ROMAN JAKOBSON 1896 1982

1
ROMAN JAKOBSON (1896 -1982)

• poetics and linguistics, or
• is there a science of literature?

2
Structuralism and the human sciences

• A hard, objective method to analyse cultural
  formations
• an attempt to rethink everything through once
  again in terms of linguistics
• Semiology a science which studies the role of
  signs as part of social life

3
How Structuralism changed the Humanities
4
What about Literature?

• History of dilletantish amateurism
• No rigour, no consistent method
• But if literature is higher-order language, then
  linguistics can obviously be applied!
• Structuralist narratology and poetics provide
  scientific rigour to the discipline

5
Towards a literary science

• Forget about apparent meanings, themes,
  issues and so on!
• Look for the deep structures that make meaning
  possible in the first place
• Patterns of parallelism, opposition,
  inversion, and so on define literary systems
• Complex internal relations, invisible to the
  naked eye, can be brought to the surface to
  explain how texts work.

6
dehumanization

• Literature does not express feelings, moods or
  thoughts
• Human subjects are, if anything, constructed by
  the literary systems that surround them
• Codes and functions pre-exist persons, and enable
  them to be

7
Jakobson and Formalism

• Literary art makes strange our perceptions of
  things
• Literary language draws attention to its own
  materiality
• This is how it defamiliarizes experience

8
Literary estrangement in action
so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed
with rain water beside the white chickens.
9
Jakobson and the Prague Linguistic Circle,
c.1926-1940

• Explicit adaptation of Saussure
• Abandonment of Formalisms attachment to artistic
  avant-garde and the real world of objects
• Systematicity, structures, patterns

10
Structuralism and binary oppositions

• Langue
• Synchrony
• Sign
• Signifier

• Parole
• Diachrony
• Referent
• Signified

Also how language works, accelerated to the speed
of thought
cat has no meaning in itself it means what
it does because it is not bat or hat or
can cat comes into binary opposition with
every phonetic variable in its vicinity its
difference from all of them (at once) is what
gives it meaning
11
Jakobsons model of the factors
12
the six factors and their functions
13
The two axes selection and combination
14
Poetic function defined!

• The poetic function projects the principle of
  equivalence from the axis of selection into the
  axis of combination
• similarity is superinduced upon contiguity
• Eg I like Ike, instead of I prefer
  Eisenhower (to Adlai Stevenson)
• Because /ay layk ayk/ is a paronomastic image of
  a feeling which totally envelops its object
• The secondary, poetic function of this campaign
  slogan reinforces its impressiveness and efficacy

15
Jakobson reads poems for

• The numerous variables which form a salient
  network of binary oppositions between the
  strophic units in any work of verbal art.
• That is, a mathematics of poetic form numeric
  permutations and combinations of features in and
  between units.

16
Shakespeares Sonnet 129
Th expence of Spirit in a waste of shame Is lust
in action, and till action, lust Is perjurd,
murdrous, blouddy full of blame, Savage,
extreame, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Injoyd no sooner but dispised straight, Past
reason hunted, and no sooner had Past reason
hated as a swollowed bayt, On purpose layd to
make the taker mad.
Made In pursut and in possession so, Had,
having, and in quest, to have extreame, A blisse
in proofe and provd and very wo, Before a joy
proposd behind a dreame,
All this the world well knowes yet none knowes
well, To shun the heaven that leads men to this
hell.
17
Permutations of the 4-strophe poem
18
Shakespeares Sonnet 129
Th expence of Spirit in a waste of shame Is lust
in action, and till action, lust Is perjurd,
murdrous, blouddy full of blame, Savage,
extreame, rude, cruel, not to trust,
I
Injoyd no sooner but dispised straight, Past
reason hunted, and no sooner had Past reason
hated as a swollowed bayt, On purpose layd to
make the taker mad.
II
Made In pursut and in possession so, Had,
having, and in quest, to have extreame, A blisse
in proofe and provd and very wo, Before a joy
proposd behind a dreame,
III
All this the world well knowes yet none knowes
well, To shun the heaven that leads men to this
hell.
IV
19
Sonnet 129 Odd vs. Even
Th expence of Spirit in a waste of shame Is lust
in action, and till action, lust Is perjurd,
murdrous, blouddy full of blame, Savage,
extreame, rude, cruel, not to trust,
I
Injoyd no sooner but dispised straight, Past
reason hunted, and no sooner had Past reason
hated as a swollowed bayt, On purpose layd to
make the taker mad.
II
Made In pursut and in possession so, Had,
having, and in quest, to have extreame, A blisse
in proofe and provd and very wo, Before a joy
proposd behind a dreame,
III
All this the world well knowes yet none knowes
well, To shun the heaven that leads men to this
hell.
IV
20
Sonnet 129 Odd vs. Even
Th expence of Spirit in a waste of shame Is lust
in action, and till action, lust Is perjurd,
murdrous, blouddy full of blame, Savage,
extreame, rude, cruel, not to trust,
I
Injoyd no sooner but dispised straight, Past
reason hunted, and no sooner had Past reason
hated as a swollowed bayt, On purpose layd to
make the taker mad.
II
Made In pursut and in possession so, Had,
having, and in quest, to have extreame, A blisse
in proofe and provd and very wo, Before a joy
proposd behind a dreame,
III
All this the world well knowes yet none knowes
well, To shun the heaven that leads men to this
hell.
IV
21
Sonnet 129 Outer vs. Inner
Th expence of Spirit in a waste of shame Is lust
in action, and till action, lust Is perjurd,
murdrous, blouddy full of blame, Savage,
extreame, rude, cruel, not to trust,
I
Injoyd no sooner but dispised straight, Past
reason hunted, and no sooner had Past reason
hated as a swollowed bayt, On purpose layd to
make the taker mad.
II
Made In pursut and in possession so, Had,
having, and in quest, to have extreame, A blisse
in proofe and provd and very wo, Before a joy
proposd behind a dreame,
III
All this the world well knowes yet none knowes
well, To shun the heaven that leads men to this
hell.
IV
22
Sonnet 129 Outer vs. Inner
Th expence of Spirit in a waste of shame Is lust
in action, and till action, lust Is perjurd,
murdrous, blouddy full of blame, Savage,
extreame, rude, cruel, not to trust,
I
Injoyd no sooner but dispised straight, Past
reason hunted, and no sooner had Past reason
hated as a swollowed bayt, On purpose layd to
make the taker mad.
II
Made In pursut and in possession so, Had,
having, and in quest, to have extreame, A blisse
in proofe and provd and very wo, Before a joy
proposd behind a dreame,
III
All this the world well knowes yet none knowes
well, To shun the heaven that leads men to this
hell.
IV
23
Sonnet 129 anterior vs. posterior
Th expence of Spirit in a waste of shame Is lust
in action, and till action, lust Is perjurd,
murdrous, blouddy full of blame, Savage,
extreame, rude, cruel, not to trust,
I
Injoyd no sooner but dispised straight, Past
reason hunted, and no sooner had Past reason
hated as a swollowed bayt, On purpose layd to
make the taker mad.
II
Made In pursut and in possession so, Had,
having, and in quest, to have extreame, A blisse
in proofe and provd and very wo, Before a joy
proposd behind a dreame,
III
All this the world well knowes yet none knowes
well, To shun the heaven that leads men to this
hell.
IV
24
Sonnet 129 couplet vs. quatrains
Th expence of Spirit in a waste of shame Is lust
in action, and till action, lust Is perjurd,
murdrous, blouddy full of blame, Savage,
extreame, rude, cruel, not to trust,
I
Injoyd no sooner but dispised straight, Past
reason hunted, and no sooner had Past reason
hated as a swollowed bayt, On purpose layd to
make the taker mad.
II
Made In pursut and in possession so, Had,
having, and in quest, to have extreame, A blisse
in proofe and provd and very wo, Before a joy
proposd behind a dreame,
III
All this the world well knowes yet none knowes
well, To shun the heaven that leads men to this
hell.
IV
25
Conclusion?

• An objective scrutiny of Shakespeares language
  and verbal art, with particular reference to this
  poem, reveals the cogent and mandatory unity of
  its thematic and compositional framework.
• I.e., the various parallels, oppositions and
  inversions discerned prove the formal UNITY of
  the whole form performs theme.

26
Problems

• Bracketing of history
• Speech deprived of its active and contextual
  dimension
• Elegant architecture, lifeless corpse of language
• Quantity over quality

27
Even bigger problems

• What the scientist discerns in the literary
  artefact is (arguably) as much a matter of
  interpretation as any other act of reading
• Structuralist readings find what they are looking
  for linguistic patterns
• These are not necessarily the most important
  patterns in a poem!

28
contra
John Berryman Dream Song 23 The Lay of Ike This
is the lay of Ike. Heres to the glory of the
Great Whiteawk who has been runningererthings
in recentech in the UnitedIf your screen in
black, ladies gentlemen, weI like at the
Point he was already terrificsick to a second
term, having done no wrong no rightno
righthaving let the Armybang defend itself
from Joe, let venom Strauss bile Oppenheimer out
of useuse Robb, wholl later fend for
GoldfineBreaking no laws, he lay in the White
Housesob!!
who never understood his own strategywhee so
Montys memoirsnor any strategy, wanting the
ball bulled thro all parts of the line at
onceproving, by his refusal to take Berlin, he
misread even Clauswitzwide empty grin that never
lost a vote (O Adlai mine).