Introduction.

One of the most fundamental concepts in stylistic analysis is deviation.

Though deviation can be found in all kinds of speaking and writing, literary texts
in particular use much deviation and the ability to identify and interpret them is
seen in stylistics as a key to our understanding of the content, topic and theme of
the text.
Deviation, which is a linguistic phenomenon, has an important
psychological effect on readers. This psychological phenomenon is called
foregrounding because if a part of a text is deviant, it becomes especially
noticeable or perceptually prominent. There are many ways in which authors can
produce deviation and hence foregrounding, some of which have also been already
discussed.
The term “foregrounding” itself is borrowed from art criticism. Art critics
usually distinguish the foreground of a painting from its background. The
foreground is the part of a painting which is in the centre and towards the bottom
of the canvas. The items which occur in the foreground will usually appear large in
relation to the rest of the objects in the picture because of conventional perceptual
‘rules’ of perspective, and will normally be thought of as constituting the subject
matter of the painting. Of course, the background of the picture also contributes to
the whole. Nothing in a work of art is insignificant. But the matter of foreground is
more important than the rest: some elements remain more important than others,
and the foregrounded parts can be regarded as the most important of all. Indeed, if
we produce an interpretation of a text which ignored or did not explain properly its
most foregrounded parts, others would be bound to criticize us for not giving a
reasonable or adequate analysis of the text. In language, the background is what is
linguistically normal; the foreground is, in large part, the portions of the text which
do not conform to these expectations of the norm. Foregrounding is thus produced
as a result of deviation from linguistic and non-linguistic norms of various kinds.
Foregrounded features are the parts of the text which the author, consciously
or unconsciously, is signalling as crucial to our understanding of what he has
written. In recent years, the system of such features in a text has become known as
cohesion of foregrounding (Short 2002). In this lecture, which is based on the
lecture by I.V.Arnold and summarises her contribution to the theory of
foregrounding, such mechanisms as defeated expectancy, convergence, coupling
and salience are described.

I. Defeated expectancy as one of the types of foregrounding.

Foregrounding gives prominence to some elements of the text by interrupting

the pattern of predictability and introducing some unexpected changes. This
unexpected change may be created either by extra-regularities or by extra-
irregularities or by a combination of both. M.A.K. Halliday describes
foregrounding as "prominence that is motivated" (Halliday, 1971).

The type of foregrounding combining extra-regularity with extra-irregularity is

the so-called defeated expectancy. As formulated by M. Riffaterre, and many
others the defeated expectancy has the following model: in a verbal chain the
stimulus of the style effect is created by low-predictability elements disturbing a
pattern which the reader has been conditioned to expect. This causes a temporary
sense of disorientation compelling the reader's attention. The more clearly
delineated the pattern is, the more effective the contrast will be.

M. Riffaterre is quite right when he stresses the importance of low previsability

by which the decoding is slowed down compelling the reader's attention. We
cannot, however, agree with him when he says that attention is focussed on form.
Form constitutes a unity with meaning, therefore ultimately it is something in
meaning that attention is attracted to. Some examples will make this point clear:

A drunken soldier shouts to his companions:

"I cannot take another minute of it. The Army is brutal, dehumanized and filled
with morons. It's time something was done. When I get back to the barracks, I'll
write my mother about it".

Defeated expectancy is created by a glaring discrepancy of the decision taken

and the scale of denunciation of the situation in the Army. The first three sentences
make the reader expect that the soldier is ready for some action of revolt, and when
we learn that all he is prepared to do is to complain to his mother, it is quite
unexpected and amusing.

The defeated expectancy type of foregrounding is mostly characteristic of

humour and satire. Here is how Mark Twain describes a certain character. He says
that "the man is an experienced, industrious, ambitious and often quite picturesque
liar".

Several epithets with marked positive evaluatory connotations make the reader
almost certain that the person referred to is devoted to some art or some kind of
important creative work. The word “liar” is quite unexpected, it is even more or
less the reverse of what the reader expected, and this produces a comical effect.

Some modern scholars do not see much difference between foregrounding on

the whole and defeated expectancy in particular. Thus, R. Fowler, a representative
of the English linguistic school, defines foregrounding as a process of suddenly
giving prominence to a stylistic device by abruptly detaching it from the context.
According to him, foregrounding depends for its effect on the high predictability
(redundancy) of a uniform context creating a background of contrast. Important as
this is, it is only part of the story, it does not exhaust the definition (Fowler, 1971).

The accumulation of linguistic elements of any type surpassing their average

statistical distribution is always meaningful, and, if missed by the reader, results in
incomplete understanding. Yet, foregrounding is based not only
on probability and improbability; there are several other recognized principles of
artistic expression, such as equivalence, repetition, analogy, contrast and
incomplete presentation, otherwise termed quantification. All these principles,
esp. probability (closely connected with repetition, analogy and contrast),
involving the juxtaposition of different and similar things are basical not only for
cognition in art and through art, but for any type of human cognition in reflecting
objective reality in the human mind. This one must not forget, as here we see the
connection between stylistics, aesthetics and philosophy.

II. Foregrounding. The main functions of foregrounding in a poetic text.

The main functions of foregrounding in a poetic text are as follows:

1. It establishes the hierarchy of meanings and themes, bringing some to the fore
and shifting others to the background. In this way it helps the reader to steer
"between the twin rocks of intuition and objectivity".

2. Foregrounding provides structural cohesion between the whole text and its
elements of various levels, beginning with the lowest and ending with the highest
(i.e. including the phonetical level and that of composition), and also within parts
of the text.
3. It enhances the aesthetic response and emotional involvement of the reader and
provides memorability, i.e. helps the reader to remember what he has read. 2

4. It protects the message from noise (interference) by helping the reader to guess
the meaning and function of elements hitherto unknown to him.

In this connection it is worth while to quote S. Levin, who said that "Poetry has
a tendency to be remembered in its original form not in paraphrase" (Levin 1962).
Foregrounding is the basis of this tendency.

The notion of foregrounding is more comprehensive than that of a stylistic

device. If we accept the idea that stylistic devices form a specific level - and this
point of view seems to be accepted - we may claim that foregrounding constitutes
the next higher level, because its units are constituted by stylistic devices and
figures of speech and cover bigger parts of texts or even whole texts.

The term "figure of speech" is actually preferable to the term "stylistic device"
as the inner form of the latter implies intention on the part of the encoder. It has
been already mentioned that we have no means to judge about the intention of the
author, it is as J. Leech puts it "inaccessible". It is only the universal tradition that
makes us keep the term "stylistic device".

To sum up: we shall mean by foregrounding the presence in the text of some
formal signals achieved by contextual organisation, focussing the reader's
attention on some elements in the contents of the message, and establishing
meaningful relations between juxtaposed or distant elements of the same or
different levels and the text as a whole.

The importance of these phenomena has already been felt by many, and various
aspects of the problem have been described in various publications. I. V. Arnold
made the first attempt to collect separate observations and systematize them under
the heading of foregrounding, changing this notion as compared to some of the
previous authors. The origin of each particular idea will be mentioned as each type
of foregrounding is described in detail.

III. Foregrounding. Convergence.

The notion of convergence is of great importance, because in convergence the

relationship between the level of figures of speech and that of foregrounding is
most transparent.

The idea of convergence was introduced by M. Riffaterre. He defined it as "the

accumulation of several independent stylistic devices SD's“. Each SD (SD – a
stylistic device) adds its expressiveness to that of the others. The effects of these
SD's converge into one especially striking emphasis (Riffaterre, 1959). M.
Riffaterre's famous example., repeated in many subsequent publications on style
and taken from Melville's "Moby Dick” is:
"And heaved and heaved, still unrestingly heaved the black sea, as if its vast tides
were a conscience".

M. Riffaterre comments on this, pointing out that there is here an accumulation of

different devices:

1. An unusual Verb-Subject order.

2. The repetition of the verb “heaved”.

3. The rhythm created by this ternary repetition. This phonetic device combining
with the meaning of the phrase depicts the rise and fall of the waves.

4. Polysyndeton creates intensive coordination (and ... and...) reinforcing the

rhythm.

5. The nonce-word “unrestingly” by its very nature will create a surprise in any
context.

6. The metaphor is especially noticeable because of the unusual relationship of the

tenor “tides” which is concrete to the abstract vehicle “conscience”.

This heaping up of stylistic features working together M. Riffaterre names

convergence. All the devices combined to create it are in complex interaction,
creating in the reader's mind the image of big and menacing sea waves. One should
pay special attention to the phrase "working together", i.e. taking part in the same
stylistic function which in this case is rendering the image of high seas. Should one
miss the fact that the effect is combined, one might fall back on the old tradition of
identifying and listing stylistic devices with its pathetic futility.

A convincing illustration of the possibility of convergence in making the reader

involved in the mood described may be found in J.Joyce's The Portrait of the
Artist at the point of rendering the state of exultation his protagonist experiences:

His cheeks were aflame, his body was aglow; his limbs were trembling. On and on
and on gnd on he strode far out over the sands, singing wildly to the sea, crying to
greet the life that had cried out to him.

/J. Joyce/

The reader feels the excitement because of the anaphoric parallel constructions,
archaic high-flown metaphorical synonymous words aflame, aglow,an
extraordinary insistently long repetition of on achieving a forward motion with a
kind of unstoppable energy enhanced by rhythm, metaphorical personification (life
had cried out to him).

All these compel the reader to share the hero's state although on a diminished
scale.
 All these examples represent some parts of texts and this is characteristic:
convergence rather seldom covers a whole text, yet here is an example suggested
by V.K.Tarasova. The poem by George Gordon Byron has no title:

Sun of the sleepless! melancholy star!

Whose tearful beam glows tremulously far,

That show'st the darkness thou canst not dispel,

How like art thou to Joy remember'd well!

So gleams the past, the light of other days,

Which sir nes out warms not with its powerless rays;

A night-beam Sorrow watcheth to behold,

Distinct, but distant - clear, but oh, how cold!

(George Gordon Byron)

The poem is one whole extended metaphor in which the memory of past
happiness is likened to the light of the moon reflecting the light of the sun, but
neither warming nor dispelling the darkness of the night. A strong emotion is
translated in terms of light and developed by a number of figurative means:

apostrophe, i.e address to someone who is unable to hear or answer (here – the
moon);

metaphor (the moon is called a star and the sun of the sleepless);

a series of epithets expressed by adjectives and adverbs with a semantic

component of sorrow (melancholy, tearful, tremulously, etc);

a comparison in similes with formal indicators "like" and "so" revealing the
similarity between the memory of joy in times of sorrow and the moon;

a strong contrast foregrounded in the closing line by alliteration.

Thus, convergence supplies an important clue by helping the reader to single

out images and ideas of primary importance for the artistic whole.

IV. Foregrounding. Coupling.

The phenomenon of coupling is defined as a semantically relevant

appearance of equivalent elements in equivalent positions.
 Coupling was suggested and worked out by S. Levin. He is not exactly a
pioneer, however, as he follows the lead of R. Jakobson who analyzed such
structures calling them parallel structures. Jakobson, however, did not show their
almost universal character, whereas S. Levin managed to give a more or less
complete description of the phenomenon as functioning in poetry on several levels
simultaneously.

A well studied example of coupling is the rhyme. Here the equivalence of

elements happens on the level of the phonemic make-up and the equivalence of
position is determined by the recurrence of sounds mostly but not necessarily on
the ends of the lines according to a certain scheme. They signalize the ends of
lines, define the structure of the stanza fulfilling an integrating and segmenting
function. The semantic function is not absent either but its importance may vary. It
has been often said that in poetry sound and meaning are in a state of continuous
interplay.

Coupling may be also defined in terms of code and message: the equivalent
elements of the code when receiving equivalent positions in the message constitute
coupling. From a linguistical point of view one might say that paradigmatically
equivalent elements fill syntagmatically equivalent positions.

Coupling is especially pronounced in aphorisms and proverbs. Here are a

few:

● Lend your money and lose your friend. (Proverb)

● The life of the wolf is the death of the lamb. (Proverb)

● Where there is marriage without love, there will be love without

marriage (B. Franklin 1734, aphorism).

In all three examples the patterning is quite marked. But there are
many other equivalent elements in equivalent positions besides:
- on the syntactic level these are parallel constructions as the second part
shows a repetition of the syntactic pattern of the first;
- on the phonetic level one might point out [I] at the beginning of each half
line in the first example and the rhyming of where and there in the third;
- on the lexical level the contrast forming the basis of expressiveness is
achieved by antonymic (life - death) or contrasting quasiantonimic words
(lend - lose, wolf - lamb) occupying equivalent nuclear positions;
- the morphological level shows a correspondence of grammatical forms, e.g.
 note the imperative beginning the two parts in the first example;
- there are also instances of complete reiteration (your; of the; love,
marriage).

V. Foregrounding. Coupling and Repetition.

The relevant features of foregrounding by coupling are not

only repetition and parallelism but the equivalent positions of the elements
repeated. So it is important to see the difference between coupling and the related
phenomena of parallelism and repetition forming its constituents.

Parallelism is said to be a relation of syntactic equivalence between two or

more adjacent bits of text. Always based on syntactic equivalence it may contain
other features of similarity. But there must be always along the element of identity
an element of contrast, some variable feature. It is often combined
with repetition but the two should not be confused.

Parallel patterns are based on identical or similar syntactical structure in two

or more sentences or parts of a sentence in close succession. Parallel constructions
are often backed up by repetition of words, conjunctions and prepositions. Though
pure parallel constructions involve only the repetition of the syntactical design of
the sentence. It is indifferent to the semantics of its components.

The term "repetition" may be taken in a narrow and a broad sense. In its
narrow sense repetition or reiteration of words or phrases coming close
together is a lexical stylistic device.

Coupling is defined as a semantically relevant appearance of equivalent

elements in equivalent positions. From the linguistic point of view one may say
that paradigmatically equivalent elements fill syntagmatically equivalent positions.
Paradigm is known as a set of linguistic units that can be substituted for each other
in the same position within a sequence or structure (the substitution of one for
another doesn't disturb the syntax of a sentence). Syntagm designates any
combination of units, which are arranged in a significant sequence. Thus any sign
has two kinds of relation to other signs: paradigmatic relation to signs of the same
class (which are absent in any given utterance) and a syntagmatic relation to signs
present in the same sequence.

Coupling differs from parallel constructions in the fact that it is based not
only on equivalence but also on contrast. Markers: On the syntactical level it is
backed up by parallel construction or a repetition of the
sentence pattern (which may be accompanied by phonemic repetition and rhyme).
On the lexical level the contrast is achieved by antonymic or quasi-antonymic
(contrasting) words, occupying equivalent positions. It is especially pronounced in
proverbs: Lend your money and lose your friend. The life of the wolf is the death
of the lamb. Where there is marriage without love, there would be love without
marriage (Franklin).

Antithesis is defined as the putting of one idea against the other in reiterated
syntactic constructions to emphasize the contrast. It is based on relative opposition
which arises out of the context through the expansion of objectively contrasting
pairs. "Youth is lovely, age is lonely, Youth is fiery, age is frosty;" (Longfellow).
Here the objectively contrasted pair is 'youth' and 'age'. 'Lovely' and 'lonely' cannot
be regarded as objectively opposite concepts, but being drawn into the scheme
contrasting 'youth' and 'age', they display certain features which may be counted as
antonymical. This is strengthened also by the next line where not only 'youth' and
'age' but also 'fiery' and 'frosty' are objective antonyms. It is not only the semantic
aspect which explains the linguistic nature of antithesis, the structural pattern also
plays an important role. Antithesis is generally moulded in parallel construction.
The antagonistic features of the two objects or phenomena are more easily
perceived when they stand out in similar structures. Antithesis is a device
bordering between stylistics and logic. The extremes are easily discernible but
most of the cases are intermediate.

Stylistics distinguishes various subclasses of repetition such as for

instance anadiplosis (doubling) - a repetition of an important word finishing a
sentence or a clause at the beginning of the next. In addition to enhancing
expressiveness and rhythm, anadiplosis helps the reader to grasp the connection
between two ideas. Thus, for example, two of Shakespeare's key themes - that of
all destroying time and the power of poetry, that opposes time and makes
beauty immortal, are revealed in the anadiplosis of this in the clipping couplet of
Sonnet 18:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

The referent of the demonstrative this is the poem.

The couplet contains also other types of repetition: an anaphora i.e. the repetition
of words or phrases at the beginning of successive lines, clauses or sentences (So
long... So long); synonymical repetition: e.g. the same notion of life is rendered
by live, breathe, be able to see .The couplet as a whole may be regarded as
coupling, as two themes are joined by equivalent (in this case identical)
elements (So long) in equivalent positions bringing forth the main thought of
the sonnet.

VI. Foregrounding. Coupling. The Poem О Where Are You Going by Wysten
Hugh Auden
 As the reader's mind grasps the similarity of elements in equivalent positions he
also grasps the logical cohesion of the whole. Coupling is a phenomenon of the
level of foregrounding which is more general and wider in scope than stylistic
devices and encompasses them. It is a means of structuring not only parts of the
text but also the text as a whole, i.e. it combines smaller parts into larger linguistic
unities and these in turn build themselves up into integrated messages. Thus,
throughout the poem О Where Are You Going by Wyston Auden given below
coupling helps the reader to penetrate into the philosophical and psychological
problems of courage.

Wysten Hugh Auden (1907-1974) began as one of the leaders of the "postwar
poets" of the thirties, the most brilliant of the group, and may be now considered as
one of the most distinguished English poets of the century.

О Where Are You Going

"O where are you going?" said reader to rider,

"That valley is fatal when furnaces burn,

"Younder's the midden whose odours will madden,

That gap is the grave where the tall return."

"О do you imagine," said fearer to farer,

"That dusk will delay on your path to the pass,

Your diligent looking discover the lacking

Your footsteps feel from granite to grass?"

"O what was that bird," said horror to hearer,

"Did you see that shape in the twisted trees?

Behind you swiftly the figure comes softly,

The spot on your skin is a shocking disease."

"Out of this house" - said rider to reader,

"Yours never will" - said farer to fearer,

"They're looking for you" - said hearer to horror,

As he left them there, as he left them there.

The instances of coupling are numerous and take place on various levels:

a) The most obvious is the exact verbal repetition at the beginning of the three
first stanzas.

b)Each stanza, except the last one, begins with an O, thus joining them in some
emotional intensity.

c) Syntactically each of the first three stanzas contains a question marked of by

question marks.

d) Stylistically each is an extended rhetorical question, expressing more and more

sinister forebodings and misgivings. These are coupled with three energetic
answers in the last stanza. Questions and answers form a contrast, questions being
effusive, imaginative, discursive, and the answers laconic and terse.

e) The stanzas are also coupled by similar phrases at the ends of their respective
first lines:

.. said reader to rider,

. .said fearer to farer,

...said horror to hearer.

f) The stanzas are also coupled by similar phrases at the ends of their respective
first lines:

.. said reader to rider,

... said fearer to farer,

... said horror to hearer.

These form an intricate pattern based on an interplay of repetitions and variations.

Identical syntactic structures with anaphoric beginnings show a rigidly patterned
lexical variation: all the nouns (reader, fearer, horror) belong to the same class,
they are all personal nouns formed by a verbal stem and the suffix of agent nouns
- er. The only exception is the word horror. But horror becomes part of the pattern
so that the reader can interpret this word on the analogy of reader - one who
reads, fearer - one who fears, horror - one who feels horror. He is supported in
this by the possibility of metonymy and paronomasia which occur also elsewhere
in the poem. On the other hand the word horror, meaning a feeling caused by fear
mixed with disgust, points out to the possibility of understanding these six nouns
as denoting not different people but as voices within the hero. Then the whole
reflects the inner struggle he goes through in taking a daring decision.

g) The patterning is very strongly pronounced, all the six nouns have identical
morphological, rhythmic and syllabic structure; each horizontal pair is alliterated.
More than that the nouns of each pair differ only in the vowel sound: /i: /- /ai/, /įƏ /
-/‫ع‬Ə/, / /-/ĮƏ/. Horizontal and vertical arrangement follow a semantic pattern. The
first vertical column, i.e. reader, fearer, horror denote characters or traits of
character united by passiveness and caution. The second vertical column is not so
uniform, although rider and farer are almost synonymous. The horizontal pairs are
based on contrast, juxtaposing the one who is warning and the one who is warned.

h) The main coupling on which the composition of the whole is based is formed
by three stanzas with questions and one stanza with three answers in which the
hero overcomes all the fears as we understand from clipped laconic repartees. Each
question takes one stanza and each answer - one line. The characters or the voices
are now reversed:

said rider to reader,... said farer to fearer,... said hearer to horror,...

The final line

As he left them there, as he left them there –

settles at least the question of the rider, the farer, and the hearer being one person.
As to "them", these may be doubts within the hero's soul, or other people who try
to dissuade the hero from a risky enterprise, or, finally, even, both.

i) Each stanza has its own peculiar imagery associations and minor
couplings. The first stanza speaks of the outward dangers: a fatal valley with
burning furnaces, smelly dunghills and a dangerous pass between mountains.
Alliteration and even paronomasia make the connection of the objects mentioned
and the danger they constitute closer: fatal - furnaces, midden - madden, gap -
grave. The second stanza deals with subjective factors - the rider may be unable
to reach the pass before dusk and unable to see the dangers underfoot. Alliteration
is again much used and very expressive. The third stanzaintroduces the image of
an ominous bird and other somewhat fantastic fears, verging on panic before some
vague menacing shape or figure.

Auden's poem provides an exceptionally good example of how in poetry

separate meanings and sounds are so fused and patterned in creating a higher unity
that the text is made specially memorable. We have already quoted S. Levin who
said that poetry tends to reproduce itself in a constant form.

VII. Foregrounding. Strong position. The title.

 Although the subject of foregrounding has already been introduced, much
remains to be added, because of its paramount importance for the structure of the
works of literature. We will therefore be further concerned with foregrounding and
its effect in bringing the logic and the beauty of a book to the reader's mind, and in
helping him to solve the question of "what does the text mean?".

One of the least studied ways of organising the text and making the most
important things stand out most effectively is placing them into a strong
position, that is making them prominent by the fact that the reader finds them in
the title, in the epigraph, in the first lines or in the closure of the text. The great
informative value of beginning and conclusion is determined by psychological
factors. The title, for instance, plays an important part in providing a clue to the
meaning of the whole, being the starting point of a chain of expectations that tune
the reader's mind to what he perceives. The problem should be of general interest
but it is very little studied so far, so that it is impossible as yet to summarise the
functions of titles in a way that will cover all the diverse possibilities in prose and
poetry. We shall limit our discussion to a few types only.

The title may point out the main idea and the theme of the book, either
directly or by an allusion. "Vanity Fair" by W.M. Thackeray receives its title
from "Pilgrim's Progress", an allegory of the 17th century, where Vanity Fair is a
fair perpetually going on in the allegorical city of Vanity. Thackeray gives a
parallel panorama of the upper middle-class England with the social climbing and
the pretence to a status much higher than the person's true one, as its main theme.
The title of Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy" is more or less self-
explanatory. While W.S.Maugham's "Of Human Bondage" may have several
important meanings at once. It reveals the author's pessimism because
W.S.Maugham thinks that "...man, no more significant than other forms of life, had
come not as a climax of creation but as a physical reaction to the
environment...There was no meaning in life..." "Of Human Bondage" is a
significant biblical allusion, and it also refers to the hero's suffering to domination
of his vulgar and nagging wife.

Another class of titles focusses the reader's attention on the main character
or characters. There are many subclasses. The most obvious is giving the hero's
name: "Jane Eyre", "Martin Chuzzlewit", "Tom Jones", etc. There are more
complicated forms. "Sense and Sensibility" and "Pride and Prejudice" give a
metonymical characteristic of the protagonists. In the first novel there are two
sisters - Elinor's sense and self-control is in strong contrast to Marianne's
sensibility and weakness. In "Pride and Prejudice" Darcy's pride and Elizabeth's
"prejudice" against him caused by his insufferable manner-and haughtiness, are the
source of conflict separating the young people.

There are titles giving a generalised description of several characters:

"Sons and Lovers" by D.H. Lawrence, "Wives and Daughters" by Gaskell. A
title may give prominence to the scene of action as in "The Mill on the Floss",
receiving a symbolic value for some reason or other, or to the sphere of life
depicted as in "The Corridors of Power" by C.P. Snow or "Airport" by Hailey.

The decoding of the title may be a simple matter, as in "The New Men" by
C.P. Snow or "The Young Lions" by I. Shaw, but sometimes it may demand
some keen observation in the process of reading. "The Catcher in the Rye" is a
rather complicated and distorted allusion to a poem by R. Burns "Coming through
the Rye". Its significance for Holden’s image is revealed only gradually. Holden
sees himself as one who catches in the rye the innocent children, who, when
playing in a ryefield, are in danger of falling over the edge of a cliff that they do
not notice. Characteristically, Holden has misunderstood the words of the song.
This makes the reader feel that the boy's vision of himself is childish and pitiable,
and helps to grasp Holden's attitude to the world of phoniness and hypocrisy, his
need for honesty and love. In the famous "Ulysses" by J. Joyce each episode and
each character of the novel correspond to an episode and a character in the
Odyssey, so that the whole text forms an extended metaphor out of which the
structure of the novel develops. The method used serves the author's criticism of
early XX century England showing what the heroic of the epic shrinks to. The
metaphor in this case is combined with an allusion, i.e. a reference to something
the reader is supposed to know from his previous reading experience.

The connection of the title with the text may vary greatly. Another allusion
to a R. Burns's poem is to be found in "Of Mice and Men" by Steinbeck. The
familiar quotation from the poem "To a Mouse" runs as follows:

The best-laid schemes o'mice and men

Gang oft agley,

An lea'e us nought but grief and pain

For promised joy!

(R. Burns)

Steinbeck's title may be understood on two levels. One of the two main
characters - a hobo, a half-witted giant of a man suffers from a kind of obsession -
he catches mice and kills them. Yet he himself is helpless as a mouse and doomed
to be crushed by reality and his own insanity. This second level echoes the
coupling in R. Burns's poem with its simultaneous contrast and similarity between
mice and men, because men are levelled to the same state of vulnerability to fate.
The full meaning of the allusion with its keen sense of pity and sympathy is clear
in the reader's mind when he comes to the end of the story.

The relationship between the title and the whole of the text is even more
sophisticated in "The horse's mouth" by J. Cary. Jimson is a painter of genius, art
is all in all to him. A slangy expression "from the horse's mouth" means "from a
trustworthy source". The expression comes from horse racing implying that from
the horses themselves one can best learn what is going on. In the novel we get our
knowledge about art and the position of the artist from the old painter's narration
just as the artist gets his knowledge from life itself. Jimson takes every impression
of the things that surround him in terms of art as some raw material for future
pictures. The title gives a hypothetical general interpretation which is checked by
what the reader finds in the text. The interpretation may be then modified by a kind
of feedback process. This process has been described as the linguistic or
philological circle offered by Leo Spitzer (not for the title but for any deviant
structure needing explanation).

A peculiar type of allusion occurs in the famous poem by Yeates "Leda and
the Swan". The title reminds the reader that according to the Greek legend, Leda,
the queen of Sparta, was seen bathing by Zeus. The enamoured god took the form
of a swan to approach and rape her. Of their union Helen was born, whose beauty
was the cause of the Troyan war and the fall of Troy. All this is not told, but
implied in the title, whereas in the body of the poem neither Zeus nor Leda are
mentioned. She is called "the staggering girl" and he - "the feathered
glory" and "the brute blood of the air", otherwise by third-person pronouns. The
mythological story is rendered impressionistically as an immediate event:

Leda and the Swan

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still

Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed

By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,

He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can these terrified vague fingers push

The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?

And how can body, laid in that white rush

But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there

The broken wall, the burning roof and tower

And Agamemnon dead. Being so caught up,

So mastered by the brute blood of the air,

Did she put on his knowledge with his power

Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

(William Butler Yeats)

The meaning of the whole can be perceived only if the reader knows the legend.
Then his mind goes through the poem actively engaged in mapping separate quants
of imagery on the pattern of the story revived in his memory by the title. The swan
is represented metonymically by his parts: the wings, the dark webs, feathers, his
bill and the beak. The definite article shows the reader is supposed to know the
situation. Decoding goes in one direction only: the title is clear and helps to clarify
the sonnet.

VIII. Foregrounding. The first lines, epigraph, prologue.

The traditional beginning of a literary text is an exposition giving the necessary

preliminaries in which the reader is introduced into the time, the setting of action,
makes the acquaintance of the characters or learns about the events preceding those
of the narrative. The folklore and fairy-tale prototype of a complete
exposition is something as follows:

"Once upon a time there lived in the north country a certain poor man and his
wife, who had two cornfields, three cows, five sheep and thirteen children"
(Francis Browne. The Story of Merrymind).

This exposition includes all the main elements. The exposition may also be
partial – it may, for instance, be devoted to the scene of action. Thus in “A
Passage to India” Forster devotes the whole of the opening chapter to the
description of the city of Chandrapore with its civil station and the Marabar Hills
in the background, containing the extraordinary Marabar Caves. In this way the
focussing points of the story are enumerated.

A literary text may also contain elements specially designed as starting points.
These are the epigraph and the prologue. A prologue is a beginning detached
from the rest of the text. It forms an introduction to a novel or a poem given in a
separate chapter not immediately connected with the course of events narrated but
interpreting them in a general way. This introductory explanatory function may be
achieved in many different ways. In "Death of a Hero" by Richard Aldington the
part called "Prologue" anticipated the events. It describes the reaction of George's
family to his death, whereas the event itself is narrated on the very last page of the
novel. The term "prologue" comes down to us from the times of antique theatre: in
a Greek play the prologue was the part spoken before the entry of the chorus.

An epigraph is even more detached from the text itself than the prologue: it is a
quotation or a motto, put at the beginning of a book or its part, generalizing,
echoing or commenting on the main idea of the text. The decoding of the epigraph
is apt to be underrated. Thus, for instance, the numerous commentators of "The
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" do not pay much attention to the epigraph
which is a quotation from Dante's "Inferno". The epigraph contains the words
spoken to Dante by Guido da Montefeltro, who is shut up in an eternal flame for
having been a false councellor. The allusion is of great importance for many
reasons. For one thing it is not the only allusion to Dante but helps the reader to
notice some other images connected with the "Divina Comedia"; also it introduces
the theme of Death that goes through the poem not explicitly but as an
undercurrent. The implications of the parallel extend throughout T.S. Eliot's poem.
By making Prufrock echo Dante's words addressed to Virgill the poet reveals his
sympathy and tolerant attitude to Prufrock.

Compare:

But how should I go there? Who say so? Why? I'm not Aeneas, and I am not Paul!
Who thinks me fit? Not others. And not I. (Dante); I am no prophet - and here is
no great matte;No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be ... etc.

The poem reveals the frustration of an intellectual, an acutely sensitive and self-
conscious man, a misfit in the only society he knows, keenly suffering from his
incapacity to make any decision. Taking the epigraph into consideration the reader
avoids the limited approach of those who treat Prufrock's "overwhelming question"
as a mere problem of sex. T.S. Eliot makes ample use of the epigraph, taking his
quotations from many different sources, ancient and modem.

Apart from prologue and epigraph, the opening lines of any literary text present
interesting peculiarities. An attempt has been made to establish a typology of
opening lines. Examples given below do not exhaust the possibilities, and serve as
a mere illustration.

A novel may begin with a kind of general epigrammatic statement. One of the
most famous in the English literature starts Jane Austen's masterpiece "Pride and
Prejudice": "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in
possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife". The whole novel revolves
around the problems of marriage, as they are intertwined with the problems of
money and social position so that the first sentence brings out the main theme.
Austin Dobson says there is "scarcely a chapter which is not adroitly opened or
artistically ended" in this novel. Other writers by way of beginning have addressed
their readers in a lyrical meditative or ironical mood. Sometimes the reader is
plunged in the middle of a dialogue, which may seem unimportant at first but
serves to reveal the characters and sooner or later is followed by other data
reflecting the situation and proves to be a helpful starting point.

Another famous beginning - that of "Bleak House" by Ch. Dickens - embodies

the key symbol, the dense London fog symbolising the routine, the monstrous
obscurity brought by the thoroughly corrupted High Court of Chancery into every
case they deal with. Some novels begin in a conventional way with an account of
the character's childhood and early impressions.
 The problem of strong position was discussed in a general way for the first time
by I.V. Arnold. Yet some of its aspects and elements have already been
investigated. In her valuable book published on this subject B. Hernstein-Smith
maintains that we can speak of conclusion when a sequence of events has a
relatively high degree of structure, in other words, it is organisation or design that
imply the possibility of a definite termination point. The author also emphasises
the difference between concluding and merely stopping: the babbling of a baby
stops, a poem or a piece of music concludes. In what follows we shall be greatly
indebted to this valuable book.

As it has already been pointed out, the title is the starting point of a chain of
expectations. "As we read a poem we are continuously subjected to small
surprises and disappointments as the developing lines avoid or contradict our
expectations". An experience is pleasant when tensions are created and released,
expectations fulfilled. A temporary heightening of tension makes resolution more
satisfying. The sense of finality is dependent upon the sense of integrity of the
thematic and formal structure of the text as a whole.

B. Hernstein-Smith began by studying how Shakespeare's sonnets both go and

end, then she passed on to lyric closure in general, and then even wider, discussing
closures in all kinds of art. The author compares poetical and musical structure,
declaring them similar because both are dynamic, i.e. both produce experience
which occurs over a period of time and are modified by succeeding events.

Some specifically linguistic features of poetic closure are provided by such

lexical means that point out to some stopping moments in human life, represented
by such words as: death, sleep, winter, night, homecoming. One finds ample proof
for this statement, when looking through Shakespeare's sonnets. Thus in Sonnet
146 the couplet sounds as follows:

So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,

And death once dead there's no dying then.

The effect of a closure, especially if we have in mind Shakespeare's sonnets,

is to sum up the poem's theme, sometimes by an unexpected approach,
showing it in a new light, to formulate a moral, etc. The couplet is as a rule
simpler than the rest of the sonnet so that it helps to grasp the rest that has already
been read and to make all the necessary adjustments. This is often achieved by
coupling: in sonnet 73 the couplet begins by the words "This thou perceivest". The
pronoun "this" sums up every image given in the 12 preceding lines. The
couplet, as S. Booth puts it (Booth 1961), brings intellectual relaxation and
helps the reader's mind to conceive the poem as a single system.

The couplet or any other closure may throw light on the type of utterance the
poem is meant to imitate or on the background it implies. In sonnet 129, for
instance there is a sort of moralising summary ironically suggesting a sermon:
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well

To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

(Shakespeare)

The couplet gives a moral conclusion to which the previous lines were moving,
yet at the same time there is some surprise in it. This couplet is also interesting for
the discussion of the closure because it exemplifies one more important lexical
peculiarity. There are some lexical categories not mentioned by S. Smith, which
act as integrating and concluding forces. These are categories expressing
universality and represented by such words as: all, none, world, everyone, any,
etc. Both types of lexical units - those connected with stopping, and those
connected with universality are present in the final line of the poem by G.M.
Hopkins: Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.

What one must not forget in connection with the foregrounding by strong
position is that it is never something apart from the rest of the text. On the
contrary, it exists only due to the whole. The song from "Pipa Passes" affords an
excellent example of this sense of closure resulting from the perception of the
whole structure both in meaning and form:

The year's at the spring

And day's at morn;

Morning's at seven;

The hill-side's dew-pearled;

The lark's on the wing;

The snail's on the thorn:

God's in his heaven -

All's right with the world! (R. Browning)

Even the rhyme scheme is here completed only in the whole of the poem, it is
abcd abcd. The integrity of the meaning is created in parallel images of similar
emotional value, supported by syntactic parallelism. The song is completed by an
effective epigrammatic summarizing closure.

Thus, closure is the reduction of a work’s meaning to a single and complete

sense that includes the claims of other interpretations.

IX. Foregrounding. Salient feature repetition

 The type of foregrounding we have now to consider is the so called salient
feature - a detail of the text that catches the reader's eye as unusual and
significant. The procedure of analysis based on this feature is variously
called circle or cycle of understanding or philological cycle.* This procedure is
adapted from L. Spitzer, a well-known stylistic critic of the 20 th century. The circle
of understanding proceeds from attentive reading and observing some peculiar
detail to an anticipation of the whole, since a detail can be understood only by the
whole, and then back again to verify one's hypothesis on ever broadening units of
the context and other units of the same or possibly different level. Thus we treat
the salient feature as another method of foregrounding, possible on all levels.

L. Spitzer recommends to work from the surface to the "inward life-center" of

the work of art: first observing outstanding details about the superficial
appearance of the particular work. The next step is grouping these details
evaluating them on a broad historical, literary and social basis and seeking to
integrate them into a creative principle of the writer. After this the reader makes
the return trip to all the other groups of observations, and sees whether his
hypothesis verified on other components of the context holds good and gives an
account of the whole.

It should be stressed that basing important conclusions on one trait only is not
enough: several carefully grouped and chosen features are necessary. The process
of understanding is a series of back-and-forth movements (first the detail, then
the whole, then another detail, etc.). First suggested a long time ago this cycle of
understanding is still considered a basic phenomenon in modern psycho-
linguistics.

L. Spitzer was intensely interested in interpreting poetry and left a great number
of essays analysing various literary texts in which stylistics bridges the gap
between linguistics and literary history. "Any one outward feature, when
sufficiently followed up to the centre, must yield us insight into the artistic whole,
whose unity thus have been respected".** This cycle of understanding requires
patient reading and rereading. Every literary work forms a complete whole. Any
detail can help penetrate to the core of the work, and, having reached the core one
obtains a general view of everything in the work and checks one's intuition by
means of observations and deduction.

Now, we must remember that although a text of literature has not one but
several possible interpretations depending on the thesaurus of the reader, some of
them are right and others are wrong. Reading with a sense for continuity, for
contextual coherence, we reach a moment when we feel we have grasped the right
interpretation, and different aspects of the whole fall together.

Linguistic interpretation from the point of view of decoding stylistics

involves two directions of approach. We may move from the whole towards
details, or start from the detail and come to the whole. The philological cycle
combines these two ways in a kind of back-and-forth movement, thus
disclosing the unity of detail and the whole, of form and content. Analysis
within content only is the domain of literary criticism. On the other hand,
analysis of details without passing to the meaning of the whole does not result
in text interpretation.

Variant readings should not be confused with misreadings. Diverse

understandings are inevitable, and even desirable, but misreading is at variance
with the context and with the rules and restrictions working within the language. It
distorts the message. Checking the correctness of our interpretation on the
basis of different types of foregrounding is therefore very important.

A set of very prominent salient features is seen, for example, in Shakespeare's

sonnet 66, we shall now discuss it and show how helpful the philological cycle
may be. We shall make use of the procedure suggested by L. Spitzer for the
purpose of solving the basic question of decoding stylistics - how can we check
our understanding is correct. We shall not give a complete interpretation here
but we'll only attempt to show, how effective the philological cycle may be.

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,

As, to behold desert a beggar born,

And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,

And purest faith unhappily forsworn,

And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,

And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,

And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,

And strength by limping sway disabled,

And art made tongue-tied by authority,

And folly doctor-like controlling skill,

And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,

And captive good attending captain ill:

Tired with all these, from these I would be gone,

Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

 There are several salient features in the famous poem and different critics paid
attention to different things. One of the most obvious peculiarities is the
polysyndeton that is the repetition of the conjunction "and" in the beginning of ten
lines out of fourteen. Searching for an explanation one sees that "and" links
together object clauses to the verb "behold" and reduces a multitude of things to
unity in one vast canvas. But the canvas of what? Coming back to the conjunction
"and", one notices that it gives prominence to a series of noun phrases, and some of
these nouns have a common denominator: they have strongly marked evaluative
connotations denoting some of the most important ethical values: gilded honour,
maiden virtue, purest faith, right perfection, simple truth.

In the right hand side of the parallel constructions following these another
clear-cut pattern is observed: unhappily forsworn, shamefully misplaced, rudely
strumpeted, wrongfully disgraced. The common component of all these verbal
phrases is "to do great wrong to". This interpretation of what catches the eye makes
the reader suppose that the poet's despair is caused by seeing that everything good
and noble is wronged.

Now the reader renews the cycle to see whether the other lines expressing the
object of the verb "to behold" follow the same pattern. He is now able to interpret
the second line, omitted at first because of its difficulty:

as, to behold desert a beggar born.

Comparing it with what has already been interpreted it is logical to put desert in
the "something good" class and a beggar born into the "badly treated" class and to
paraphrase the line as Householder did it as "to see merit come into the world with
little prospect of prosperity" . This metonymical personification starts a new
insight on what has already been discussed. The nouns following the conjunction
"and" may be understood not only as abstract but as personal as well. And this
makes the poet's reaction to the outward world not abstract but emotional. The
whole becomes a concrete human tragedy. It is logical to suppose that this
explains why the poet cries "for restful death".

Now we have to check whether every line coming after the

anaphoric and contains this idea of the wronged good. Most of them do. But the
lines about "needy nothing trimmed in jollity" and "folly doctor-like controlling
skill" seem to call for some readjustment. They mean "something bad endowed
with power". The uniting idea is evidently a more general one, namely that
of injustice reigning in the world. It is summed up in the line "And captive good
attending captain ill". This also introduces another salient feature that of contrast
expressed by abundant antitheses between merit and insignificance or mediocrity
(needy nothing). The sonnet is a list of outrages suffered by the good at the hands
of powerful nothings.
 It should be stressed that basing conclusions as to the significance of the text on
one trait only is not enough: several carefully grouped and carefully chosen
features are necessary. We have shown a series of back-and-forth movement (first
the detail, then the whole, then another detail). It should be noted that the way in
which we arrive at an interpretation of a text is variable. The same sonnet may be
analysed with the help of convergence as the combination of parallel constructions,
antithesis, metonymies, epithets, anaphors, framing, etc. But in this case one has to
begin with a supposition about the meaning of the whole - the idea of injustice,
and then verify it by checking the function of every stylistic device and see how
the idea will develop in passing through the test.

The complicated pattern of a Shakespearian sonnet demanded an elaborate

interpretation procedure with many cycles. In a simpler verse the procedure will be
simpler and shorter. Here is a poem Grass by an American poet Carl Sandburg
(1878 – 1967).

Grass

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.

Shovel them under and let me work –

I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg

And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.

Shovel them under and let me work.

Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:

What place is this?

Where are we now?

I am the grass.

Let me work.

There are several salient features in the poem, one of these is the
accumulation of place names. The common denominator of the toponyms
mentioned throws light on the topic and makes war the main theme. These
toponyms are Austerlitz, Waterloo, Gettysburg, Ypres and Verdun. They gave
name to the most bloody battles in modern history (before World War II). The
significance of the whole as a war poem may be checked and developed by paying
attention to salient features on other levels.
 The repetition of the phrase "pile the bodies high" and its contextual
synonym "shovel them under", the repetition of the pronominal
substitute "them" with the referent "body": "pile the bodies high","shovel
them", "pile them high", "pile them high", "shovel them under" - all these make the
reader think of the horror of war and also, contrary to what is actually said, he
feels that memory should bind us with the community of the dead, with lives lost
long ago. This attitude is implicit, and its implicitness frees the poem from any
didactic bias.

As the reader enters the world of the poem still further, he cannot fail to note
one more salient feature – the voice he is supposed to hear is not human, it is the
voice of grass that is somehow associated in many languages with oblivion and
devaluation of the past. This devaluation of human lives is further felt in the
strongly colloquial tone of the dialogue of passengers and conductor contrasting in
its triviality with the tragic pathos of the theme.