Read, translate, analyse the following examples paying attention to antithesis and its stylistic functions.

1. So, justice is far from us

and righteousness does not reach us

We look for light, but all is darkness

for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows. (New testament)

2. Unlike short-sighted, egocentric humans, God "sees with equal eye" the fall of a hero and a sparrow, the destruction of an atom or a solar system (A.Pope)

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this son of York....

Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings...

Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front...

As if King Edward be as true and just

As I am subtle false and treacherous. (W.Shakespeare)

3. Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and the scuttered, tin and iron, and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, "saints and angels and martyrs and holy men," and he would have meant the same thing. (J.Steinbeck)

4. Men's talk was better than women's. Never food, never babies, never sickness, or boot's needing mending, but people, what happened, the reason. Not the state of the house, but the state of the Army. Not the children next door, but the rebels in France. Never what broke the china, but who broke the treaty. Not what spoilt the washing, but who spilled the beans... Some of it was puzzling and some of it was tripe, but all of it was better than darning Charley's socks. (D. du Muarie)

5. ...as we passed it seemed that two worlds were meeting. The world of worry about rent and rates and groceries, of the smell of soda and blacklead and "No Smoking" and "No Spitting" and "Please Have the Correct Change Ready" and the world of the Rolls and the Black Market clothes and the Coty perfume and the career ahead of one running on well-oiled grooves to a knighthood... (J. Braine)

6. 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, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. (Ch.Dickens)

7. They went down to the camp in black, but they came back to the town in white; they went down to the camp in ropes, they came back in chains of gold; they went down to the camp in fetters, but came back with their steps enlarged under them; they went also to the camp looking for death, but they came back from thence with assurance of life; they went down to the camp with heavy hearts, but came back with pipes and tabor playing before them. (J. Bun.)

8. A special contrast Mr. George makes to Smallweed family ... It is a broadsword to an oyster knife. His developed figure, and their stunned forms; his large manner, filling any amount of room; and their little narrow pinched ways; his sounding voice and their sharp spare tones are in the strongest and the strangest opposition. (Ch.Dickens)

ELLIPSIS

ELLIPSIS (Ancient Greek: élleipsis, "omission" or "falling short") is an intentional omission of a word, sentence or whole section from the original text being quoted. This device may be treated on different levels –word, phrase, paragraph, text and hypertext. The reason of this possibility is the wide and

narrow interpretation of the SD. Ellipsis which doesn’t break the grammatical arrangement of the structure indicates an unfinished thought, omission of the name, pause, broken enumeration, space economy (in press) and may be called narrative. The narrative ellipsis, for example, offered by Virginia Woolf's novel To the Lighthouse, shows that between the first and second parts of the novel many years pass and World War I is fought and won. The reader is left to infer the events that have taken place during the elapsed time by the changes evident in the characters in the novel. In other words this is an omission in the wide meaning of the word, a “trick’ in the narration.

So “wide” ellipsis can be used to indicate an unfinished thought or, at the end of a sentence, a trailing off into silence, (aposiopesis). This ellipsis is often used when a writer intentionally omits a specific proper noun, such as a location: "John was born on ... Street in London."

Besides this ellipsis may also imply an unstated alternative indicated by context. For example, when Count Dracula says "I never drink ... wine", the implication is that he does drink something else.

Such ellipsis can also show that a list goes on beyond those items actually spelled out in the text:

An evil witch, a tap-dancing scarecrow, flying monkeys, an emotionally unstable lion, disturbing Munchkins . . . Dorothy couldn't help but wonder if, in the wonderful Land of Oz, they sold guns."

(Richard Lederer. Comma Sense. St. Martin's Press, 2005)

In reported speech, the “wide” ellipsis is sometimes used to represent an intentional silence, perhaps, indicating irritation, dismay, shock or disgust. This usage is more common amongst younger, Internet generations: You … geek! The ellipsis is one of the favorite constructions of Internet chat rooms, and it has evolved over the past ten years into a staple of text-messaging. Although an ellipsis is technically complete with three periods (...), its rise in popularity as a "trailing-off" or "silence" indicator has led to expanded uses online. It has been used in new ways online, sometimes at the end of a message "to signal that the rest of the message is forthcoming”.

In poetry, this is used to highlight sarcasm or make the reader think about the last points in the poem. "This is a Happy Warrior, This is he..."

In news reporting, it is used to denote that a quotation has been condensed for space, brevity or relevance.

The most common form of this type of ellipsis is a row of three periods or full stops (...) or a triple-dot glyph (…). The triple-dot punctuation mark is also called a suspension point, points of ellipsis, periods of ellipsis, or colloquially, dot-dot-dot.

In the narrower syntacticalsense ellipsis is a classical device whose meaning is an omission of one of the main members of a sentence. It’s the characteristic feature of the colloquial register of grammar. Ellipsis leaves out part of the sentence, and in doing so places special emphasis on the remaining part. The omitted parts are easily restored:

- What do you want?

- Coffee. (I want coffee.) or

- Anybody home? (Is anybody home?)

Such ellipsis reflects the oral norms and creates the effect of naturalness and authenticity of the dialogue. This ellipsis often serves as economy of expression, particularly when the omitted items are grammatically “equal”:

Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends. (Virginia Woolf)

In this example the predicate “go’ may be missed out because “others” and “I” as the subjects of the sentence agree in their grammatical form with the predicate “go”. Otherwise the sentence will be ungrammatical.

Grammatical ellipsis may be nominal (a noun omission), verbal (a verb omission), clausal (a clause omission):

The first expedition was quickly followed by another two (expeditions).

You will speak to whoever I tell you to (speak).

It may come or it may not (come).

You can borrow my pen if you want (to borrow my pen).

Any type of ellipsis may be stylistically relevant to a less or more degree. In J.Cary’s The Horses’ Mouth ellipsis is one of the main SDs as the narration takes the form of a monologue of an old dying artist whose talent though recognized by the connoisseurs hasn’t brought him any profit. The story of his life is actually “painted” but with words. That’s why the text abounds in ellipsis as the narrator’s aim is the most essential details - strokes of a brush:

Plant has two rooms down an area in Elam Street. Shop in front, sitting room behind. We went in through the shop. Smell of boot polish like a lion cage. Back room with an old kitchen range. Good mahogany table. Horsehair chairs. Bed in corner made up like a sofa. Glass-front bookcase full of nice books. Chambers's Encyclopedia. Bible dictionary. Sixpenny Philosophers. (J. Cary. The Horse's Mouth)

This brilliant example of a literary masterpiece deserves much more stylistic analysis but in this paragraph attention should be duly paid to ellipsis. The artist’s look follows every detail of the flat as he has no place to live. Besides he quickly evaluates the quality as though he is planning his future canvas. The strokes of the invisible mental brush are exact, graphically evident, assessed from the point of view of their artistic value, i.e. to paint or not to paint. Ellipsis in the text organizes the narration rhythmically turning it into a sort of enumeration with a certain gradation. A more precise attention reveals the absence of any especially expressive stylistic devices in the given abstract. The major effect is produced just by the omission of some members of the sentence, mainly the predicate. The stylistic validity of ellipsis in this text is a cinematographic visualization which is created by a word portrait and makes the whole book a stylistic diamond.

Thus the stylistic functions of ellipsis are various – from intentional silence, economy effect, suspension to colloquial authenticity and lively naturalness of narration.

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 1089