Significance of Foregrounding in Stephen Gill's
Poetry
By Prof. NAR DEO SHARMA
Stephen Gill is a
renowned, qualitative poet and his English poems stand out from that of other
modern poets on account of foregrounding of intense sensibilities, precision of
expression, creative imagination, symbolic use of language and liltingly vivid
imagery. I have attempted to make an
assay of various linguistic deviations that have enhanced the quality of poems
compiled in his two poetry books : "Songs
Before Shrine (2007) and The Flame (2008)".
Known as the pioneer of New Criticism, John Crowe
Ransom has rightly stated: "Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation
is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry". To concur with
Ransom's sweeping statement, Stephen Gill's deviant style in poetry is
interpreted in this critique. Poet's remarkable linguistic inventiveness "involves
both extra freedom (including freedom to depart from the rules of grammar) and
extra discipline (the discipline which comes with the superimposition of
special structure on language)" - G.N. Leech et al, English Grammar
for Today.
It is the specific style that cultivates emotive
spell in poetry. Style is the totality
of exclusive linguistic choices systematized effectively in poetry. The systematization of linguistic choices
comprises of sentences, clauses, neologism, word music, creative imagery,
symbolic import. Stylistic analysis is description, explication and evaluation
of literary style. By way of stylistic
analysis, the significance of foregrounding or linguistic deviations is
justified which largely contributes to figurative and symbolic use of language
and adds to the novelty of expression in poetry.
In the 'Preface' of his collection Songs
before Shrine, the poet has not only deliberated upon his painful, bitter
experiences but also the vitals of texture in poetry. The poet maintains that "the language of
poetry is more compact, energetic, of greater intensity and emotional depth
than the language of prose is ....... poetry needs revisions for
perfection". Gill's poetry mirrors his poetic precepts. Peace, fraternity and love are the thematic
sinews of Gill's poetry.
The starting poem "To Mother"
carries the foregrounding of affectionate pathos apparent in these lines, "I
see your tearful eyes/and catch the chocking moans/coming from the crumbling
pyramid of pains/ shroud is spread/on my despair". In these lines, alliterative metaphorical
phrases - "crumbling pyramids of pains...... shroud spread on
despair" carry lexical or semantic deviation inasmuch as words of
incompatible features have been collocated against the selectional
restrictions rules of semantics. Every
word testifies distinctive linguistic features as contrasted and analysed as under :
Pyramid Pain
+ concrete + abstract, - concrete
+ countable - countable (suffering of mind or body)
- human + human
- animate + animate
- emotive + emotive
Shroud Despair
+ concrete - concrete, + abstract
+ countable - countable
- human + human
- animate + animate
- emotive + emotive
It is obvious that intangible feelings
are concretized by collocating the words of clashing
features sorted out above which accounts for semantic foregrounding but it
clarifies the intensity of meaning. Thus
linguistic deviations amounting to symbolic use of language cause brevity and
novelty of expression. The semantic
deviation caused by the association of words having opposite features suggests
that as the vast structure of pyramids is razed with harsh, grating noise, so
death wrings the soul out of body with ineffable pain. Shroud typifies the pall of death over
despair and it connotes that bereft of mother's affectionate prop the poet
presumes himself to be a breathing corpse.
There are 81 poems in Songs Before
Shrine and every poem is worthy of reading.
Here only those important poems are interpreted which outshine others in
connection with lexical deviations or foregrounding, intensity of feelings,
beautiful picturesque imagery and symbolic richness. Peace is the recurrent theme of poems. In the beautiful poem "The Dove of
Peace", the poet has systematized subtle lexical resources of refrain,
contrast, internal rhyme, irony of situation, sarcasm and symbolic
imagery. These lines recur three times
in the poem.
For a long time
I have been hearing
The dove of peace will be
freed
shortly
The recurrent refrain reminds how the politicians dangle the
cherished prospects of maintaining permanent peace, but the monsters of sham
politics dally with the sincere feelings of the public and replace the
inevitable peace by the frenzied dance of mass killings of innocent
people. The macabre spectacle of
political terrorism is juxtaposed in these lines to show how the motif of peace
is shrugged off :
Cannons have been
installed
over dead bodies
flesh famished weapons have
flown
dirge-chanting vultures set free
robots thirsty now for more
blood
and the Animal of Hostilities
is preparing the last dance
many more maimed
lofty dreams crushed.
Judicious animal imagery is exercised to expose the brutal behaviour of the terrorists. The alliterative metaphoric phrase "flesh-famished
weapons" connotes the disgusting vacuum of humane attributes and
vampire thirst in terrorists. The term 'robots'
tagged to terrorists implies their role as machines meant for the destruction
of humanity. Our homes now better adorned / with thorns of hatred carry
symbolic import, grammatical and semantic foregrounding and lexical polysemv or multiple meaning that are analysed
under:
homes (noun) (i) + concrete, - human, + countable
(ii) dwelling
places, nations
(iii) reserviors of humane feelings; (symbolic, thematic
meaning)
adorn (verb) (i) + concrete, - human, + countable
(ii) cultivate
(thematic meaning)
thorns (noun) (i) + concrete, - human, + countable
(ii) annoying
attitude
(symbolic,
thematic meaning)
hatred (noun) (i) - concrete, - countable, + human,
(ii) violent
dislike
According to semantic rules, the verb "adorn"
requires a noun having + concrete, +count, -human features like medals,
pictures, flowers, statues but not 'hatred'. These lines attract syntactic deviation and
connote that some nations propagate violence and abhorrence in people instead
of peace, love. Linguistic deviations or
foregrounding at various levels come to question when lexical items are placed
in abnormal combinations in violation of the conventions of language. Poet's objective of introducing linguistic
deviations in his poetry is to foreground his unique experience which cannot be
described in ordinary language. The following exemplary lines occurring in his
poem "Harmony" speak volumes for the effectiveness of
linguistic deviations, figurative use of language and foregrounding of
felicitous phrases :
For the culture of
dialogue
harmony weaves fabrics
to womb the fetus of wisdom.
Harmony
the Author of prosperities
compose a sonata
for the piano of delight.
As a commendable potpourri of the varieties of linguistic
deviations, the poem "The Meechlake
Fish" shines with wonderful foregrounding of disgusting violence.
Foregrounding lies in the deliberate deviation from the established conventions
of language usage. Foregrounding means
the use of any device of language in such a way that its deviant use itself
attracts attention and is perceived as uncommon. Pore over the following lines to examine and
enjoy the marvels of foregrounding.
With a tail for deliberate
ruin
a crocodile of racial
disharmony
enters the waters of my land...
It plays with the waves of
life
muddying the crystal flow of love.
........
Fear and ignorance carry
now
explosives of confused hatred.
One can see red drops
sailing with morning bubbles
shaped like graves.
Here the gleanings of vivid foregrounding are
elaborated. The abstract adjectival
phrase "racial disharmony" premodified
by the concrete noun "crocodile" brings about semantic deviation, but
such deviant collocation of lexical items has foregrounded
the ugliness and fierceness of racial disharmony causing a heavy toll of
innocent lives. The peculiar grammatical
device "enallage" is apparent
in the redesigned word "muddying" in that the root form of adjective
'muddy', which denotes stagnant dirtiness, is restructured into present
participle by affixing inflectional suffix-ing to
adjective 'muddy', and the deviant form of present participle 'muddying'
implies the terrible situation which reflects unremitting defilement of love by
hate.
Metonymy exercised in the coordinated phrase 'fear and
ignorance' suggests that timid and illiterate persons were forced to
truckle to the detonation of strong hate against mankind in the fiendish role
of terrorists.
Another metonymic phrase 'red drops' postmodified by the simile phrase 'shaped like graves'
demonstrates the traces of the trail of massive massacre that can be observed
in the horrible scene of blood-smeared dead bodies floating in the river. The significance of foregrounding originating
from various linguistic deviations is transparent in above lines
which contributes to economy of expression with remarkable novelty.
In the poem 'Man of Today', a rhetorical question is
framed and placed at the end of poem as a nuance to identify the mercurial
nature of modern man. Subtle stylistic devices, such as, parallelism,
foregrounding of hypocrisy, syntactic coherence and judicious contrast of
clashing situations have been exercised by the poet to judge the unpredictable,
volatile character of modern man. An
inventory of controversial and deceitful practices of modern man is presented
in series of equivalent contrasts of agonising
outcome.
Syntactic Foregrounding
Contrastive equivalence of
prepositional phrases
Constructive prospects Destructive
deeds
On the one hand On the other
songs for peace distribution
of weapons
On the one side On the other
refuge for sufferers death
from starvation
On the one hand On the other
slogans for freedom the
nights of cruelty
appeals for love the
fire of hatred
crises for unity thirst
for blood.
It is noteworthy that the convergence of prepositional
phrases at equivalent positions as pre-modifiers and postmodifiers
in addition to the ellipsis of subject and verb-phrases highlights effectively
the contemptible breach of promises by treating the extremities of double
dealings by modern man. Stephen Gill
deserves hearty praise since he has not given room to dictiondirt
like slang, jargon, archaism, cliches, vulgarism, but
he has threaded his poems with fresh, decent, emotive and symbolic imagery.
In his other commendable poetry book. The Flame, Stephen Gill has garnered
the rich harvest of the odyssey of his woes.
The Flame is an excessively long poem painting the massive human
destruction wrought by terrorists-- the maniac messiahs. It contains eight parts branched out into 62
cantos. Peace, the keynote of the poem,
is disrupted by the mercenary demons of death.
Flame flashes multiple shades of meanings. Flame typifies the surge of exuberant energy
of life. Flame connotes the warmth of
affections, patriotism, fraternity, knowledge, divine faith. On the contrary,
flame reflects murderous perversity in context of terrorists. With vile metaphors, the poet has slashed
terrorists. Review the array of derogatory metaphors capping their barbarity : "monster
of perversities, avatars of savagery, locusts of threats, fanatic howls,
vultures of blood-shed, snakes of personal migraines, sullen zealots, artisans
of insidious shocks, trotting arm savages, inglorious advocates of wicked
designs, poisonous belligerents."
The Flame is a mosaic of simile, metaphor, metonymy, personification,
antithesis, oxymoron, hyperbole, allusions, symbols, sarcasm, picturesque
imagery, linguistic deviations and foregrounding .
In the first part, the poet has eulogised
the graces of God that have animated every element of nature. Figurative
diction, word music and picturesque imagery and personified nature add beauty
to these lines :
You flower a fragrant
feast
caress
the flushed cheeks of the
horizon
the keenness of insight
beats within the hyacinths
of your smile.
A few lines clustered with linguistic
deviations effectively reveal how the beauty of nature and innocent people are
destroyed by the brutal terrorists :
the avatars of savagery
mow down defenceless
innocents
spiders of sinister news
crawl in and out of the creeks
of the tranquil trust.
From the bushes of
disharmony
leaves fly around
and fill in the pond of
mistrust
Wounded kids were crying on
the grass
and broken bodies
discarded like hot dog wrappers.
Symbols are employed in great
abundance. A symbol is defined in the
Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, 1986 in these words
: "A literary symbol unites an image (the analogy) and an idea
or conception (the subject) which that image suggests or evokes". Most important significance of symbols is
interpreted in these words : "An idea which would be difficult,
flat, lengthy, or unmoving when expressed prosaically and big itself, may be
made intelligible, vivid, economical and emotionally effective by the a use of
symbols." A symbol is a "pseudo-subject". Metonymy plays very significant and
pronounced role in the figurative and symbolic use of language in poetry. According to G.N. Leech.
"Metonymy, on the semantic level, is transference of meaning." Metonymic word is an abstract noun but it is
made tangible by associating it with a concrete noun clause. According to Kenneth Burke, abstract and
spiritual words are metonymic in origin. Mostly metonymic phrases or words are skipped
from interpretation because of their covert meanings. Metonymic phrase "the cracks" signifies
the persons who fall away from loyalty, and "leaves" also
typifies traitors. Figurative uses of
language contribute to various linguistic deviations. According to Leech, "Linguistic
deviation is the waiving of rules or conventions of language". In fact, a poet perceives certain similarity
in dissimilarity and he combines words of dissimilar features. In metaphoric phrases, "sinister
news, tranquil trust, bushes of disharmony, pond of mistrust" words of
concrete and abstract features are combined in order to create novelty of
thought, economy of expression and emotive punch.
Other remarkable feature of Gill's deviant style lies in the
use of grammatical innovation "enallage"
(Scott : 1971) that is, the interchange of one
part of speech for another, as noun for verb, verb for noun etc., and
functional conversion. Leech maintains that functional conversion consists in
adapting an item to a new grammatical function without changing its form. Alliterative remarkable sentence "You
flower a fragrant feast" carries functional conversion or enallage .
Basically the grammatical category of the word "flower" is
noun, but its syntatic function is of a verb in this
sentence. It can be discerned that
functional conversion causes economy of expression inasmuch as verbal function
is implied also in a noun. The word "flower"
effecting two fold functions of a subject and a predicate interprets the
message of object as follows :
You flower a fragrant feast (enallage)
subject verb object
Flowers flower
a fragrant feast
subject verb
object
It is suggested through enallage
or functional conversion that God serves a feast of fragrance
culled from fine flowers. Symbolic language knits fresh and novel imagery and
Gill is pastmaster in dressing his intense feelings
with symbolic imagery which underscores these lines :
The smooth surroundings
of the temple of my flame
have grown treacherous
in a thickening fog.
These lines comprise of the convergence of metonymy and
metaphor. The metonymic phrases "the temple" symbolizes piety or
devotion to God and good works.
Metaphoric phrase "a thickening fog "
connotes the overwhelming milieu of fanatic storm that precipitates a person to
revel in an absolute frenzy of human destruction. Poems contained in part six-cantos 26-31 have
outweighed others an account of intensity of foregrounded
sensibilities, symbolic language, sensuous imagery, felicity of inventive
phrases.
With novelty of symbolic diction, the poet has juxtaposed
the heavenly atmosphere in canto 28 where innocent people dwell silently and
peacefully, and the satanic attributes of terrorists indulged in massive
massacre.
Here stood
the sanctuary of the lofty
art
of tender awareness
where life veiled in the
ineffable sanctity
flourished.
The adherents of a wicked
belief
left a dent with the claws
textured in the laboratory of
their conceit.
The ashes ask
Why the blind brutes
draw no boundary for their
hailstorms.
The streets wandered
forlorn for days.
On account of semantic deviation, the poet has foregrounded the vile role of terrorists in these sentences
and phrases :
"Wicked belief" connotes frenzied
fanaticism. Scientific metaphor 'laboratory'
with -human, -animate, +concrete features is collocated with +human, +animate,
-concrete featured word 'conceit'. Semantically
deviant sentence suggests that obsessed with the extremity of vain pride of
fanaticism, the terrorists have ruined the peaceful, loving life of common
people by means of their blasting rage.
Metonymic phrase "the ashes" associated with human,
animate feature verb "ask" suggests the petrified conscience
of the terrorists who do not hesitate in dibbling their bayonets in the
delicate bodies of innocent children.
Again the metonymic phrase as subject - "the streets"
presupposes the horrible situation that people did not walk in streets for many
days as curfew confined them in their houses to adhere to precautionary safety
measures against bomb blast carnage by terrorists.
In canto 43, the poet details the allegory of the birth of a
terrorist. Innocent, poor youths are terrorised first then traded into the crime of human
destruction as these symbolic lines reflect the reality :
I see a deer chased
by a tiger who is fed
on the flaunting fruits of
terror
in the bushes of
unparalleled ignorance
where he cannot hear
the birds of freedom.
Animal and botanical images are exercised to define the
shameful breeding of terrorism. Deer
typifies an innocent, simple youth, while tiger signifies a savage supreme
leader of terrorism. The metonymic
phrases "the bushes of unparalleled ignorance" suggests that
the illiteracy, poverty, shocking miseries of a great number of youths are
merchandised and channelised into terrorism.
Cantos 10 to 31 display catalogue poems that lay bare
exhaustive inventories of the massive destruction of human beings and
invaluable properties:
Many lost their eyes
ears and fingers
bones broken and twisted
rambled in shock
among the debris and dead
bodies
broken bodies
discarded like hot dog wrappers
to set up
a makeshift morgue
where a truck
refrigerated the slaughtered.
they removed the nursery
buried under a pile of rubble
a pyramid of ashes
over the cradles
Days were filled with
funerals
Rhetorical question as a refrain "Who can tell"
is repeated thirteen times in order to pry into the terribly offensive
attitude of fanatic desperadoes and a few lines are very conspicuous because of
symbolic import and innovative imagery :
Who can tell
how they felt
tormenting the bird of peace
with the cigarette lighter of
their lust
or the butt of the rifle of
their bigotry.
Metaphoric innovative phrases. "Cigarette
lighter of their lust" defines terrorists as cruel and depraved
rape-addicts. The last stanza of canto 34 bespeaks the poignant wailing for the
bereaved. kith and kin :
Who shall water
the dreary fields of freedoms
turn pages of hope
for battered handicaps
and prepare something daily
for them
on the fire glowing in the
hearths
of emptiness.
Last four lines recall the most memorable lines of Gray's
ever fresh poem "Elegy written in a Country Churchyard".
For them no more the
blazing hearth shall burn.
Or busy house wife ply her
evening care.
Apart from describing the loathsome panorama of massive
destruction wrought by insane terrorists, Stephen Gill paints the exquisite
beauty of his beloved (probably) with picturesque imagery in canto 42.
I feel the feathers of a
rose
your presence I find inside
softly wrapped.
On the whole, the long beautiful poem The Flame serves
the harmonious blend of realism, idealism and humanism in innovatively
inimitable style.
Poetry Reference
1. Gill, Stephen, Songs Before Shrine,
15..sharma
2. Gill, Stephen, The Flame.
Montreal: Vesta Publications, 2008.
Linguistics References
1. Burke, Kenneth. A
Grammar of Motives: quoted in Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry
and Poetics.
2. Chomsky, Noam. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax,
3. Guerin, Wilfred et al. A Handbook of
Critical Approaches to Literature.
5th Ed. Oxford : OUP 2005.
4. Leech, Geoffrey N. Semantics. rpt.
Harmondsworth : Penguin, 1978.
5. Leech, Geoffrey N. A Linguistic Guide to
English Poetry. Twelfth. imp.
6. Leech, Geoffrey et.al. English Grammar for Today. rpt.
7. Preminger, Alex et.
al. (Editors),
8. Scott, A.F. Poetry and Appreciation rpt.
9. Sharma, Nar Deo. Style in the Manneristic
Poetry : Flickers. (Monograph).