理论文体学Term paper

Contents1. Stylistic analysis on a poem by William Carlos Williams (3)2. Analysis on passage 4---from a novel of Hemingway Ernest (7)3. Analysis on Pity this busy monster, manunkind by E. E. Cummings..104. Stylistic Analysis on Passage 20---a speech by Winston Churchill (14)Appendix (20)Stylistic analysis on a poem by William Carlos WilliamsThis is just to sayI have eatenthe plumsthat were inthe iceboxand whichyou were probablysavingfor breakfastForgive methey were deliciousso sweetand so cold——William Carlos Williams Firstly , we all know that william is a very famous American poet and meanwhile, a well-known doctor who graduated from university of Pennsylvania. he was engaged in writing poem, novels and commentary in his amateur life. On literary creation, Williams was influenced by EzraPound and other imagists when he was in university, at the same time he inherited Whitman's romantic tradition. He objected to the sentimentalismof Victorian style, in contrast, he insisted the writing with "American style "and strived to the local language, he rarely used unfamiliar words for the common readers.Williams consciously wrote poetry that provided a counterpoint to that of Frost, Pound and Eliot. In his work, he wished to speak like an American within an American context of small cities, immigrants, and workers. He wanted his poetic line to reflect the rhythm of everyday speech and drew his subject matter from ordinary surroundings.Initially enthralled by Pound's "imagism" manifesto, which proposed direct treatment of the subject matter and the use of the "exact" word, Williams soon became suspicious of its limitations, and forged a new path within Modernism that was entirely his own.In this poem This is just to say, William Carlos Williams's short narrative writing about a theft of fruit says something far from earth-shaking about simple pleasures, it tells us their importance, how hard it is to resist them sometimes, and (more deeply layered in the poem ) the value of a relationship that had found ways to honor such understandable weakness. It renders a judgement, but one that is delicately nuanced.On apparent meaning, this poem is a note left on a refrigerator, it relates that a person eating the plums in the refrigerator without the plums' owner's permission and writes a note to explain how delicious the plums are and asks for forgiveness.This poem only has three stanzas, the first stanza states what has happened, the second stanza explains why the narrator might feel guilty to leave a note, and the final part gives an apology and the narrator's justification of his behavior. In the first stanza, the plums refers to something is tempted with beautiful colors, juicy pulp, sweet and ice-cold taste. The delicious plums arises the speaker's desire and makes him can not help to "steal" such delicious fruit. This conduct makes the speaker feel guilty. In the third stanza, the phrase asking for forgiveness reveals the keynote of this poem.The poem has two main aspects of appreciation, the first one is the sexual meaning, according to the definition of Concise Oxford English Dictionary, plum can be used to refer to something highly desirable, so the plums might well represent the girl's virginity which she was saving or keeping in the icebox. From the whole version, the narrator also enjoys what he has done, as he describes it as being delicious and good. The second comprehension is of the religious meaning. The "plum" is the forbidden fruit, the "icebox" means the plum is forbidden by God, the word "saving" implys the plum is under protected. From this point ofview, the poem indicates some religious opinions, humans cannot resist temptation, they even may enjoy when they sin, in this poem, the narrator is saying sorry, yet he is describing how delicious they were to eat, stealing them from icebox made them taste even better, this is human nature. The narrator could not resist the temptation to taste the plums because they looked so good, this is just as Eve could not resist the temptation to eat the apple.Analysis on passage 4--from a novel of Hemingway ErnestIntroductionThis is a passage from "A Farewell to Arms", a novel of Hemingway Ernest. In this novel, the hero is also the narrator. The whole version is written in the hero's angle of view. The phrases in the text are very simple, the style of these sentences are very similar, for instance, they are all past tense sentences, but they also have their particular features.On Syntactic LevelFrom the very first sentence, "Now in the fall the trees were all bare and the roads were muddy", the background information of time and main themes is emerged. The brief form is "X were Y ", in the following,there are also this kind of form, like "The mulberry trees were bare and the fields were brown", this form is the most common method of description and here is used in delivering the sights the hero saw on the way homecoming. A scene of trees in the fall coming into the reader's mind and conveying the purport of the context.The second and the third sentences "I rode to Gorizian from Udine on a camion. We passed other camions on the road and I looked at the country." employs a pattern of "X did Y". There are many other sentences in this model, for example, sentences "We saw the town....and walked toour villa" without "It had been raining in the mountains." are all in the layout of "X did Y", more specifically, "I did ...", "we did ..." and "he did...", the characters in the whole text are involved, that is "we"---"I" and "the driver". This "X did Y" is a typical model to represent events, and it's the simplest one which is often used in people's daily life especially in oral dialogue.There is only one long sentence --- "There were wet dead leaves on the road from the rows of bare trees and men were working on the road, tampering stone in the ruts from piles of crushed stones along the side of the road between the trees." two parts are connected by the conjunction "and", from the appearance, the entire description is narrated factually and unimaginatively, but the weary feelings of the narrator or the hero stands vividly revealed on the paper.There are two extra short sentences, "It had been raining in the mountains." "It did not feel like a homecoming." the first sentence is a depiction of the background weather, and the second looks like a comment of the narrator, but use of "it" makes the comment full of insouciance.In this passage, the objects are described directly to readers, within almost no comments and psychic feelings, the narrator and hero is just like a camera recording all he has seen or done, the narrator, also as a hero, put himself out of the development of the story, deliver the story assomebody else, this superior cold and detached writing skill is called Principal of The Iceberg, which is proposed by Hemingway himself, that skill makes allowance for readers to think and dig the deep message implied in the context.Analysis on Pity this busy monster, manunkind byE. E. Cummingspity this busy monster, manunkind,not. Progress is a comfortable disease:your victim (death and life safely beyond)plays with the bigness of his littleness-- electrons deify one razorbladeinto a mountainrange; lenses extendunwish through curving wherewhen till unwishreturns on its unself.A world of madeis not a world of born – pity poor fleshand trees, poor stars and stones, but never thisfine specimen of hypermagicalultraomnipotence. We doctors knowa hopeless case if – listen: there’s a hellof a good universe next door; let’s goE. E. CummingsOn the level of layoutFrom the words or written style, we can see many specialitiesin this poem, from the very first sight, we can see the difference from the common poems, for example, "not. Progress is a comfortable disease"; "A world of made"; "ultraomnipotence.We doctors know" this unique style shows the discordance of the whole version, the disobedience of the general rule implies the poet's revolt to the society.On syntactic and semantic levelCummings begins his poem, Pity this busy monster, manunkind with a definite statement against mankind. He defines mankind as a monster, and twists the name mankind to manunkind. He goes on to tell his reader to pity them not, the reason being that mankind only cares for its own progress. This progress, Cummings likens to a comfortable disease which does not care if its victims live or die. He states in the next paragraph that humanity is small in relation to the universe, but acts as if it is the all-controlling force that defies anything that attempts to cut it down.Cummings next uses a camera metaphor to describe how something given in evil is often returned. He uses the way a camera lens twists an image and returns it upside down. The metaphor of a camera lens if also be examined in a secondary way; in that mankind does not see itself as it is, but as it distorts itself to appear.In the next stanza, Cummings makes a statement that man-madethings are unnatural, and therefore are not good. He asks that nature not be blamed; the blame lies with humanity.Humanity is referred to as a fine specimen of hypermagical ultraomnipotence. This brings to mind the question, how can one be all-all knowing? This reiteration "ultra"--all "omnipotence"--all knowing exaggerates the height man has placed him self at. Combined with the word, "hypermagical" you get a picture of humanity as a God figure.The last three lines seem to break the continuity of the poem, transferring from third persons to first. One can see, however, the continuance with the God metaphor. The person speaking is a self-proclaimed doctor. Doctors are often warned against developing a God complex, thus the continuation of a God-like man. The doctor claims that he sees humanity is a hopeless case, so he wants to go explore / exploit the universe next door, an allusion to the way humanity exploits people during colonization.This poem is an important look at humanity because of its central theme; man set himself above all others, no matter the cost. When man does this, he is opening the path of indifference to ignoring the "little people" who then become expendable- thus a monster is born. A secondary theme to the poem can also be that some men think they are better than others. There is a ruing class that decide who will eat, and who will starve. Cummings offers one dire warning, however, with his camerametaphor mentioned above. Cummings warns the ruling man that what is given is often received, but comes back twisted and distorted, like the image on the lens of a camera.Indifference can lead to a misanthropic nature because it allows dictators to act. Those that see this indifference and realize there is little one man can do to change the course of humanity become the disenchanted. They see human nature as it is, rather than as it would be seen through Cummings prophetic lens.Stylistic Analysis on Passage 20---a speech by Winston ChurchillIntroductionWinston Churchill was a well known and influential Prime Minister of the UK during World War II. At the same time, he was also endowed with the reputation as one of the greatest orators of the twentieth century, for he possessed such impressive oratorical skills that he wartime speeches were absolutely essential to the Allied victory during the darkest of the war. Once John Kennedy commented that Churchill "mobilized the English language and sent it into battle." the dominant feature of his style lies in his favor of plain words, the rhythmic sound effect of his language, forceful sentence patterns, and his skillful uses of rhetorical devices. In the following passage, I tends to analyse the stylistic features of Churchill's political from three aspects in detail.Analysis of the phonological featuresAs we know, the filed and tenor the public speech involves determines that it takes the feature of oral style. Different from written language which is intended for the eye, public speech is basically for the ear. Thus, speakers, like poets, sometimes seek to exploit the rhythm of language.By catching up their listeners in an arresting string of sounds, speakers can enhance the impact of their words, and therefore their ideas. Winston Churchill was a master of this technique. "We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering." In this sentence, the poetic rhythm and flow of the language can easily claim the audiences' attention, as a result, Churchill's strong determination to fight against Nazi army can be conveyed and reinforced.Churchill in his speech adopts the device of alliteration. This is a kind of rhetorical technique in which the initial sounds in words or in stressed syllables within within the words are repeated in a pleasing and memorable manner, thus adds rhythm to a speech. In the sentence "We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering." Due to the rhythm effect, the alliteration of word s"struggle" and "suffering" makes the speech more impressive, and make the ideas much easier to remember. The sound of the two words can not only make deep impressions, but also increases vividness of his speech, arouse among the audience great hatred to the enemy.Analysis of lexical featureThe lexical of features of Winston Churchill' speeches can be can be presented as the following aspects.There are many short, homely words in this speech, like in the sentence "You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us;" as our common sense, language in public speech should be immediately accessible to the audience's comprehension, therefore, simplicity is one of the major factors that contribute to oratorical success. Winston was the very one who favors short, homely words of common usage. we can appreciate the simplicity and brevity of Churchill's language from the above example. Most words in this sentence are monosyllables or composed of two syllables. However, it's forceful and stirring enough.Winston Churchill uses many first- and second-person pronouns in this speech. Involving listeners is one of the features of public speech. Most speaker are much more direct than writers in addressing the receiver of the message. Churchill makes extensive use of first- and second-person pronoun, such as "I", "we", "you", "us"in the sentence"You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, " and "We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering." There are also other first- and second-person pronouns like "my", "our"in "I hope that any of my friends and colleagues, or former colleagues,..." "come then, let us go forward together with our united strength." this usage is acommon phenomenon in Churchill's speech. And the frequent first- and second-person pronouns can not only achieve the directness but also shorten the distance between Churchill and the audience.Compared with abstract language, concrete words used in public speech are more readily to grasped and understood. It is also found that Churchill takes advantage of concrete words to achieve the vividness and impressiveness. For instence, "I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat." Simple as they are, the four concrete words "blood", "toil", "tears" and "sweat" in this statement sound exceptionally impressive. If the four concrete words are replaced with some other abstract flat synonyms like "death", "hard work", "sadness"and other words of this kind, the result may be another case. Although the conceptual meaning might still be intact, the overwhelming impact must be diminished.Analysis of syntactic featureThe features of this speech are also reflected at syntactic level. The appropriately arranged sentence length and structures not only help to avoid dullness of the speech, but also do good to the expression of the meaning.As far as the sentence length is concerned, we know that series of short and long sentences can both be effective in individual situations. Instead of using uniform length of sentence in his speech, Churchill prefers alternative use of short ,simple sentences and long, complex sentences. Usually, after one or more long sentences that express complex ideas or images, the pitch of a short sentence can be refreshing and arresting. Similarly, a long sentence that follows a series short sentences can serve as a climax or summation that relaxes the tension of fulfills the expectation created by the series. take "blood, toil, tears and sweat" for example, there are altogether 30 sentences in this famous speech. The shortest sentence "that is our policy" only contains four words, while the longest sentence includes 44 words with several compound sentences embedded in it "I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime." Churchill fully expresses the seriousness and emergency of the situation by making the most use of the complex sentence here.If a speech is only is only composed of narrative sentences, it might be boring. Sometimes, rhetorical questions or imperative sentences can help to add variety to the sentence structure. Churchill, in his speech,shows a special fascination with retorical questions. The following examples well illustrate the artistic effect of this device, ""Appendix11This is just to sayI have eatenthe plumsthat were inthe iceboxand whichyou were probablysavingfor breakfastForgive methey were deliciousso sweetand so cold——William Carlos Williams4Now in the fall the trees were all bare and the roads were muddy. I rode to Gorizian from Udine on a camion. We passed other camions on the road and I looked at the country. The mulberry trees were bare and the fields were brown. There were wet dead leaves on the road from the rows of bare trees and men were working on the road, tampering stone in the ruts from piles of crushed stones along the side of the road between the trees. We saw the town with a mist over it that cut off the mountains. We crossed the river and I saw that it was running high. It had been raining in the mountains. We came into the town past the factories and then the houses and villas and I saw that many more houses had been hit. On a narrow street we passed a British Red Cross ambulance.The driver wore a cap and his face was thin and very tanned. I did not know him. I got down from the camion in the big square in front of the Town Mayor’s house, the driver handed down my rucksack and I put it on and swung on the two musettes and walked to our villa.It did not feel like a homecoming.9Pity this busy monster, manunkindpity this busy monster, manunkind,not. Progress is a comfortable disease:your victim (death and life safely beyond)plays with the bigness of his littleness-- electrons deify one razorbladeinto a mountainrange; lenses extendunwish through curving wherewhen till unwishreturns on its unself.A world of madeis not a world of born – pity poor fleshand trees, poor stars and stones, but never thisfine specimen of hypermagicalultraomnipotence. We doctors knowa hopeless case if – listen: there’s a hellof a good universe next door; let’s goE. E. Cummings20In this crisis I hope I may be pardoned if I do not address the House at any length today. I hope that any of my friends and colleagues, or former colleagues, who are affected by the political reconstruction, will make allowance, all allowance, for any lack of ceremony with which it has been necessary to act.I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. Let that be realised; no survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge and impulse of the ages, that mankind will move forward towards its goal. But I take up my task with buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. At this time I feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say, “come then, let us go forward together with our united strength.”——By Winston Churchill。