Transcript Sty let20x

Parallelism
Stylistics 551
Lecture 20
Interpretation of Parallelism
• Functions of parallelism:
1. Connected with rhetorical emphasis
2. Aids memorability
3. Connects the elements of identity and contrast
4. Leads towards climax
The interpretation of Parallelism
Functions of Parallelism:
1. Parallelism aids memorability:
Parallelism sets a relationship of equivalence between
the elements of language. The similarity in structure
(identity) and repetition of words adds to create rhythm
and balance in the structure that aids memorability.
The rhythm and similarity makes the utterances easy to
remember. That is why poets rely heavily on the use of
parallelism.
I will complain, yet praise, and all my sour sweet days
I will bewail, approve
I will lament and love
2. Parallelism for rhetorical emphasis:
Linguistic parallelism is very often connected with
rhetorical emphasis.
Formal parallelism is combined with an implication of
contrast, that the term antithesis is most readily
applied. The connection is either the connection of
similarity or contrast.
He raised a mortal to the skies;
She drew an angel down
Rhetorical emphasis
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except You enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. (Donne, Holy Sonnet)
This is the dead land
This is the cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star. (Eliot, The Hollow Men)
3. Parallelism leads to climax:
Another expectation raised by parallelism is that if there
are two or more than two phrases to the pattern, it
moves towards a climax.
If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we
not laugh?
If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us,
shall we not
revenge? (Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice)
Here the emotive force of revenge, coming after ‘bleed’,
‘laugh’, and ‘die’ is underlined by a slight variation in the
pattern; the replacement of ‘do’ by ‘shall’
Climax
“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men” (Robert Burns, To a
Mouse)
The relation of equivalence here is between mice and men,
which correspond not only syntactically, but phonologically in
that they are both monosyllables beginning with /m/. The
Phonological foregrounding creates poetic effect. The
reinforcing connection between mice and men is twofold. We
firstly appreciate the referential contrast between man, the
supreme head of creation, and the mouse, one of the tiniest
and most inconsequential of creatures.
Climax
• Secondly, helped by the conjunction “and” which
links the two words, we appreciate a similarity
between man and mouse, who in the sentiment of
this passage are levelled to the same status of
vulnerability to fate. What the parallelistic bond
between the two seems to suggest is that creatures
superficially different are basically the same.