|
props
and
roles
(see A10 and B10). This
enables certain individuated concepts within these domains (such as rooms or
corridors within a building) to be brought into play to further elaborate the
metaphor.
(iv) Metaphors can be
chained
, by which I mean that a source domain from one
metaphor may itself be opened up to form the target domain for possibly a whole
series of sub-metaphors. For example, a chain for the
LOVE IS A NUTRIENT
metaphor would mean taking the source domain (the nutrient concept) and mak-
ing it the target domain for a new metaphorical mapping. (It is worth paying par-
ticular attention to the idea of chaining when examining the Winterson passage.)
Working from these four guidelines, now look closely at the passage from
Written
on the Body
:
144
E X P L O R A T I O N
Misery is a vacuum. A space without air, a suffocated dead place, the abode of the miser-
able. Misery is a tenement block, rooms like battery cages, sit over your own droppings,
lie in your own filth. Misery is a no U-turns, no stopping road. Travel down it pushed
by those behind, tripped by those in front. Travel down it at furious speed though the
days are mummified in lead. It happens so fast that once you get started, there’s no
anchor from the real world to slow you down, nothing to hold on to. Misery pulls away
the brackets of life leaving you free to fall. Whatever your private hell, you’ll find millions
like it in Misery. This is the town where everyone’s nightmares come true.
(Winterson 1993: 183)
Overall, this ‘C’ section has largely resisted the temptation to try to provide
‘answers’ to the practical activities it has put forward, and this particular unit is no
different in this regard. It is however worth tying up the unit with a few informal
comments on Winterson’s technique. Almost theatrical in its style of delivery, the
passage develops a single target domain (which you will have identified by now) by
mapping it onto an almost bewildering array of source domains, and the sheer
exuberance of this style of metaphorisation suggests perhaps some sense of irony
(A12). Not only do the metaphors come thick and fast, but they begin to trip over
one another as metaphorical chains develop. Without giving too much away, notice
how the reference to the ‘tenement block’ is developed through the reference to
‘rooms’, a good example of a source domain being elaborated through one of the
concepts it embraces. However, the individuated concept itself plays a role in the
development of a new metaphor, where it becomes the target domain of a mapping
where ‘battery cages’ forms the source domain. Thus the passage develops, with a
range of stylistic devices being brought into play for the creation of a series of novel
metaphors.
The passage raises another, more theoretical issue to do with the stylistic analysis
of metaphor. One of the functions of metaphor is to alter or transform our percep-
tion of the target domain, while leaving unaltered our perception of the vehicle for
the metaphor. With respect to the Winterson text, is it really the case that our percep-
tion of the many source domains on display is left unaltered during the mapping?
Or is it more the case that our understanding of
both
target and source domains is
affected? This very issue is taken up in D11, in a reading by Peter Stockwell, which
completes this strand on metaphor and style.
11
111
11
111
E X P L O R I N G M E T A P H O R S I N D I F F E R E N T K I N D S O F T E X T S
145
SECTION D
EXTENSION
READINGS IN STYLISTICS
11
111
11
111
HOW TO USE THESE READINGS
Throughout this book, and in the Further Reading section in particular, emphasis is
put on the importance of supplementing your work in stylistics by reference to orig-
inal scholarly sources. While this principle applies to all academic study, it sometimes
happens that some advanced scholarship is not particularly accessible and its rele-
vance to the task in hand not immediately apparent. Bearing that in mind, what has
been assembled here is a broad selection of generally relevant work that has been
carried out by well-known stylisticians from around the world. The readings cover
an extremely wide array of texts, topics and issues. Some of the readings may be
more challenging than others, but not to the extent that they are opaque and inac-
cessible. Close and extensive reading will always be rewarded because:
❏
it provides you with the necessary background to the history of the discipline;
❏
it familiarises you with the key research areas;
❏
it allows you to see the sorts of methods and approaches that are used by different
stylisticians;
❏
it gives you a model for how to express yourself in appropriate academic and
scholarly language.
Wherever necessary, contextualisation to individual readings is offered in the form
of brief prefatory notes. Additionally, follow-up comments and suggestions for
further work are offered under the banner heading ‘Issues to consider’.
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
The following reading tracks two sides of a debate between Roger Fowler and F. W.
Bateson about the usefulness of stylistics as an academic activity. The debate was
played out during the 1960s in the academic journal
Essays in Criticism
and its indi-
vidual contributions were later gathered together in Roger Fowler’s collection of
essays (Fowler 1971). It was stimulated by an unfavourable review by the literary
critic Helen Vendler of another of Fowler’s books,
Essays on Style and Language
(Fowler 1966). F. W. Bateson entered the fray by adding an editorial postscript to
that review, whereupon the battle commenced with two polemical instalments each
from Fowler and Bateson. Now somewhat immortalised in stylistic folklore as the
‘Fowler–Bateson controversy’, the confrontation between these two scholars is
important because it represents the first head-on collision between stylistics, then a
fledgling discipline, and traditional literary criticism, then a well-established disci-
pline. Although the debate, genteel and vitriolic by turns, may seem antiquated by
contemporary standards, it nonetheless marks an important historical watershed in
148
E X T E N S I O N
D1
the way it establishes some basic principles of stylistics by direct engagement with
literary criticism. The Fowler–Bateson controversy arguably produced the first blue-
print for stylistics, the first manifesto for, to adopt Roger Fowler’s term, ‘the practice
of linguistic criticism’.
The languages of literature
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