Гальперин И. Р. Стилистика английского языка

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Parallel Construction

Parallel construction is a device which may be encountered not so much in the sentence as in the macro-structures dealt with earlier, viz. the SPU and the paragraph. The necessary condition in parallel construction is identical, or similar, syntactical structure in two or more sentences or parts of a sentence in close succession, as in:

"There were, ..., real silver spoons to stir the tea with, and real china cups to drink it out of, and plates of the same to hold the cakes and toast in." (Dickens)

Parallel constructions are often backed up by repetition of words (lexical repetition) and conjunctions and prepositions (polysyndeton). Pure parallel construction, however, does not depend on any other kind of repetition but the repetition of the syntactical design of the sentence. Parallel constructions may be partial or complete. Partial parallel arrangement is the repetition of some parts of successive sentences or clauses, as in:

"It is the mob that labour in your fields and serve in your houses – that man your navy and recruit your army, – that have enabled you to defy all the world, and can also defy you when neglect and calamity have driven them to despair." (Byron)

The attributive clauses here all begin with the subordinate conjunction that which is followed by a verb in the same form, except the last (have enabled). The verbs, however, are followed either by adverbial modifiers of place (in your fields, in your houses) or by direct objects (your navy, your army). The third attributive clause is not built on the pattern of the first two, although it preserves the parallel structure in general (that+verb-predicate+object), while the fourth has broken away entirely.

Complete parallel arrangement, also called balance, maintains the principle of identical structures throughout the corresponding sentences, as in:

"The seeds ye sow – another reaps,

The robes ye weave – another wears,

The arms ye forge – another bears."

(P. B. Shelley)

Parallel construction is most frequently used in enumeration, antithesis and in climax, thus consolidating the general effect achieved by these stylistic devices.

Parallel construction is used in different styles of writing with slightly different functions. When used in the matter-of-fact styles, it carries, in the main, the idea of semantic equality of the parts, as inscientific prose, where the logical principle of arranging ideas predominates. In the belles-lettres style parallel construction carries an emotive function. That is why it is mainly used as a technical means in building up other stylistic devices, thus securing their unity.

In the following example parallelism backs up repetition, alliteration and antithesis, making the whole sentence almost epigrammatic.

"And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,

And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot." (Shakespeare)

In the example below, parallel construction backs up the rhetorical address and rhetorical questions. The emotional aspect is also enforced by the interjection 'Heaven!'

"Hear me, my mother Earth! behold it, Heaven! –

Have I not had to wrestle with my lot?

Have I not suffered things to be forgiven?

Have I not had my brain seared, my heart riven,

Hopes sapped, name blighted, Life's life lied away?" (Byron)

In some cases parallelism emphasizes the similarity and equates the significance of the parts, as, for example:

"Our senses perceive no extremes. Too much sound deafens us; too much light dazzles us; too great distance or proximity hinders our view."

In other cases parallel construction emphasizes diversity and contrast of ideas. (See the example on p. 223 from the "Tale of Two Cities" by Dickens).

As a final remark it must be stated that the device of parallelism always generates rhythm, inasmuch as similar syntactical structures repeat in close succession. Hence it is natural that parallel construction should very frequently be used in poetical structures. Alternation of similar units being the basic principle of verse, similarity in longer units – i. e. in the stanza, is to be expected.

Chiasmus (Reversed Parallel Construction)

Chiasmиs belongs to the group of stуlistic dеvices based on the repetition of a syntactical pattern, but it has a cross order of words аnd phrases. The structure of two successive sentences or parts of a sentence may be described as reversed parallel construction, the word-order of one of the sentences being inverted as compared with that of the other, as in:

"As high as we have mounted in delight

In our dejection do we sink as low." (Wordsworth)

"Down dropped the breeze,

The sails dropped down." (Coleridge)

Chiasmus is sometimes achieved by a sudden change from active voice to passive or vice versa, for example:

"The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. (Dickens)

This device is effective in that it helps to lay stress on the second part of the utterance, which is opposite in structure, as 'in our dejection'; 'Scrooge signed it'. This is due to the sudden change in the structure which by its very unexpectedness linguistically requires a slight pause before it.

As is seen from the examples above, chiasmus can appear only when there are two successive sentences or coordinate parts of a sentence. So distribution, here close succession, is the factor which predetermines the birth of the device.

There are different variants of the structural design of chiasmus. The first example given shows chiasmus appearing in a complex sentence where the second part has an opposite arrangement. The second example demonstrates chiasmus in a sentence expressing semantically the relation of cause and effect. Structurally, however, the two parts are presented as independent sentences, and it is the chiasmatic structure which supports the idea of subordination. The third example is composed of two independent sentences and the chiasmus serves to increase the effect of climax. Here is another example of chiasmus where two parallel constructions' are followed by a reversed parallel construction linked to the former by the conjunction and:

"The night winds sigh, the breakers roar,

And shrieks the wild sea-mew." (Byron)

It must be remembered that chiasmus is a syntactical, not a lexical device, i. e. it is only the arrangement of the parts of the utterance which constitutes this stylistic device. In the famous epigram by Byron:

"In the days of old men made the manners;

Manners now make men,"

there is no inversion, but a lexical device. Both parts of the parallel construction have the same, the normal word-order. However, the witty arrangement of the words has given the utterance an epigrammatic character. This device may be classed as lexical chiasmus or chiasmatic repetition. Byron particularly favoured it. Here are some other examples:

“His jokes were sermons, and his sermons jokes.”

“’Tis strange, – but true; for truth is always strange”

“But Tom's no more – and so no more of Tom.”

“True, ‘tis a pity – pity ‘tis, ‘tis true.”

“Men are the sport of circumstances, when

The circumstances seem the sport of men.”

“’Tis a pity though, in this sublime world that

Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure.”

Note the difference in meaning of the repeated words on which the epigrammatic effect rests: 'strange – strange;' 'no more – no more', 'jokes – jokes.'

Syntactical chiasmus is sometimes used to break the monotony of parallel constructions. But whatever the purpose of chiasmus, it will always bring in some new shade of meaning or additional emphasis on some portion of the second part.

The stylistic effect of this construction has been so far little investigated. But even casual observation will show that chiasmus should be perceived as a complete unit. One cannot help noticing that the first part in chiasmus is somewhat incomplete, it calls for continuation, and the anticipation is rewarded by the second part of the construction, which is, as it were, the completion of the idea.

Like parallel construction, chiasmus contributes to the rhythmical quality of the utterance, and the pause caused by the change in the syntactical pattern may be likened to a caesura in prosody.

'As can be seen from this short analysis of chiasmus, it has developed, like all stylistic devices, within the framework of the literary form of the language. However, its prototype may be found in the norms of expressions of the spoken language, as in the emphatic:

'He was a brave man, was John.'

Repetition

It has already been pointed out that repetition is an expressive means of language used when the speaker is under the stress of strong emotion. It shows the state of mind of the speaker, as in the following passage from Galsworthy:

"Stop!" – she cried, "Don't tell me! I don't want to hear;

I don't want to hear what you've come for. I don't want to hear."

The repetition of 'I don't want to hear', is not a stylistic device; it is a means by which the excited state of mind of the speaker is shown. This state of mind always manifests itself through intonation, which is suggested here by the words 'she cried'. In the written language, before direct speech is introduced one can always find words indicating the intonation, as sobbed, shrieked, passionately, etc. J. Vandryes writes:

"Repetition is also one of the devices having its origin in the emotive language. Repetition when applied to the logical language becomes simply an instrument of grammar. Its origin, is to be seen in the excitement accompanying the expression of a feeling being brought to its highest tension."¹

When used as a stylistic device, repetition acquires quite different functions. It does not aim at making a direct emotional impact. On the contrary, the stylistic device of repetition aims at logical emphasis, an emphasis necessary to fix the attention of the reader on the key-word of the utterance. For example:

"For that was it! Ignorant of the long and stealthy march of passion, and of the state to which it had reduced Fleur; ignorant of how Soames had watched her, ignorant of Fleur's reckless desperation... – ignorant of all this, everybody felt aggrieved." (Galsworthy)

Repetition is classified according to compositional patterns. If the repeated word (or phrase) comes at the beginning of two or more consecutive sentences, clauses or phrases, we have anaphora, as in the example above. If the repeated unit is placed at the end of consecutive sentences, clauses or phrases, we have the type of repetition called epiphora, as in:

"I am exactly the man to be placed in a superior position in such a case as that. I am above the rest of mankind, in such a case as that. I can act with philosophy in such a case as that. (Dickens)

Here the repetition has a slightly different function: it becomes a background against which the statements preceding the repeated unit are made to stand out more conspicuously. This may be called the background function. It must be observed, however, that the logical function of the repetition, to give emphasis, does not fade when it assumes the background function. This is an additional function. Repetition may also be arranged in the form of a frame: the initial parts of a syntactical unit, in most cases of a paragraph, are repeated at the end of it, as in:

"Poor doll's dressmaker! How often so dragged down by hands that should have raised her up; how often so misdirected when losing her way on the eternal road and asking guidance. Poor, little doll's dressmaker". (Dickens)

This compositional pattern of repetition is called framing. The semantic nuances of different compositional structures of repetition have been little looked into. But even a superficial examination will show that framing, for example, makes the whole utterance more compact and more complete. Framing is most effective in singling out paragraphs.

Among other compositional models of repetition is linking or reduplication (also known as anadiplosis). The structure of this device is the following: the last word or phrase of one part of an utterance is repeated at the beginning of the next part, thus hooking the two parts together. The writer, instead of moving on, seems to double back on his tracks and pick up his last word.

"Freeman and slave... carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes." (Marx, Engels)

Any repetition of a unit of language will inevitably cause some slight modification of meaning, a modification suggested by a noticeable change in the intonation with which the repeated word is pronounced.

Sometimes a writer may use the linking device several times in one utterance, for example:

"A smile would come into Mr. Pickwick's face: the smile extended into a laugh: the laugh into a roar, and the roar became general." (Dickens)

or:

"For glances beget ogles, ogles sighs, sighs wishes, wishes words, and words a letter." (Byron)

This compositional pattern of repetition is also called chain-repetition.

What are the most obvious stylistic functions of repetition? The first, the primary one, is to intensify the utterance. Intensification is the direct outcome of the use of the expressive means employed in ordinary intercourse; but when used in other compositional patterns, the immediate emotional charge is greatly suppressed and is replaced by a purely aesthetic aim, as in the following example:

THE ROVER

A weary lot is thine, fair maid,

A weary lot is thine!

To pull the thorn thy brow to braid,

And press the rue for wine.

A lightsome eye, a soldier's mien

A feather of the blue,

A doublet of the Lincoln green –

No more of me you knew

My Love!

No more of me you knew. (Walter Scott)

The repetition of the whole line in its full form requires interpretation. Superlinear analysis based on associations aroused by the sense of the whole poem suggests that this repetition expresses the regret of the Rover for his Love's unhappy lot. Compare also the repetition in the line of Thomas Moore's:

"Those evening bells! Those evening bells!"

Meditation, sadness, reminiscence and other psychological and emotional states of mind are suggested by the repetition of the phrase with the intensifier 'those'.

The distributional model of repetition, the aim of which is intensification, is simple: it is immediate succession of the parts repeated. Repetition may also stress monotony of action, it may suggest fatigue, or despair, or hopelessness, or doom, as in:

"What has my life been? Fag and grind, fag and grind. Turn the wheel, turn the wheel." (Dickens)

Here the rhythm of the repeated parts makes the monotony and hopelessness of the speaker's life still more keenly felt.

This function of repetition is to be observed in Thomas Hood's poem "The Song of the Shirt" where different forms of repetition are employed.

"Work – work – work!

Till the brain begins to swim!

Work – work – work

Till the eyes are heavy and dim!

Seam, and gusset, and band,

Band, and gusset and seam, –

Till over the buttons I fall asleep,

And sew them on in a dream."

Of course, the main idea, that of long and exhausting work, is expressed by lexical means: work 'till the brain begins to swim' and 'the eyes are heavy and dim', till, finally, 'I fall asleep.' But the repetition here strongly enforces this idea and, moreover, brings in additional nuances of meaning.

In grammars it is pointed out that the repetition of words connected by the conjunction and will express reiteration or frequentative action. For example:

"Fledgeby knocked and rang, and Fledgeby rang and knocked, but no one came."

There are phrases containing repetition which have become lexical units of the English language, as on and on, over and over, again and again and others. They all express repetition or continuity of the action, as in:

"He played the tune over and over again."

Sometimes this shade of meaning is backed up by meaningful words, as in:

I sat desperately, working and working.

They talked and talked all night.

The telephone rang and rang but no one answered.

The idea of continuity is expressed here not only by the repetition but also by modifiers such as 'all night'.

Background repetition, which we have already pointed out, is sometimes used to stress the ordinarily unstressed elements of the utterance. Here is a good example:

"I am attached to you. But I can't consent and won't consent and I never did consent and I never will consent to be lost in you." (Dickens)

The emphatic element in this utterance is not the repeated word 'consent' but the modal words 'can't', 'won't', 'will', and also the emphatic 'did'. Thus the repetition here loses its main function and only serves as a means by which other elements are made to stand out clearly. It is worthy of note that in this sentence very strong stress falls on the modal verbs and 'did' but not on the repeated 'consent' as is usually the case with the stylistic device.

Like many stylistic devices, repetition is polyfunctional. The functions enumerated do not cover all its varieties. One of those already mentioned, the rhythmical function, must not be under-estimated when studying the effects produced by repetition. Most of the examples given above give rhythm to the utterance. In fact, any repetition enhances the rhythmical aspect of the utterance.

There is a variety of repetition which we shall call "root-repetition", as in:

"To live again in the youth of the young." (Galsworthy)

or,

"He loves a dodge for its own sake; being... – the dodgerest of all the dodgers." (Dickens)

or,

"Schemmer, Karl Schemmer, was a brute, a brutish brute." (London)

In root-repetition it is not the same words that are repeated but the same root. Consequently we are faced with different words having different meanings (youth: young; brutish: brute), but the shades of meaning are perfectly clear.

Another variety of repetition may be called synonymical repetition. This is the repetition of the same idea by using synonymous words and phrases which by adding a slightly different nuance of meaning intensify the impact of the utterance, as in.

"...are there not capital punishments sufficient in your statutes? Is there not blood enough upon your penal code?" (Byron)

Here the meaning of the words 'capital punishments' and 'statutes' is repeated in the next sentence by the contextual synonyms 'blood' and 'penal code'.

Here is another example from Keats' sonnet "The Grasshopper and the Cricket."

"The poetry of earth is never dead...

The poetry of earth is ceasing never..."

There are two terms frequently used to show the negative attitude of the critic to all kinds of synonymical repetitions. These are pleonasm and taиtology. The Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines pleonasm as "the use of more words in a sentence than are necessary to express the meaning; redundancy of expression." Tautology is defined as "the repetition of the same statement; the repetition (especially in the immediate context) of the same word or phrase or of the same idea or statement in other words; usually as a fault of style."

Here are two examples generally given as illustrations:

"It was a clear starry night, and not a cloud was to be seen."

"He was the only survivor; no one else was saved."

It is not necessary to distinguish between these two terms, the distinction being very fine. Any repetition may be found faulty if it is not motivated by the aesthetic purport of the writer. On the other hand, any seemingly unnecessary repetition of words or of ideas expressed in different words may be justified by the aim of the communication.

For example, "The daylight is fading, the sun is setting, and night is coming on" as given in a textbook of English composition is regarded as tautological, whereas the same sentence may serve as an artistic example depicting the approach of night.

A certain Russian literary critic has wittily called pleonasm "stylistic elephantiasis," a disease in which the expression of the idea swells up and loses its force. Pleonasm may also be called "the art of wordy silence."

Both pleonasm and tautology may be acceptable in oratory inasmuch as they help the audience to grasp the meaning of the utterance. In this case, however, the repetition of ideas is not considered a fault although it may have no aesthetic function.

Enumeration

Enumeratiоп is a stylistic device by which separate things, objects, phenomena, properties, actions are named one by one so that they produce a chain, the links of which, being syntactically in the same position (homogeneous parts of speech), are forced to display some kind of semantic homogeneity, remote though it may seem.

Most of our notions are associated with other notions due to some kind of relation between them: dependence, cause and result, likeness, dissimilarity, sequence, experience (personal and/or social), proximity, etc.

In fact, it is the associations plus social experience that have resulted in the formation of what is known as "semantic fields." Enumeration, as an SD, may be conventionally called a sporadic semantic field, inasmuch as many cases of enumeration have no continuous existence in "their manifestation as semantic fields do. The grouping of sometimes absolutely heterogeneous notions occurs only in isolated instances to meet some peculiar purport of the writer.

Let us examine the following cases of enumeration:

"There Harold gazes on a work divine,

A blending of all beauties; streams and dells,

Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain, vine

And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells

From grey but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells." (Byron)

There is hardly anything in this enumeration that could be regarded as making some extra impact on the reader. Each word is closely associated semantically with the following and preceding words in the enumeration and the effect is what the reader associates with natural scenery. The utterance is perfectly coherent and there is no halt in the natural flow of the communication. In other words, there is nothing specially to arrest the reader's attention; no effort is required to decipher the message: it yields itself easily to immediate perception.

That is not the case in the following passage:

"Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend and his sole mourner." (Dickens)

The enumeration here is heterogeneous; the legal terms placed in a string with such words as 'friend' and 'mourner' result in a kind of clash, a thing typical of any stylistic device. Here there is a clash between terminological vocabulary and common neutral words. In addition there is a clash of concepts: 'friend'- and 'mourner' by force of enumeration are equal in significance to the business office of 'executor', 'administrator', etc. and also to that of 'legatee'.

Enumeration is frequently used as a device to depict scenery through a tourist's eyes, as in Galsworthy's "To Let":

"Fleur's wisdom in refusing to write to him was profound, for he reached each new place entirely without hope or fever, and could concentrate immediate attention on the donkeys and tumbling bells, the priests, patios, beggars, children, crowing cocks, sombreros, cactus-hedges, old high white villages, goats, olive-trees, greening plains, singing birds in tiny cages, watersellers, sunsets, melons, mules, great churches, pictures, and swimming grey-brown mountains of a fascinating land."

The enumeration here is worth analysing. The various elements of this enumeration can be approximately grouped in semantic fields:

1. 
   donkeys, mules, crowing cocks, goats, singing birds;
   
2. 
   priests, beggars, children, watersellers;
   
3. 
   villages, patios, cactus-hedges, churches, tumbling bells, sombreros, pictures;
   
4. 
   sunsets, swimming grey-brown mountains, greening plains, olive-trees, melons.
   

Galsworthy found it necessary to arrange them not according to logical semantic centres, but in some other order; in one which, apparently, would suggest the rapidly changing impressions of a tourist. Enumeration of this kind assumes a stylistic function and may therefore be regarded as a stylistic device, inasmuch as the objects in the enumeration are not distributed in logical order and therefore become striking.

This heterogeneous enumeration gives one an insight into the mind of the observer, into his love of the exotic, into the great variety of miscellaneous objects which caught his eye, it gives an idea of the progress of his travels and the most striking features of the land of Spain as seen by one who is in love with the country. The parts of the enumeration may be likened to the strokes of a painter's brush who by an inimitable choice of colours presents to our eyes an unforgettable image of the life and scenery of Spain. The passage itself can be likened to a picture drawn for you while you wait.

Here is another example of heterogeneous enumeration:

"The principal production of these towns... appear to be soldiers, sailors, Jews, chalk, shrimps, officers and dock-yard men." (Dickens, "Pickwick Papers")

Suspense

Suspense is a compositional device which consists in arranging the matter of a communication in such a way that the less important, descriptive, subordinate parts are amassed at the beginning, the main idea being withheld till the end of the sentence. Thus the reader's attention is held and his interest kept up, for example:

"Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw." (Charles Lamb)

Sentences of this type are called periodic sentences, or periods. Their function is to create suspense, to keep the reader in a state of uncertainty and expectation.

Here is a good example of the piling up of details so as to create a state of suspense in the listeners:

"But suppose it¹passed; suppose one of these men, as I have seen them, – meagre with famine, sullen with despair, careless of a life which your Lordships are perhaps about to value at something less than the price of a stocking-frame: – suppose this man surrounded by the children for whom he is unable to procure bread at the hazard of his existence, about to be torn for ever from a family which he lately supported in peaceful industry, and which it is not his fault that he can no longer so support; – suppose this man, and there are ten thousand such from whom you may select your victims, dragged into court, to be tried for this new offence, by this new law; still there are two things wanting to convict and condemn him; and these are, in my opinion, – twelve butchers for a jury, and a Jeffreys for a judge!" (Byron)

Here the subject of the subordinate clause of concession ('one of these men') is repeated twice ('this man', 'this man'), each time followed by a number of subordinate parts, before the predicate ('dragged') is reached. All this is drawn together in the principal clause ('there are two things wanting...'), which was expected and prepared for by the logically incomplete preceding statements. But the suspense is not yet broken: what these two things are, is still withheld until the orator comes to the words 'and these are, in my opinion.'

Suspense and climax sometimes go together. In this case all the information contained in the series of statement-clauses preceding the solution-statement are arranged in the order of gradation, as in the example above from Byron's maiden speech in the House of Lords.

The device of suspense is especially favoured by orators. This is apparently due to the strong influence of intonation which helps to create the desired atmosphere of expectation and emotional tension which goes with it.

_________
¹ A proposed law permitting the death penalty for breaking machines (at the time of the Luddite movement).

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Suspense always requires long stretches of speech or writing. Sometimes the whole of a poem is built on this stylistic device, as is the case with Kipling's poem "If" where all the eight stanzas consist of if-clauses and only the last two lines constitute the principal clause.

"If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you

And make allowance for their doubting too,

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

If you can dream and not make dreams your master,

If you can think and not make thoughts your aim,

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Yours is the earth and everything that's in it,...

And which is more, you'll be a Man, my son."

This device is effective in more than one way, but the main purpose is to prepare the reader for the only logical conclusion of the utterance. It is a psychological effect that is aimed at in particular.

A series of parallel question-sentences containing subordinate parts is another structural pattern based on the principle of suspense, for the answer is withheld for a time, as in Byron's "The Bride of Abydos":

"Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle...

Know ye the land of the cedar and vine...

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

'Tis the clime of the East – 'tis the land of the Sun."

The end of an utterance is a specially emphatic part of it. Therefore if we keep the secret of a communication until we reach the end, it will lead to concentration of the reader's or listener's attention, and this is the effect sought.

One more example to show how suspense can be maintained:

"Proud of his "Hear him!" proud, too, of his vote,

And lost virginity of oratory,

Proud of his learning (just enough to quote)

He revell'd in his Ciceronian glory." (Byron)

It must be noted that suspense, due to its partly psychological nature (it arouses a feeling of expectation), is framed in one sentence, for there must not be any break in the intonation pattern. Separate sentences would violate the principle of constant emotional tension which is characteristic of this device.

Climax (Gradation)

Climax is an arrangement, of sentences (or of the homogeneous parts of one sentence) which secures a gradual increase in significance, importance, or emotional tension in the utterance, as in:

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"It was a lovely city, a beautiful city, a fair city, a veritable gem of a city."

or in:

"Ne barrier wall, ne river deep and wide,

Ne horrid crags, nor mountains dark and tall

Rise like the rocks that part Hispania's land from Gaul." (Byron)

Gradual increase in emotional evaluation in the first illustration and in significance in the second is realized by the distribution of the corresponding lexical items. Each successive unit is perceived as stronger than the preceding one. Of course, there are no objective linguistic criteria to estimate the degree of importance or significance of each constituent. It is only the formal homogeneity of these component parts and the test of synonymy in the words 'lovely', 'beautiful', 'fair,' 'veritable gem' in the first example and the relative inaccessibility of the barriers 'wall', 'river', 'crags', 'mountains' together with the epithets 'deep and wide', 'horrid', 'dark and tall' that make us feel the increase in importance of each.

A gradual increase in significance may be maintained in three ways: logical, emotional and quantitative.

Lоgiсal сlimax is based on the relative importance of the component parts looked at from the point of view of the concepts embodied in them. This relative importance may be evaluated both objectively and subjectively, the author's attitude towards the objects or phenomena in question being disclosed. Thus, the following paragraph from Dickens's "Christmas Carol" shows the relative importance in the author's mind of the things and phenomena described:

"Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, 'My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?' No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him, and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails, as though they said, 'No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!'"

The order of the statements shows what the author considers the culmination of the climax. The passage by Dickens should be considered "subjective", because there is no general recognition of the relative significance of the statements in the paragraph. The climax in the lines from Byron's "Ne barrier..." may be considered "objective" because such things as 'wall', 'river', 'crags', 'mountains' are objectively ranked according to their accessibility.

Emotional сlimax is based on the relative emotional tension produced by words with emotive meaning, as in the first example with the words 'lovely', ‘beautiful’, 'fair'.

Of course, emotional climax based on synonymous strings of words with emotive meaning will inevitably cause certain semantic differences

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in these words – such is the linguistic nature of stylistic synonyms – , but emotive meaning will be the prevailing one.

Emotional climax is mainly found in sentences, more rarely in longer syntactical units. This is natural. Emotional charge cannot hold long.

As becomes obvious from the analysis of the above examples of climatic order, the arrangement of the component parts calls for parallel construction which, being a kind of syntactical repetition, is frequently accompanied, by lexical repetition. Here is another example of emotional climax built on this pattern:

"He was pleased when the child began to adventure across floors on hand and knees; he was gratified, when she managed the trick of balancing herself on two legs; he was delighted when she first said 'ta-ta'; and he was rejoiced when she recognized him and smiled at him." (Alan Paton)

Finally, we come to quantitative сlimax. This is an evident increase in the volume of the corresponding concepts, as in:

"They looked at hundreds of houses; they climbed thousands of stairs; they inspected innumerable kitchens." (Maugham)

Here the climax is achieved by simple numerical increase. In the following example climax is materialized by setting side by side concepts of measure and time:

"Little by little, bit by bit, and day by day, and year by year the baron got the worst of some disputed question." (Dickens)

What then are the indispensable constituents of climax? They are:

a) the distributional constituent: close proximity of the component parts arranged in increasing order of importance or significance;

b) the syntactical pattern: parallel constructions with possible lexical repetition;

c) the connotative constituent: the explanatory context which helps the reader to grasp the gradation, as no... ever once in all his life, nobody ever, nobody, No beggars (Dickens); deep and wide, horrid, dark and tall (Byron); veritable (gem of a city).

Climax, like many other stylistic devices, is a means by which the author discloses his world outlook, his evaluation of objective facts andphenomena. The concrete stylistic function of this device is to snow the relative importance of things as seen by the author (especially in emotional climax), or to impress upon the reader the significance of the things described by suggested comparison, or to depict phenomena dynamically.¹

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¹ Note: There is a device which is called anticlimax.

The ideas expressed may be arranged in ascending order of significance, or they may be poetical or elevated, but the final one, which the reader expects to be the culminating one, as in climax, is trifling or farcical. There is a sudden drop from the lofty or serious to the ridiculous. A typical example is Aesop's fable "The Mountain in Labour."

"In days of yore, a mighty rumbling was heard in a Mountain. It was said to be in labour, and multitudes flocked together, from far and near, to see what

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Antithesis

In order to characterize a thing or phenomenon from a specific point of view, it may be necessary not to find points of resemblance or association between it and some other thing or phenomenon, but to find points of sharp contrast, that is, to set one against the other, for example:

"A saint abroad, and a devil at home." (Bunyan)

"Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven." (Milton)

A line of demarcation must be drawn between logical opposition and stylistic opposition. Any opposition will be based on the contrasting features of two objects. These contrasting features are represented in pairs of words which we call antonyms, provided that all the properties of the two objects in question may be set one against another, as 'saint' – 'devil', 'reign' – 'serve', 'hell' – 'heaven'.

Many word-combinations are built up by means of contrasting pairs, as up and down, inside and out, from top to bottom and the like.

Stylistic opposition, which is given a special name, the term antithesis, is of a different linguistic nature: it is based on relative opposition which arises out of the context through the expansion of objectively contrasting pairs, as in:

"Youth is lovely, age is lonely,

Youth is fiery, age is frosty;" (Longfellow)

Here the objectively contrasted pair is 'youth' and 'age'. 'Lovely' and 'lonely' cannot be regarded as objectively opposite concepts, but being drawn into the scheme contrasting 'youth' and 'age', they display certain features which may be counted as antonymical. This is strengthened also by the next line where not only 'youth' and 'age' but also 'fiery' and 'frosty' are objective antonyms.

It is not only the semantic aspect which explains the linguistic nature of antithesis, the structural pattern also plays an important role. Antithesis is generally moulded in parallel construction. The antagonistic features of the two objects or phenomena are more easily perceived when they stand out in similar structures. This is particularly advantageous when the antagonistic features are not inherent in the objects in question but imposed on them. The structural design of antithesis is so important

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it would produce. After long expectation and many wise conjectures from the bystanders – out popped, a Mouse!"

Here we have deliberate anticlimax, which is a recognized form of humour. Anticlimax is frequently used by humorists like Mark Twain and Jerome К. Jerome.

In "Three Men in a Boat", for example, a poetical passage is invariably followed by ludicrous scene. For example, the author expands on the beauties of the sunset on the river and concludes:

"But we didn't sail into the world of golden sunset: we went slap into that old punt where the gentlemen were fishing."

Another example is:

"This war-like speech, received with many a cheer,

Had filled them with desire of fame, and beer!' (Byron)

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that unless it is conspicuously marked in the utterance, the effect might be lost.

It must be remembered, however, that so strong is the impact of the various stylistic devices, that they draw into their orbit stylistic elements not specified as integral parts of the device. As we have pointed out, this is often the case with the epithet. The same concerns antithesis. Sometimes it is difficult to single out the elements which distinguish it from logical opposition.

Thus in Dickens's "A Tale of Two Cities" the first paragraph is practically built on opposing pairs.

"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, if 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 are all going direct the other way..." (Dickens)

The structural pattern of the utterance, the pairs of objective antonyms as well as of those on which antonymical meanings are imposed by the force of analogy makes the whole paragraph stylistically significant, and the general device which makes it so is antithesis.

This device is often signalled by the introductory connective but, as in:

"The cold in clime are cold in blood

Their love can scarce deserve the name;

But mine was like a lava flood.

That boils in Etna's breast of flame." (Byron)

When but is used as a signal of antithesis, the other structural signal, the parallel arrangement, may not be evident. It may be unnecessary, as in the example above.

Antithesis is a device bordering between stylistics and logic. The extremes are easily discernible but most of the cases are intermediate. However, it is essential to distinguish between antithesis and what is termed contrast. Contrast is a literary (not a linguistic) device based on logical opposition between the phenomena set one against another. Here is a good example of contrast.

THE RIVER

"The river – with the sunlight flashing from its dancing wavelets, gilding gold the grey-green beech-trunks, glinting through the dark, cool wood paths, chasing shadows o'er the shallows, flinging diamonds from the mill-wheels, throwing kisses to the lilies, wantoning with the weir's white waters, silvering moss-grown walls and bridges, brightening every tiny townlet, making sweet each lane and meadow, lying tangled in the rushes, peeping, laughing, from each inlet, gleaming gay on many a far sail, making soft the air with glory – is a golden fairy stream.

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But the river – chill and weary, with the ceaseless rain drops falling on its brown and sluggish waters, with the sound as of a woman, weeping low in some dark chamber, while the woods all dark and silent, shrouded in their mists of vapour, stand like ghosts upon the margin, silent ghosts with eyes reproachful like the ghosts of evil actions, like the ghosts of friends neglected – is a spirit-haunted water through the land of vain regrets." (Jerome K. Jerome)

The two paragraphs are made into one long span of thought by the signal But and the repetition of the word river after which in both cases a pause is indicated by a dash which suggests a different intonation pattern of the word river. The opposing members of the contrast are the 'sunlight flashing' – 'ceaseless rain drops falling'; 'gilding gold the grey-green beech-trunks, glinting through the dark, cool wood paths' – 'the woods, all dark and silent, shrouded in their mists of vapour, stand like ghosts...'; 'golden fairy stream' – 'spirit-haunted water'.

Still there are several things lacking to show a clear case of a stylistic device, viz. the words involved in the opposition do not display any additional nuance of meaning caused by being opposed one to another; there are no true parallel constructions except, perhaps, the general pattern of the two paragraphs, with all the descriptive parts placed between the grammatical subject and predicate, the two predicates serving as a kind of summing up, thus completing the contrast.

'The river... is a golden fairy stream.' – 'But the river ... is a spirit-haunted water through the land of vain regrets.' The contrast embodied in these two paragraphs is, however, akin to the stylistic device of antithesis.

Antithesis has the following basic functions: rhythm-forming (because of the parallel arrangement on which it is founded); copulative; dissevering; comparative. These functions often go together and intermingle in their own peculiar manner. But as a rule antithesis displays one of the functions more clearly than the others. This particular function will then be the leading one in the given utterance. An interesting example of antithesis where the comparative function is predominant is the madrigal ascribed to Shakespeare:

A MADRIGAL

"Crabbed age and youth

Cannot live together:

Youth is full of pleasance,

Age is full of care;

Youth like summer morn,

Age like winter weather,

Youth like summer brave,

Age like winter bare:

Youth is full of sport,

Age's breath is short,

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Youth is nimble, Age is lame:

Youth is hot and bold,

Age is weak and cold,

Youth is wild, and Age is tame: –

Age, I do abhore thee,

Youth, I do adore thee;

О my Love, my Love is young!

Age, I do defy thee –

О sweet shepherd, hie thee.

For methinks thou stay'st too long.