CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 2.1 Brief Description of the Prose Poetry
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.1 Brief Description of the Prose Poetry
There are many books and journals write the history of the prose poetry, its characteristic, its genre, and some information about it. But, in this case, the writer has concluded some necessary idea about the prose poetry. For introduce the prose poetry, the writer chooses what OtaredHaidar (2008) says that though modern literary theorists seem to agree upon considering the prose poem as a genre in itself, working toward defining it an drawing its boundaries is still ongoing. The main difficulty comes from dual nature of this genre which is represented by its very name. In attempting to define the prose poem, a myriad of similar definitions that are only as elusive as the genre itself have produced by critics and poets.
Despite the exhaustive search for a definition, critics still give what seem more like anti-definitions in their attempts to solve the mystery of the prose poem and to establish a definition for it. These statements seem to add the ambiguity of the genre. However, these anti-definitions are widely quoted and referred to by critics to underline the difficulties and challenges of studying the prose poem and of providing methods and approaches to deal with it. In their introduction, critics who write about the prose poem struggle with terms and definitions while attempting to introduce their subject to the readers in few plain words. The most comprehensive introductory account that tackles the subject and tries to define it is provided by Suzanne Bernard in her pioneering work about the prose poem. In her massive work, she includes scores of description, all of which could help in defining the genre. Nonetheless, she also starts her book by highlighting the challenges of such an endeavour. In her introduction, she quotes and endorses Morris Chaplin’s definition: ‘A genre of which no theorist has dared to declare rules’. The other definitions in her book deal with the features and characteristic of the prose poem. In her introduction, she provided her own definition of the genre describing it as being: ‘A rebellion against all types of formal tyranny, which prevent the poet from creating a private language for himself, and force him to put the flexible substance of his phrases into ready-made moulds.’
Monte (2000) also writes in his book ‘Invisible Fences Prose Poetry as a Genre in French and American Literature’ (2-8) that the most foolproof definition of prose poetry, “poetry written in prose,” sounds uncomfortably. The next best approach throws the question “What is prose poetry?” back at the questioner—“You tell me what ‘prose’ is and what ‘poetry’ is, and I will tell you what ‘prose poetry’ is”—to make the point that the two terms that constitute “prose poetry” are themselves difficult to define unambiguously. Recalling that prose poetry is or was once an oxymoron takes us in yet another direction: “prose poetry” is an abstraction meant to question generic boundaries and accordingly resists definition. But none of these approaches helps us much in recognizing a prose poem we might come across in our literary wandering, let alone help us read one. Maybe we are starting off too abstractly. While many critics attempt to define the external and internal factors that help determine the form of the prose poem, they do so almost universally in the context of prose poetry’s revolutionary or subversive impulse. It is as if one only bothers defining the prose poem’s constraints in order to show more effectively how it violates them. I do not deny prose poetry revolutionary potential, but I am anti essentialist when it comes to questions of form or genre: the fact that a poem is written in prose does not necessarily mean it is subversive. To be sure, no one ever takes the extreme essentialist position on the matter.
2.2 Finding the Meaning
After reading some definitions of prose poetry and seeing the prose poetry that want to be analyzed also has quality as poetry, the writer has chosen L.G Alexander’s theory to be used in analyzing the prose poetry. For finding its meaning, L.G Alexander (1963) has made it specific by:
1) General Meaning
This should be expressed simply in one, or at the most two sentences. It should be based on a reading of the whole poem. Very often, but not always, a poem’s title will give you some indication of its general meaning.
2) Detailed Meaning
Detailed meaning should be given stanza by stanza, but this should not paraphrase the poem or worry about the meaning of individual words. The detailed meaning may be written as continuous paragraph, but you must take every care to be accurate and to express yourself in simple sentences. Similarly people must pay special attention to the prose style by showing how the poet begins, how he develops his theme and then how he should make some rough attempt in your reading to divide the lines into fairly self-contained groups.
3) Intention
Every poet conveys an experience or attempt to arouse certain feelings in the reader. When you have read a poem and given its general and detailed meaning, you should try to decide what feelings the poet is trying to arouse in you. A poem may affect different people in a great variety of ways and it is often impossible to define a poet’s ‘true’ intention. Your interpretation of a poet’s aims is, therefore, largely a personal matter, but at the same time it should never be far-fetched. It is, however, most important to explain what you have understood a poet’s purpose to be. Just as it is impossible to give the meaning of the poem if you have read it carefully, it is impossible to appreciate the poem if you are unable to define the poet’s intention. Finding meanings of a poem and intentions of the writer are simply the means.
2.3 Devices
L.G Alexander (1963) says that it’s hard to define exactly what a poem is and to state why it gives us pleasure. Every poem is unique and has special qualities of its own so if we want to appreciate poetry, it is necessary to learn how to recognize these ‘special qualities’ which called devices and can be found when we analyze a poem. Devices may be divided into three groups: structural, sense and sound devices. When writing an appreciation of poetry, it is not enough to be able to point out the devices. You must always explain that effect they have and how they help the poet to fulfill his attention.
2.3.1 Structural Devices
Contrast, illustration, repetition: these indicate the way a whole poem has been built and become as soon as the meaning of the poem has been found.
1) Contrast
This is one of the most common of all structures devices. It occurs when we find two completely opposite pictures side by side. Sometimes the contrast is immediately obvious and sometimes implied.
2) Illustration
This is example which usually takes the form o a vivid picture by which a poet may make an idea clear. Pictures of this sort occur in all the poems.
3) Repetition
Poets often repeat single line or whole stanzas at intervals to emphasize a particular idea. Repetition is to be found in poetry which is aiming at a special effect or when a poet wants us to pay very close attention to something.
2.3.1 Sense Devices
Sense devices divide into three: 1)
Simile This is a direct comparison and can be recognized by the use of the words like and as.
2) Metaphor
This is rather like a simile except that the comparison is not direct but implied: the words like and as are not used. The poet does not say that one object is like another; he says it is another. In the poem Lucy, Wordsworth does not say that the girl was like a violet. He writes:
A violet by mossy stone Half hidden from the eye.
Lucy, in these lines, is a violet. The metaphor vividly expresses the basic idea of the poem; it represents a girl of rare beauty who ‘lived unknown’. A violet half hidden by a stone is similarly something rare and beautiful which, for most people, ‘live unknown’.
3) Personification
This occurs when inanimate objects are given a human form, or when they are made to speak. For example, we can find personification in On his Eighty-Sixth
Birthday. The world ‘speaks’ these words:
Many have loved me desperately Many with smooth serenity While some nave shown contempt of me Till they dropped underground
By means of personification here the poet underlines the close relationship that existed between himself and the world.
2.3.1 Sound Devices
Sound devices can be considered as musical quality of a poem when it is read aloud. For analyzing sound devices, we can divide them being: 1) Alliteration : The repetition of the same sound at frequent intervals. 2) Onomatopoeia : Imitates sounds and thus suggest the object described. 3)
Rhyme : Occurs at the end of a poetic line. 4)
Assonance : The repeating of stressed vowel sound. In this thesis, the writer will analyze each detailed meaning and general meaning to find out its intention by analyzing its structural and sense devices. Yet, the writer will not analyze the sound devices since it is not the focus on this thesis.