V ol. 5, No. 6 Asian Social Science
118 Stylistic Analysis of “40-Love” Written by McGough
Meihua Xu
ashramSchool of Foreign Languages and Literature, Chongqing Normal University
Chongqing 400047, China
E-mail: meihua852032.student @
Abstract
The ae sthe tical form has always be e n stre s d in poe try. Efforts have be e n e xe rte d on the skillful combination of rhythm and structure to create numerous great works all over the world. This article tries to analyze the unique features in structure, words, phonology, syntax and rhetoric in the poem of 40-Love by British poet Roger McGough in order to have a deeper understanding of the content and form of a poem.
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Keywords: McGough, 40-Love, Love, Style
1. Introduction
It is well known that in a variety of literary genres, the form of poetry has been stresd most. Efforts have been exerted on the skillful combination of rhythm and structure to cre ate nume rous gre at works all ove r the world. Mode rn American poet E. E. Cummings (1884-1962) is a good ca in point. He is famous for odd style, novel and unique form in the poetic world. His “l (a” has been regarded as the “the most elegant and beautiful structure of the literature created by Cummings”. (Ke nne dy, 1980). The re fore, his poe ms are re nowne d as “poe m picture” or “visual poe try”, or the concre te poe try that we are quite familiar with. The fe ature s of it is that vivid visual image s of words coming from irregular syllables, letters, punctuation, syntax, format and print strengthen the internal imagination of poetry, deepen the artistic conception, convey and enrich the connotation. (Abrams, 2005). Coincidentally, besides E. E. Cummings, contemporary British poet Roger McGough (1937- ) is another master in writing concrete poems. His 40-Love can be considered as one of the greatest concrete poems.
McGough is the cond of the three in Liverpool Group. The other two are Henry Adrian Henri and Patan Brian Patten. McGough, born in 1937, 5 years younger than Henry, is always in naughty mentality. His poems are full of cular fun and display more profound life from the perspective of a c
hild. This article, from the viewpoint of stylistics, analyzes the fe ature s of structure, words, phonology, syntax and rhe toric in the poe m of “40-Love” in orde r to gain a de e pe r understanding of this poem.
2. Stylistic Analysis
Greek poet Simonides once said, “Poetry is the picture with sound while the pictures are the silent poems.” (Zhu, 2005). That is to say, the content of a poem must be combined with its form to achieve its perfection, namely, the combination of form and spirit, what we often cherish. Here we will try to find how Mcgough do it in his “40-Love”. The poem tells that a middle-aged couple is playing tennis. Then they go home. But the net is still between them. It reflects the gap between middle-aged couples. I will quote the poem here to help to explain my opinion.
40-Love (Peng, 2000)
middle aged
couple playing
ten- nis
when the
game ends
and they
go home
dorm
the net
Asian Social Science June, 2009
will still
be be –
deestween them
2.1 Structure
As a whole, the poem has a total of 20 words. But the two words “tennis” and “between” are parat
ed by hyphens to be symmetric in structure. The words in the poem are t in two quences, like two sides of the couple. The middle blank or empty is like a net to parate the two. There are only two words in each line to symbolize the bouts of the ball. The title of 40-love, the top of the net, is right on the top of the poem, signifying the scoreboard. This poem looks like a tennis court with a net being ud to parate the words. It is like a tennis game. This side rves and the other side hits back. Many bouts form the poem. The invisible net is like the barrier between the middle-aged couple. Even if they finish the tennis game, they still have the net, which still exists invisibly. However, it is this net that they can depend on to handle their marriage and have the responsibilities not to break the rules. There is a net in tennis and there are rules to obey. With the net, there are more difficulty and more interests. So, accordingly, more training and attention is a must. Imagining that, when playing tennis with no net or rules, people would feel difficult to last their games for longer period. In addition, only the letter of "L" of "Love" in the title is capitalized and the rest is de-capitalized, which shows that, to some extent, the couple has not been in the pursuit of the perfect details again, becau love between the middle-aged couple has fade d away. Furthe rmore, the re is no punctuation in the whole poe m, indicating that life of marriage is clod and uninteresting. Since there is no end, gap appears.
2.2 Words
The poet pays special attention to the words in the poem. First of all, the title “40-Love” one of interests embodied in the poem. The figure of 40 stands for the age of middle-aged people. And 40-Love is a scoring term in tennis. Tennis scoring is love, 15, 30 and 45 in quence. Love here means zero. Three goals scores 40. No goals, no score. Thus, the title is of pun with two meanings. One refers to be 40-year-old love and the other is 3:0. Whether 40-year-old love is vain or not depends on attitudes of the two parties. Let come to two words of “middle” and “aged” in the first line. “Middle-aged” means people are in their midlife. The poet deliberately parates it to achieve the reunification of form and others. It also symbolizes that middle-aged husband and wife can not be integrated again. The two important words of “tennis” and “between” are placed in two vertical columns to get a metaphorical meaning that there is an invisible net in the emotional world of the man and the woman. They are not intimate any longer. "Game" in the fifth line can be referred as either play game or sport. The scoring in tennis competition is more complex. Tennis game has games and ts. In a game, tho who win 15, 30 and 45 will get one point. And the player who gets 6 points will win one t. In the poem, the couple does not finish even one game and go home since they have a deep estrangement. “Still” in the ninth line shows that the middle-age d husband and wife have ine ffable anguish and can not ge t rid of the ir unpleasantness and gain relaxed though they make concessions as far as possible.
wow是什么2.3 Phonology
Words in the poem are basically monosyllabic. They are mechanical and boring to read and easy to suggest that the life of the couple is dull and lack of amenities. From the perspective of phonology, the short vowel such as /i/, is ud for many time s in the poe m to le ave the pre ssing impre ssion to the re ade rs to re alize the urge nt e motional crisis of the middle-aged couple. But there is slowness in the urgency. The diphthong /ei/ and /ԥu/ are employed to slow down the speech rate and demonstrate that the middle-aged people have become calm and unhurried when dealing with things. Especially, the long vowel / i: / in “tween" in the last line leaves enough time for the middle-aged couple in crisis to think over the issue. In addition, there are rhymes in the poem, such as, middle and couple, ten and when, game and they, go and home, will and still. Rhymes here give the readers boredom, and symbolize the dull life of the middle-aged couple. More ove r, the allite rations of be and be-, twe e n and the m, make the two words clo and imply that the middle-aged husband and wife still have the ties that can not be cut off although there is a gap between them.
2.4 Syntax
For the convenience of analysis, I rearrange the order of the whole poem: middle aged couple playin
g ten-nis when the game ends and they go home the net will still be be-tween them. First of all, from the angle of ten, the plain and flat prent ten, ud from the beginning to the right end of the poem, indicates the dull or prosaic marriage life of the middle-aged couple. Nevertheless, “playing” is ud unconventionally. If “plays” is ud here, readers will know that the couple play tennis often rather than occasionally. There will be not much gap between them. "Playing" indicates that there is abnce of regular communication between the husband and wife. It stress that it is just at this moment that they are playing tennis. In ntence structure, there is a time adverb “when” to combine the ntence. As usual, however, the re is no conjunction of “and” be twe e n the main clau and the subordinate clau. Thus “and” is adde d he re to de libe rate ly cre ate a loo state, sugge sting that the re is no clo contact be twe e n the husband and wife. And the re should be an adversative conjunction of “but” in front of the next ntence “the net will still be be-tween them”. As we
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V ol. 5, No. 6 Asian Social Science all know, an adversative conjunction word usually give people an unexpected, rising and falling impression. The word "but" is omitted here to inevitably imply that life of the middle-aged couple is no longer full of ups and downs, great happiness or sadness.
宣传部部长竞选演讲稿2.5 figure of speech
forth
Poets often u figure of speech becau, as Emily Dickinson once said, the mission of a poet is to "speak the truth, but to put it in an implicit way" in orde r to ize the re ade rs' inte re st and stimulate the ir imagination. In the poe m of "40-love", the poet employs the figure of speech, e.g. metaphor. On the one hand, in form, the blank along the net is like a ne t to sugge st the gap be twe e n the middle-age d couple. On the othe r hand, e ve ryday life is like playing game s. Eve rybody hit the ball to the othe rs. Such routine game re sults in no passion at last. More ove r, in my opinion, the writing te chnique of unde rstate me nt is e mploye d in this poe m. The tone of the whole poe m is calm, without any fluctuating. However, it is the deliberate understatement that disclos the theme of the poem incisively and vividly.
3. Conclusion
This poem written by McGouph with unique style has rich connotation in its unique form. In this poem with perfect combination of the spirit and form, the emotional gap of the middle-aged couple can be discerned and expresd by the stylistic techniques in the structure, words, phonology, syntax and figure of speech. In Mending Wall, a poem written by American poet Robert Frost, the nei
ghbor is intransigence and stubborn. Even at the last line of the poem, he still murmurs that "good fe nce s make good ne ighbors" (GU, 2005). Eve ry couple, the re fore, e spe cially the middle-age d couples, should pull the fence between them down, believing "good communication makes good couples”. References
Abrams, M H. (2005). A Glossary of Literary Terms. Beijing: Foreign language Teaching and Reaarch Press.
规格英语Gu, Zhengkun. (2005). Treasury of Appreciating English Poems, Volume of Poetry.
Kennedy, Richard S. (1980). Dreams in the Mirror: A Biography of EE Cummings. New York: Liveright. Peng, Yu. (2000). Two Concrete Poems. College English.
泰语翻译Zhu, Guangqian. (2005). Poetics. Shanghai Century Publishing Group.
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