文体学论文StylisticAnalysisofOdetotheWestWind

广州大学20122013学年第 2学期课程 英语文体学 考查形式（学期论文）学院 外国语 系 英语 专业 英语(教师教育)班级 103班 学号 1018100011 姓名 陈小颜Stylistic Analysis of Ode to the West Wind摘要：本文试图从文体学的角度分析雪莱的西风颂，分别从语音层面、书写层面、词汇层面、句法层面和语义层面展开分析。关键词：西风颂 文体学分析 英文诗歌Abstract：This thesis attempts to analyze Ode to the West Wind in the perspective of stylistics. The analysis are divided into five levels: the phonological level, the graphological level, the lexical level , the syntactic level, and the semantic level. Key Words: Ode to the West Wind stylistics analysis English poems IntroductionAs one of Shelleys immortal lyric poems, Ode to the West Wind ranks part of worlds classics. It couldnt be enough to show our attention and study on this poem. Ode to the West Wind is a lyric poem that addresses the west wind as a powerful force and asks it to scatter the poets words throughout the world. This thesis will analyze the poem in five levels: the phonological level, the graphological level, the lexical level , the syntactic level, and the semantic level.1. At the Phonological Level1.1 RhymeThe poem contains five stanzas of fourteen lines: four three-line stanzas and a two-line couplet .The rhyme scheme in each part follows a pattern known as Dante Alighieris terza rima. In this format, line 2 of one tercet rhymes with lines 1 and 3 of the next tercet. Table1-1 is the Rhyme Scheme in Ode to the West Wind.Canto ICanto IICanto IIICanto IVCanto VRhymeLinerhyme wordLinerhyme wordLinerhyme wordLinerhyme wordLinerhyme word1being15commotion29dreams43bear57isa2dead16shed30lay44thee58ownb3fleeing17Ocean31streams45share59harmoniesa4red18spread32bay46free60toneb5thou19surge33towers47even61fiercec6bed20head34day48be62oneb7low21verge35flowers49heaven63universec8until22height36Thou50speed64birthd9blow23dirge37powers51striven65versec10fill24night38below52need66hearthd11air25sepulchre39wear53cloud67mankinde12hill26might40know54bleed68Earthd13everywhere27atmosphere41fear55bowed69Winde14hear28hear42hear56proud70behindeTable1-1 We can see each of the five cantos follows this scheme: aba bcb cdc ded ee. This linked chain gives a feeling of onward motion. The verse has a breathless quality which is in keeping with the onward motion as the wind moves forward.1.2 Metrical patterning Most of the lines in the poem are in iambic pentameter, although some of the pentameter lines have an extra syllable (catalexis), taking the third canto as an example. “/” signifies the stressed syllable, “” the unstressed, and “|” separates the feet.Canto III/ / / /29. Thou who didst |waken from | his su|mmer dreams / / / / /30. The blue | Medi|terra|nean, where | he lay,/ / / /31. Lulled by | the coil | of his cry|stalline streams, / / / / /32. Beside | a pu|mice isle | in Bai|s bay, / / / / / 33. And saw | in sleep | old pa|laces and | towers/ / / / /34. Quivering | within | the waves | inten|ser day, / / / / / 35. All o|vergrown | with a|zure moss | and flo|wers / / / /36. So sweet|, the sense | faints pic|turing |them! Thou / / / / / 37. For whose | path the | Atlan|tics level | powers/ / / / /38. Cleave them|selves in|to chasms, | while far | below / / / / /39. The sea|-blooms and | the oo|zy woods | which wear / / / /40. The | sapless | foliage of the o|cean, know / / / / /41. Thy voice, | and su|ddenly grow | gray with | fear, / / / /42. And | tremble and | despoil | themselves: | O hear!.We can see an obvious alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables(“/ / ”) in most lines. This kind of metrical pattern makes the poem melodious and full of rise and fall in tone. 1.3 Alliteration and Consonance At the beginning of the poem, alliteration is successively employed as wild, west, wind. The repetition of /w/ sound in the title points to and echoes perfectly with the subject in the title. Furthermore, the readers can strongly feel the irresistible powers of the west wind. Alliteration of the sound /w/ also takes place in many other parts of the poem: wintry, winged, where, within, which, waken, while, woods, wear, what, etc./d/ and /s/ appears in a great deal in consonance in the poem. Besides, /z/, /, /ts/, /dz/ frequently occurs in consonance, too./d/: wild, wind, dead, red, bed, winged, cold, tangled, spread, head, feed, shed, vaulted, etc./s/: presence, pestilence, corpse, flocks, surface, fierce, locks, this, moss, sapless, voice, etc./z/: whose, leaves, hues, odors, loose, earths, boughs, angels, dreams, streams, towers, etc./: breath, earth, path, beneath, strength, both, birth, hearth./ts/: ghosts, its, faints, thoughts./dz/: multitudes, seeds, buds, clouds, woods, words.When reading the poem, it seems that the wild west wind has been with us throughout the poem.2. At the Graphological Level2.1 Capitalization At the very beginning of the poem, Shelley calls out the name of the west wind with the first letter capitalized: “West Wind”, which not only names the object he is praising but conveys that he is overwhelmed by feeling. The capitalized interjection “O” appears in every canto, totally seven times as a burst of emotion. Furthermore, “O hear” at the end of each canto perfectly composes the cohesion between cantos. “Heaven”, “Ocean,” and “Earth” are unique regions in the universe where the events happen in the poem, so the capitalization of the first letter clearly evidences this. The first letters of the place names are ordinarily capitalized: Mediterranean, Bai, and Atlantic. In addition, as for four seasons appear in the poem, we find that Autumn, Spring, and Winter are all first letter capitalized while summer is not.2.2 PunctuationOne of the characteristics of the punctuation in Ode to the West Wind is a mass of exclamation marks. For examples:“Destroyer and preserver; hear, O, hear!”“Black rain, and fire , and hail will burst : O, hear!”“So sweet, the sense faints picturing them!”“And tremble and despoil themselves: O, hear!” “Than thou, O uncontrollable!” “Oh, lift me as a wave , a leaf, a cloud!I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!” “What if my leavers are falling like its own!” “Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!” “My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!” “The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind”The mass use of exclamation marks highlights the strength of the poets feeling.Colons are also used in every canto as an important punctuation, showing that the clause is not complete yet and lines following them are supplementary contents to their former parts. Moreover, the readers attention is spontaneously attracted to the clause after.3. At the Lexical LevelTo make unreal images become more specific and vivid and ordinary words a strong attraction, the poet employs different rhetorical devices. Here, rhetorical devices typically point to simile , metaphor , personification and other artistic techniques .3.1 Simile Similes are frequently used in Ode to the West Wind. The followings are the examples. “Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,” “The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave,” “Loose clouds like earths decaying leaves are shed. Like the bright hair uplifted from the head ”In , the poet compares “the leaves dead” to “ghost”, “the west wind” to “ an enchanter” , creating a scene that the leaves are frightened away by the wind . Such description displays the power and majestic image of west wind. In , the poet compares the “winged seeds” to “corpses”, “the dark wintry” to “the grave” , giving readers a feeling of dark and dead silence which contrasts sharply with the following scene of revitalized Spring. In , the poet compares “loose clouds” to “ decaying leaves” and “the bright hair”, creating a scene of dropping clouds in chaos that indicates the coming of raining and lightning.3.2 Metaphor Metaphor is the basic rhetorical device in poetry, as well as in Ode to the West Wind. Being a figurative form of language, metaphor makes language colorful and vivid. “The locks of the approaching storm” (comparing the dropping clouds to the hair of Maenad )“I fall upon the thorns of life!” (comparing trial and tribulation in life to the thorns )“The trumpet of a prophecy!” ( comparing the west wind to the trumpet)3.3 Personification The poet personifies the west wind throughout the poem, calling it Autumns being , azure sister, Wild Sprit, Destroyer and preserver, so as to create an uninhibited , withering but helpful image of west wind before readers. In addition, the poet like using personified actions to describe lifeless objects. Here, take some typical examples : “Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion oer the dreaming earth”“Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams”3.4 Oxymoron In the last line of Canto, the poet compares the west wind to “destroyer and preserver”, which is not only a device of metaphor, but also a device of oxymoron, since “destroyer” and “preserver” are contradictory. The poet employs contrast and contradiction to interpret the west wind so as to express a profound meaning and significance of west wind before readers. In this way, the poet shows his dialectical understanding about the west wind, which makes the poem overflow with philosophy. In Canto, oxymoron is also employed in “Sweet though in sadness”. 3.5 Allusion In Canto, the poet also used allusion “Maenad” - the god of wine, comparing the loose clouds in the wind to the hair of Maenad, and suggested the demonic power of the approaching storm.4. At the Syntactic Level Different sentences have different stylistic features, and the choice of sentence type can add special significance to the article and strengthen the effect of expression, especially for poetry. 4.1 Inversion Inversion is to break normal word order of sentences in order to achieve a certain arts effects or to pursue rhythm. In Ode to the West Wind, the poet uses a mass of inversion .For example: “Who chariltest to their dark wintry bed The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low”The two lines are respectively the last line of Tercet 1 and the first line of Tercet 2 in Canto. It is an enjambment(跨行现象) and its normal word order is “who chariltest the winged seeds to their dark wintry bed where they lie cold and low”. This form of inversion can not only make the word “bed” rhymes with “red” in its first two lines but also closely link up the context. 4.2 Repetition Repetition is commonly employed in poetry in order to emphasize some feeling or create an effect. In Ode to the West Wind, the poet uses word repetition, sentence structure repetition and so on. “Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes” Here, the conjunction “and” is repeated three times to keep phonetic balance and link up terms. “If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee: A wave to pant beneath thy power , and share”Here, “If I were” is repeated twice to strengthen the tone and express the poet strong wish.4.3 Rhetorical question Rhetorical question is used to express confirmation or negative sense in question form. To emphasize ones argument, using rhetorical question is more powerful than using declarative sentence or negative sentence. “If Winter comes , can Spring be far behind?”At the end of the poem, this sentence has inspired and encouraged millions of people. The reason why this sentence has such great charisma is largely due to rhetorical question. It is said that the poet originally used exclamatory sentence: When Winter comes, Spring lags not far behind!. Later, the poet changed it into rhetorical question after thinking twice. In this way, the poem leaves a broad thinking space on readers and fully demonstrates Shellys good desire and vision for the future.5. At the Semantic LevelIn discussing the semantic content of the poem, it is necessary for us to learn the background of the poem, the ideology of the poet, the characters in the poem and the structure of the poem.5.1 The background of the poemOde to the West Wind was written in the fall of 1819, and was published a year later. Shelleys own note provided much information about the composition history behind this poem included, “This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and animating, was collecting the vapours which pour down the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions” (Letters 188). Therefore, this poem is a natural poem in which the poet describes the irresistible power of the wind.5.2 The ideology of the poetWe can divide the development of Shelleys ideology into two periods through his works, dividing by the year 1818 when Shelley left England forever and began to settle in Italy. In the former period, Shelleys ideology gradually took shape and matured, and Queen Mab is his representative work at that time. In the second period, Shelly believed firmly in democracy and individual rights and supported movements to reform government. In 1819, Englands nobility feared that working-class citizensbesieged by economic problems, including high food priceswould imitate the rebels of the French Revolution and attempt to overthrow the established order. On August 16, agitators attracted tens of thousands of people to a rally in St. Peters Field, Manchester, to urge parliamentary reform and to protest laws designed to inflate the cost of corn and wheat. Nervous public officials mismanaged the unarmed crowd and ended up killing 11 protesters and injuring more than 500 others. In reaction to this incident, Shelley wrote The Masque of Anarchy in the fall of 1819. Ode to the West Wind was also written in the fall of 1819, and was published a year later. Therefore, the composition of Ode to the West Wind also has a certain level of political significance and is regarded as one of the best works of positive romanticism.5.3The characters in the poem “I” in the poem is the poet himself, both the describer and prayer. “The West Wind” in the poem is the most significant character who exerts its powerful efforts to “the leaves”, “seeds”, “loose clouds”, “the sea-blooms and the oozy woods”, and they all responds to the wind. The poet praises the west wind on its irresistible power all through the poem, and asks it to scatter the poets words throughout the world in the end.5.4 The structure of the poem The poem can be divided into two parts: the first three cantos and the last two cantos.The first three cantos describes the winds forceful and dynamic effects upon the earth, the air, and the ocean as” destroyer and preserver”. It will destroy the old world and rebirth a new one. While the last two shows that Shelley responses directly to the wind, expressing strong desire to be as powerful as the west wind. From the surface the poet seems to praise the west wind but actually he is expressing his view of the revolution. In “Ode to the West Wind”, Percy Bysshe Shelley uses lots of images (west wind, dead leaves, clouds etc), and rhetorical devices (metaphor, personification and symbol), to express his beliefs, to inspire his soul, and to wake up people to fight.ConclusionFrom the stylistic analysis of Percy Bysshe Shelleys famous poem Ode to the West Wind, we have to marvel at Shelleys exquisite skills in composing the poem phonologically, graphologically, lexically, grammatically and semantically. The poem is politicized, and both the idealism and skepticism of Shelley as a representative romantic poet are also wonderfully reflected. Generally, the poem expresses Shelleys indomitable revolutionary spirit and his admiration for nature.Reference 1 邢亦平，傅超波. 2009(12). 英语诗歌中修辞手法的艺术效果之欣赏以西风颂为例J. 中国校外教育（基教版）.2 白云. 2010(5). 唤醒春天的号角对西风颂的文体学分析J. 科教文汇.3 陈冬平. 雪莱诗歌西风颂的语篇衔接特征研究MA. 杭州电子科技大学.4 杨晶晶. 2009(6). 细处着眼论真知对诗歌西风颂的文学文体分析J.文教资料.5 百度文库. Stylistic Analysis of Ode to the West Wind 6 百度文库. Percy Shelly Ode to the west wind解析 AppendixOde to the West WindI.O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumns being Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes:O thou Who chariltest to their dark wintry bed The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion oer the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odors plain and hill: Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, O, hear! II.Thou on whose stream, mid the steep skys commotion, Loose clouds like earths decaying leaves are shedd, Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, angels of rain and lightning:there are spread On the blue surface of thine airy surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the Zeniths height, The locks of the approaching storm.Thou dirge Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire , and hail will burst : O, hear! III.Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams Beside a pumice isle in Baiaes bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and fowers Quivering within the eaves intenser day, All overgrown with azure moss and flowers So sweet, the sense faints picturing them!Thou For whose path the Atlantics level powers Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, And tremble and despoil themselves: O, hear! IV.If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee: A wave to pant beneath thy power , and share The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even I were as in my boyhood, and could be The comrade of thy wanderigs over Heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy sk