Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Roman Jakobson's semiotic theory uniquely analyses poetic form. His linguistic and semiotic research covers much more than the few essays that are usually referred to. Jakobson never thought his work would be reduced to the axial model of poetic function and the formula for verbal communication. He himself would have expected that his theories and observations would be proved and developed. In this book, essays include reviews and developments of: Jakobson and metonymy, Jakobson and deictics and shifters, Formalist theory and practice, Jakobson's axial model, poetic function, poetry and parallels, investigation of a city poetic. Poetic praxis includes analysis of poems by: Blake, Wordsworth, David Jones, Mayakovsky, Sarah Wardle, Rosemary Tonks, Tony Lopez and Mary Coghill. There is also a new translation of Jakobson on Mayakovsky and Dostoyevsky. Semiotics has an important role to play in the analysis of poetry. This book provides an opportunity for semioticians to explore a semiotic analysis of poetics and for poets to explore the deep structure of their work. The book will be of particular interest to students and researchers of semiotic and linguistic theory, Creative Writing and English Literature degrees. The praxis will interest practicing poets.
Synopsis
Roman Jakobson stands alone in his semiotic theory of poetic analysis which combines semiotics, linguistics and structuralist poetics. This groundbreaking book proposes methods for developing Jakobson's theories of communication and poetic function. It provides an extensive range of examples of the kinds of Formalist praxis that have been neglected in recent years, developing them for the analysis of all poetry but, especially, the poetry of our urban future. Throughout the book the parameters of a city poetic genre are proposed and established; the book also develops the theory of the function of shifters and deixis with special reference to women as narrators. It also instantiates an experimental poetic praxis based on the work of one of Jakobson's great influences, Charles Sanders Peirce. Steadfastly adhering to the text in itself, this volume reveals the often surprising, hitherto unconsidered structural and semiotic patterns within poems as a whole.