theoryofliteratu00inwell

Style and Stylistics 179
The meaning of poetry is contextual: a word carries with it not
only its dictionary meaning but an aura of synonyms and homonyms.
Words not only have a meaning but evoke the meanings
of words related either in sound, or in sense, or in derivation—or
even words which are contrasted or excluded.
Language study thus becomes extraordinarily important for
the student of poetry. But by language study we mean, of course,
pursuits usually ignored or slighted by professional linguists.
Historical accidence or historical phonology will little concern
most students of literature. Save for the rare questions of pro-
nunciation needed in the history of meter and rhyme, the
modern student of literature will not have much use for historical
accidence or phonology, or even experimental phonetics. But he
will need linguistics of a specific kind—first of all, lexicology, the
study of meaning and its changes. If he has to have a proper
grasp of the meaning of many older words, the student of older
English poetry can scarcely manage without the OED. Even
etymology will help him if he is to understand the Latinized
vocabulary of Milton or the highly Teutonic word formations
of Hopkins.
The importance of linguistic study is not, of course, confined
to the understanding of single words or phrases. Literature is
related to all aspects of language. A work of art is, first, a system
of sounds, hence a selection from the sound-system of a given
language. Our discussion of euphony, rhythm, and meter has
shown the importance of linguistic considerations for many of
these problems. Phonemics seems indispensable for comparative
metrics and a proper analysis of sound-patterns.
For literary purposes, the phonetic level of a language can-
not, of course, be isolated from its meaning. And, on the other
hand, the structure of meaning is itself amenable to linguistic
analysis. We can write the grammar of a literary work of art or
any group of works beginning with phonology and accidence,
going on to vocabulary (barbarisms, provincialisms, archaisms,
neologisms), and rising to syntax (e.g., inversion, antithesis, and
parallelisms).
There are two points of view from which it is possible to study
the language of literature. We may use the literary work only