Read, translate, analyse the following examples paying attention to climax and anticlimax (bathos) and their stylistic functions.

1. I was well inclined to him before I saw him. I liked him when I did see him; I admire him now (Ch. Bronte)

2. There are drinkers. There are drunkards. There are alcoholics. But these are only steps down the ladder. Right down at the bottom is the meths drinker—and man can't sink any lower than that. (W. Deeping)

3. I swear to God. I never saw the beat of this winter. More snow, more cold, more sickness, more death. (M. Wilson)

4. My nephew, I introduce to you a lady of strong force of character, like myself; a resolved lady, a stern lady, a lady who has a will that can break the weak to powder: a lady without pity, without love, implacable... (Ch.Dickens)

5. How many sympathetic souls can you reckon on in the world? One in ten—one in a hundred—one in a thousand—in ten thousand? Ah! (J.Carry)

6. You know—after so many kisses and promises, the lie given to her dreams, her words ... the lie given to kisses—hours, days, weeks, months of unspeakable bliss... (Th.Dreiser)

7. An unprincipled adventurer - a dishonourable character - a man who preys upon society, and makes easily-deceived people his dupes, sir, his absurd, his foolish, his wretched dupes, sir, - said the excited Mr. P. (Ch.Dickens)

8. Jones was having his first date with Miss Smith and was utterly captivated by her. She was beautiful and intelligent as well, and as dinner proceeded, he was further impressed by her faultless taste. (Isaac Asimov)

9. As he hesitated over the after-dinner drink, she intervened to say, 'Oh, let's have sherry rather than brandy by all means. When I sip sherry, it seems to me that I am transported from the everyday scenes by which I may, at that moment, be surrounded. The flavour, the aroma, bring to mind irresistibly -for what reason I know not - a kind of faerie bit of nature: a hilly field bathed in soft sunshine, a clump of trees in the middle distance, a small brook curving across the scene, nearly at my feet. This, together with the fancied drowsy sound of insects and distant lowing of cattle, brings to my mind a kind of warmth, peace, and serenity, a sort of dovetailing of the world into a beautiful entirety. Brandy, on the other hand, makes me burp. (Isaac Asimov)

10. In moments of crisis I size up the situation in a flash, set my teeth, contract my muscles, take a firm grip on myself and without a tremor, always do the wrong thing. (George Bernard Shaw)

11. For [Immanuel] Kant, the incongruity in a joke was between the 'something' of the setup and the anticlimactic 'nothing' of the punch line; the ludicrous effect arises 'from the sudden transformation of a strained expectation into nothing. (Jim Holt, You Must Be Kidding. The Guardian, Oct. 25, 2008)

12. He has seen the ravages of war, he has known natural catastrophes, he has been to singles bars. (Woody Allen, Speech to the Graduates)

13. “Oh, poor Mr. Jones," mourned Mrs. Smith, "Did you hear what happened to him? He tripped at the top of the stairs, fell down the whole flight, banged his head, and died.". " Died?" said Mrs. Robinson, shocked. "Died!" repeated Mrs. Smith with emphasis. "Broke his glasses, too.” (Isaac Asimov)

14. The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money. (Mark Twain)

Antithesis.

Antithesis(Greek for "setting opposite)is a counter-proposition and denotes a direct contrast to the original proposition. It’s a structure, consisting of two steps, the lexical meaning of whichbeing opposite. Antithesisis a SD based on the author's desire to stress certain qualities of the thing by appointing it to another thing possessing antagonistic features: They speak like saints and act like devils.

It must be mentioned that parallelism is the organizing axis of the antithesis:

When there is need of silence, you speak, and when there is need of speech, you are dumb; when you are present, you wish to be absent, and when absent, you desire to be present; in peace you are for war, and in war you long for peace; in council you descant on bravery, and in the battle you tremble. (W.Allen)

This very emotional example consists of words with opposite lexical and contextual meanings forming on the one hand the hyperbolized image of a very contradictive and absonant image of the character in question. The words silence– speech, absent – present, peace – war, bravery – tremble characterize the person as unbearable and next to impossible to get along with. Antithesis on the other hand creates a remarkable emotional and high-pitched atmosphere. Parallel constructions add a peculiar rhythmic organization which underlines those ruffled emotions the speaker goes through. This very well lexically and syntactically balanced example quite obviously demonstrates the unmistakable effective stylistic unity of antitheses and parallelism.

Antithesis may be presented by different morphological and syntactical steps though parallelism is almost always preserved.

Proper antithesis is presented by antonyms or contextual antonyms and

antonymous expressions: Too brief for our passion, toolong for our peace.

Morphological antithesisis represented by morphemes: underpaid and overworked (antonyms or contextual antonyms).

Developed antithesis is presented by completed statements or pictures

syntactically opposite to one another:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, …(Ch.Dickens)

It’s only a half of the beginning paragraph of the 1-st chapter from “A Tale of Two Cities” which has become a classical example of developed antithesis structured through parallel constructions. Lexical contraposition includes antonyms which refer to the same notion – time. The latter is now presented by a row of synonyms to avoid monotonous repetition – times, age, epoch, season, etc. Parallel structures organize them into an almost mathematical system which beauty is not only in the breath-taking precision and perfect accuracy of the syntactical position of words but in their flawless emotional and sore at heart harmony of style and language. The choice of opposed items – best|worst, wisdom|foolishness, belief|incredulity, etc. is obviously well-thought of and exhibits personal rueful experience of the narrator underlying one’s trepidation and impotence to change the state of things. Due to antithesis the text is full of sadness, despair, hopelessness, but it is full also of enthusiasm, flame, and undying faith. The age described is so inconceivable in its conflict that leaves no hope to resolve it, but it also has obvious advantages which can’t be ignored. Besides together they (rhythm and lexicon) create a poetic effect and turn the text into a ballad or a sort of minstrelsy, something epochal, a literary masterpiece.

Thus the main stylistic function of the device is to accentuate the difference and discrepancy in the nature of the things described. Parallelism plays a very essential and fundamental role in organizing the emotive sense of the whole in another, kind of, fourth dimension.

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 1670