently, but also readable and the meaning of these alliteration can set a foreground and be strengthened.2.2 Assonance“Assonance describes syllables with a common vowel.” (董莉, 134). As for the assonance, it attaches a great importance in enhancing the internal relationship between the lines of the poem. A large number of the applications of assonances are applied, such as: In the first line, “eary” is appearing in “dreary” and “weary”. In the third line, there is “napping, tapping”; in the seventh line, there is r emember and December; in ninth line, “morrow”, “borrow” and “sorrow” the assonance is the “orrow”. Before the appearance of Lenore, this second stanza uses a great many assonances “o”, like “floor”, “morrow” “borrow”, “sorrow”, “lost” and then Lenore. Thus the appearance of Lenore is very natural, not having the effect of the sense of towering. In the third stanza, there are the words “uncertain” “purple” and “curtain”. In the fourth stanza, “napping” and “rapping” and the repetition of the same words also are included. Therefore, the rhythmical sense between the lines can be feltthrough the use of assonance and also testify Poe‟s poetic principle of readable at one setting and the musical beauty.2.3 RhymeThe poem consists of 108 lines and totally 18 stanzas. Every stanza is composed by six lines. The most distinctive feature about the rhyme in the poem lies in its end rhyme, which is the rhyme of the whole poem and the most important musical device in creating the melancholy tone. Here, Poe deliberately uses the long vowel /ɔ: / as the end rhyme and the basic tone of the poem. In every stanza, there is four lines‟ end rhymes ended with the vowel /ɔ: /, namely the second, fourth, fifth and sixth line and all about are 72 lines. These lines‟ end rhyme always ends with “nothing more”, or “nevermore”. The repetition of the end rhyme also makes the internal relationship of the poem closer like a circle. Furthermore, the sound is like the inexpressible mood due to deeply grief for the lost Lenore. The rhyme scheme of the each stanza is ABCBBB, which is another kind of musical effect.2.4 RhythmAs for the rhythm, there are mainly four kinds of rhythm: dactyls, iambic, trochee, and anapest. This poem‟s main rhythm is trochee, which is to say one foot consisting two syllables, the former is stressed and the latter is unstressed. It is like people‟s breath just fit the man‟s gradually changing mental state.This poem‟s foot is special: the first and the third line consist of eight metrical feet, the second and the fourth line consists of 7½ feet alternatively appearing. The fifth line is the same with the fourth line‟s rhyme. The sixth line is 3½ feet and end with the refrain of triple rime. This is the typical poem which strictly obeys the conventional rule established by Poe himself. The following part will be a good demonstration of the poem‟s rhythm.∕∨∕∨∕∨∕∨∕∨∕∨∕∨∕∨Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,∕∨∕∨∕∨∕∨∕∨∕∨∕∨∕Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, (1-2)These two lines are just a small part of the whole poem, but the fundamentalcadence is clearly revealed. The trochee makes the poem rise and fall having an unavoidable aesthetic effect both on the poem itself and on the reader.3. Stylistic Features on Lexical LevelAs for the lexical level, it is found that the skillfully employment of the expressive words and archaic words are the most distinctive features to accurately express the melancholy sense of the poem. To some degree, in order to reach the sound effect of the musical rhythm, the words presented between the lines are all carefully crafted. Poe‟s profound attainment is also reflected through the elaborately selecting the words.3.1 The Expressive WordsThe application of the expressive words in the poem like adjectives and large number of the words ended with -ing form words are especially salient in the poem in regard to vividness and meaningfulness.“Once upon a midnight dreary” in the first stanza, “dreary” is used to color the midnight at the beginning of the poem, which is rendering the depressed atmosphere of the whole poem. In the “while I pondered, weak and weary”, firstly, the musical rhythm can be embodied through the use of “weary and weary”, secondly, it also can reflect that the young seems having no strength to walk on. Something can be inferred that there may be some unfortunate things happened on this poor young man and this poem just reflect Poe‟s internal theme, namely, “the death of a beautiful woman is, questionab ly, the most poetic topic in the world.”（常耀信，106）. In the second stanza, there is a sentence like “the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain”, the “curtain” here is modified by “silken”, “sad”, “uncertain rustling” respectively. From the “silken”, the lightweight material of the curtain can be known. The word “sad” used here to modify the curtain may sound odd, because this kind of mood cannot be possessed by an unanimated curtain, so the curtain is endowed with the human being‟s sentiment.The words ended with -ing form words are widely employed in the poem, which is the most salient usage when we firstly cast our sight on. For instance: napping, rapping, tapping, repeating, entreating, hesitating, wondering, fearing, peering,dreaming, burning, beguiling, smiling, agreeing, sitting, sinking, guessing, expressing, reclining, gloating, flitting, seeming, floating, rustling and etc. As the important method frequently applied presented, the poem immediately is pervaded the illusory and charming atmosphere, at the same time, echoic effect can also achieved as if the night, the raven, the knock and the rustling sound all have a resonance on the broken heart of the young man, who is grieving for the death of Lenore at this depressed midnight. Therefo re, the musical beauty and the melancholy sense‟s constructing can find a good representation here.3.2 Archaic wordsIt can be easily found that some archaic words are adopted in the poem. For example, there is the sentence fragment like “‟Tis some visitor” in the fifth line, “Tis” is archaic for “it is”, which means that there must be some visitor outside. “From my books surcease of sorrow” in the tenth line, here “surcease” is archaic for “stop”, from which we can see that the young man tends to use the book to relieve his sorrow for the death of his love, Lenore. In the third line of twelfth stanza “I betook myself to thinking”, “betook” here is archaic for “commit” or “apply”. Last but not least, the commonly used “thy”, which means “you” can be easily seen between the lines of the poem. Furthermore, the application of all of these words which are used in ancient times makes the style of the poem present more solemn and elegant.4. Stylistic Features on Syntactic LevelAs for the syntactic level, the most distinct feature adopted in the poem is the employment of the deviation, such as the deviation of word order and the widely used parallelism. Thus not only the musical rhythm can be achieved, but also the melancholy beauty can be emphasized.4.1 Deviation of word orderIn this poem, changing the original order is used to achieve not only the salient effect of the sentence, but also to achieve the musical beauty. In the first line of the poem, “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary” should be “a dreary midnight” to meet the need of the effect of the internal rhyme of the poem. While in the first line of the second stanza, “distinctively I remember it was in thebleak December” should be in the ordinary order like “I distinctively remember”, here Poe strengths the word “distinctively” to indicate that the young man remembered the day very clearly when the raven arrived at his door. If the ordinary order is used here, the emphasis will be lost. The same also can be seen in this sent ence like “Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow” in the second stanza. From this sentence we can see that how eagerly the young man want to escape that day and to be in the next day, but no matter how he wished, it is in vain, which apparently reflects the depressed mood of the young man. “so gently you came rapping” in the third line of the fourth stanza, the sound of knock is highlighted by putting the word “gently” in the front, which means that the sound is so weak that the young m an can hardly hear and it lays a great foundation for the raven‟s mysterious visit. The word “rapping” can also have a function as an indispensable part in forming the end rhyme.4.2 Large-scale parallelismParallelism means exact repetition in equivalent positions. It differs from simple repetition in that the identity does not extend to absolute duplication. It “requires some variable features of the pattern—some contrasting elements which are …parallel‟ with respect to their position in the pattern”(Leech,1969:66). By large-scale parallelism we mean the kind which consists of more than two juxtaposed units.Parallelism is a kind of means to arrange the sentence sequence in the poem to reach the consistency of the whole poem and strengthen the overwhelming force of the content. In the poem, the most distinctive parallelism is the last line of every stanza; all of them contain “nothing more” or “nevermore” frequently quoted by the raven. The recurring patterns of these sentence fragments strengthen the poe m‟s internal relationship.Furthermore, there also exists the parallel structure between the lines, especially the repetition of some phrases, which makes the poem more rhythmical at once. For instance, “‟Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door” and the next line “Some late visitor entreating entrance my chamber door” form a partial complete parallel structure. It can also reflect the mental state of the young man‟s doubt and somewhat fear that who visited him so late. “Even yet was blessed with seeing birdabove his chamber door” and “Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door” in the ninth stanza, so the rhythmical effect can be clearly seen.5. Rhetorical FeaturesAs for the rhetorical features, the poem will be mainly dealt with from the perspective of figure of speech, namely rhetorical devices. That is “A word or an expression that is not meant to be interpreted in a literal sense. The most common kinds of figures of speech—simile, metaphor, personification and metonymy—involve a comparison between unlike things” (李正栓, 391). In order to convey meaning, figurative language is often employed. The most distinctive figure of speech applied in the poem is personification, symbolism, repetition and allusion.5.1 Personification“Personification is a figure of speech in which a thing, quality, or idea is represented as a person or to attribute human qualities and abilities to inanimate objects, animals, abstractions and events.” (时贵仁，177).The application of personification has excellent characteristics of making the things described more vivid and the feature of the thing more striking. In the poem, the raven must be the first image come to our mind using the way of personification. The poet endows the human being‟s character to the raven. Firstly the sound of tapping the door at midnight is a good instance. Generally speaking, this behavior is commonly belongs to human beings. It makes the raven, which represents the ominous omen and the sign of death, more mysterious. Secondly, the only answer “nothing more” or “nevermore” of the raven are dealt as the human being‟s ordinary response; however, the raven cannot speak but crow. Thus the raven is personified being taken regarded as a human being with the feeling of mystery.The next image that is personalized is ember. The ember is in fact lifeless, but here the poet describes the ember with “dying” that is always to modify the man who will die. Thus the function of the “dying ember” not only makes the image of ember more vivid, but also implied the male character of the poem is extremely depressed because of the death of Lenore.5.2 SymbolismSymbol is an image transferred by something that stands for or represents something else, Symbols can transfer the ideas embodied in the image without stating them. Poe uses the symbols, this kind of artistic way a lot in order to create the mysterious and gothic atmosphere. Firstly the sound of tapping the door at midnight symbolizes the ghost or the supernatural ability. According to the old legend, only the ghost or the mysterious thing will knock the door at night. Secondly the night symbolizes the terror of the man character and his despair mood. Thirdly the door is the boundary between wildness and the indoor civilization as well as the separation between reason and non-reason world. Take the “raven” for example, as the overwhelming force appearing in the young man‟s room, it represents the mysterious power, namely it belongs to the irrational world. This is the distinction between the civilized society and the inherent superstition taking the raven as an ominous token. Furthermore “the bust of Pallas” is the embodiment of wisdom. However, the ominous raven perches on it from the beginning to the end. It forms a very distinctive contrast between these two images as we just have talked about the rational and irrational. Finally, with the increasing frequency answer to the man‟s question, the dark power of the raven gradually expands even shadows all the other symbols.5.3 Repetition““ALL the overregular features in literature are, in some sense, repetitious. The term repetition, therefore, is restricted to mean the case of exact copying of a certain previous unit in a text, such as a word, phrase, or even a sentence”(Leech,1969). Through the repetition of the words or sentence fragment in the sentence, the due meaning poet want to express can be reinforced and some certain strong sentiment can be revealed explicitly. The application of repetition can be seen everywhere in the poem. Fr om the first stanza to the seventh stanza the “nothing more” is frequently used repeatedly expressing the desperate mood. Furthermore, in the second and fifth stanza the young man cries out the “Lenore” many times hoping that his love can be back again. What can make the readers more sorrowful is that the repetition of “nevermore”, which represents the grief of the young man. This kind of mood is sounprecedented that breaks the young man‟s heart deeply. Not only the apparent phrase or sentence fragments adopted this rule, but also the words between the lines constructing the poem as a small component such as “rapping, rapping at my chamber door” in the fourth line of the first stanza, “surcease of sorrow-sorrow for the lost Lenore” in the tenth line of the same stanza and etc. Due to overall application of the whole poem that constructs the repetition from the beginning to the end. The repetition continuously puts climax in the poem concerning content, atmosphere and poet‟s state of mood.5.4 Allusion“Allusion is usually an implicit reference, perhaps to another work of literature or art, to a person or an event. It is often a kind of appeal to readers sharing some experience with the writer.” (时贵仁，129).The allusion is also an indispensable tool in adding the mysterious atmosphere to the poem and deserves our attention. It refers to the indirect reference or casual mention. In the seventh stanza, “a bust of Pallas” originates from the Greek mythology‟s Athena, who represents the symbol of the goodne ss of wisdom. Eventually, in the eighth stanza he asks the bird if he'll ever be reunited with his lover. When it echoes the same reply, he condemns it to ''Night's Plutonian Shore'', a reference to Pluto, the Roman god of the underworld. The raven, he surmises, is a messenger from the afterlife. Therefore “the Night's Plutonian shore” indicates the opposite bank of the underground world. In the fourteenth stanza, “Nepenthe” means the nepenthe originating from the Greek mythology, which can help people forget the distressed things. In the fifteenth stanza, “Is there balm in Gilead?” is from the Chapter 8 of Jeremiah of the Old Testament, the original sentence is “Is there no balm in Gilead; is therd no physician there?”. In the sixteenth stanza, Poe invented the word “Aidenn” to hint the Eden. Through the use of allusion, the poem is covered by the mysterious atmosphere, thus the artistic beauty can be well appreciated.6. ConclusionThe poem raven now has been regarded as a classic and also it has established the poet‟s immortal status in the history of literature and it becomes a house-hold known poem in accord with all the romantic features. Through the stylistic analysis of the poem from the phonological, lexical, syntactic, and semantic level respectively, the beauty of the poem and the skillfulness of the poet have been dig out and readers can feel the melancholy sense and how the poet achieve such prominent effects.From the phonological point, it throws light on how musical effects achieved through arranging syllables and using rhyme scheme. Furthermore, the application of alliteration and assonance‟s role can also not be neglected. From the lexical point, the expressive words‟ function is very significant to make the description more vivid. At the same time it constructs the gothic and melancholy atmosphere of the poem. Besides, the archaic words also add the mystery to the poem. From the syntactic point, the change of order endows the poem the sense of rhythmical beauty and makes some depressed words more prominent, thus the melancholy sense can be felt. From the rhetorical point, the figures of speeches are the indispensable force in molding the sense of mystery, which concentrates on the overall connotation of some images in the poem. The personification and symbolism are mainly the rhetorical ways used in the poem. The lifeless things all of a sudden become the life things under the description of the poet. All in all, through the detail stylistic analysis of the poem, the charming of the sounds, rhyme, vocabulary, the syntactic patterns and rhetorical devices has been interpreted well.The stylistic analysis is no doubt a best way to understand the poem‟s aesthetic value and the state of mood of the character, even the poet. In addition, by reading and analyzing the poem, the poet‟s poetical principle of creation can successfully enjoyed between the lines. The structure arrangement, poet‟s emotion and even subtle feelings can be delivered to the readers.Works CitedEdgar. 2002. The Raven: Selected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe. New York: W.W.Norton Company.Leech, G. N. 1969. A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry. London: Longman.董莉, 2005. Theories and Practices of English Stylistics. Beijing: Publishing Houses of Electronics Industry, (134)常耀信，2008. 美国文学简史（第三版）天津：南开大学出版社, (106-107).李正栓, 2006. 《英国文学学习指南》,北京：清华大学出版社, (383)时贵仁，2007. College English Rhetoric. Liaoning: Liaoning University Press, （89，122，129，177）。