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Diction

A person’s diction is comprised of word choice and the grammatical structure of their sentences and phrases. For a demonstration of how the diction of a writer's language can change his or her voice, just imagine what Bart Simpson might sound like compared to Albert Einstein if they both took turns saying the same brilliant things about diction:

 

"Diction? Dude, it's all in the freak'n words you use– and how you put it together, man!"

"Diction? It is the precise selection of words and certain grammatical constructions that constitute a writer’s diction."

 

For a more serious comparison, examine the following passages (pardon the fiction in a discussion about poetry, but I like this comparison):

"The mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate them only in their effects. We know of them, among other things, that they are always to their possessor, when inordinately possessed, a source of the liveliest enjoyment." ~Edgar Allen Poe, The Murders in the Rue Morgue

"The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white. On this side there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun. Close against the side of the station there was the warm shadow of the building and a curtain, made of strings of bamboo beads, hung across the open door into the bar, to keep out flies. The American and the girl with him sat at a table in the shade, outside the building." ~Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White Elephants There is quite a difference between the diction used by these two writers:

· Poe’s prose would be characterized by an obvious sophistication (if not complexity) of vocabulary and sentence structure. Here, Poe's language is rhetorical, like a teacher giving a lecture.

· Hemingway’s narrator, on the other hand, speaks with a direct simplicity and words that mostly convey physical landscape and objects. His narrative voice shows us things, rather than telling us about ideas.

To understand and explain voice in a poem (or any other work of literature), diction is the factual evidence you will need to support that understanding or explanation. You will also want to assess tone-of-voice, which is more subjective and can be understood, to some degree, through the writer's diction. I'll discuss tone more fully on the next page.

Tone

Tone: the mood or attitude expressed by the speaker.

“The ear is the only true reader and the only true writer”

--Robert Frost (pictured to the left)

 

· Tone of voice is a lot easier to detect in verbally communicated language, with the assistance of body language, facial expressions, and the sound of a person’s voice.

· In poetry and other writing, this tone is the interpretive conclusion reached by combining an understanding of the literature’s content and its style.

· Through various clues, we should be able to decide whether the speaker is angry, sad, happy, irritated, etc.

· Part of developing as a reader is to be able to detect tone of voice with, as Frost puts it, “the ear of the imagination.”

· The other thing that should give us confidence: most of what we read in our textbook is very carefully crafted as a performance. If this is true, there should be some clues built into the poem or story to help us figure out the narrative tone-of-voice.

Something to try:

 

Read Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess," in your textbook's chapter on voice. Many students find this poem difficult because of the stilted language. It also happens to be a dramatic monologue and is therefore intended to represent the spoken words of a specific character. Maybe this makes it tricky to read as well. Either way, the voice in this work is meant to sound like a real person talking (or at least a dramatized version of someone talking). Therefore it really helps to read this poem with that character in mind. When I read "My Last Duchess," I picture a pompous, windbag, control freak who is entirely too impressed with himself. You might even picture a particular actor as you read these lines-- someone who has recently acted well in such a role. In my case, Kenneth Branagh's recent performance of Gilderoy Lockhart in the Harry Potter films (see photo on left) seemed to fit the Duke's voice in Browning's poem. Picturing Lockhart's character saying the lines helped the "ear of my imagination." The links below are from the Internet Poetry Archive. Get some practice with voice by visiting these links.

 

First, try to draw some conclusions about voice without the aid of audio. Read the poem carefully, quietly, and then aloud. Listen to the tempo of the language. Is this someone who is speaking fast or slow? Who is he or she speaking to and what is the situation? Pay attention to punctuation, word choice, and the way the sentences and lines are written. What can you make of the speaker's diction and tone? Only after doing this, listen to the author’s rendition of his or her own work (you will need to have the Quicktime audio plugin installed for the sound files to work) .

Seamus Heaney

http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/poems/heaney/personal_helicon.php (Links to an external site.)

 

Philip Levine

http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/poems/levine/they_feed_they_lion.php (Links to an external site.)

http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/poems/levine/m._degas_teaches_art_and_science_at_durfee_inte (Links to an external site.) rmediate_school--detroit1942.php  (Links to an external site.)

Margaret Walker:

http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/poems/walker/i_want_to_write.php (Links to an external site.)

· It’s interesting to consider that when a poet reads his or her work, he or she is providing an interpretation of the voice in that poem (it’s probably a pretty good one, but it’s not the only one).

· Did your interpretation of the voice differ from the poet's rendition? If so, did you miss something, or did your understanding of the poem suffer? Sometimes it can, but otherwise, your ear might have conjured up an adequate voice for the poem.

All right, now on to figurative language!

Poetry: Figurative Language

Ultimately, figurative language helps the writer and reader see the world with new eyes.

A more practical understanding is that figurative language creates meaning through association and comparison, rather than through a literal description.I like to look at figurative language as the “special effects” of good writing (this is terminology our text applies to figurative language as well-- note that the comparison also suggests something eye-opening).

 

Like special effects in film, if figurative language becomes too obvious or overused, it can detract from the effectiveness of the presentation.When used effectively, however, figurative language can deepen meaning or make descriptions more powerful (a good thing to keep in mind when trying to understand literature and when writing your own messages).

 

There are two types of figurative language that are probably most familiar:

 

1. A simile: a non-literal comparison where a connective is used (like, as, etc). You move like a rainstorm… the bird drops like a dart… The wind moves through the grass as a school of fish swims through the sea.

2. And a metaphor: from the Greek word for transference. A metaphor transfers the qualities of one thing to another, using an analogy without linking language: the guitar player’s fingers were long, agile cats, pouncing on one chord and then the next (I adapted this metaphor from a poem by Belle Waring); the jeep crawled down the rain drenched road: a green, amphibious insect.

There are other forms of figurative language that are perhaps not as obvious:

· Apostrophe: addressing a person or thing that is not literally listening: “go, lovely rose,/ tell her that wastes her time […]”

· Personification: giving human characteristics to non-human objects, animals and ideas.

 

· Pathetic fallacy: the same thing as personification, but with a negative connotation. Perhaps it’s more appropriate to use this terminology with clichéd or painfully obvious use of personification. For example: "Crying tree, o' crying tree, What have you seen…?" Here are a couple examples of personification in other mediums. For contemporary horror fans, Dracula is a personification of evil, and for Egyptian artists, the sycamore tree personified a goddess:

Finally, there are two more specific types of metaphor that you will see in our textbook. Why should you know about these? Well, it never hurts to be as specific as possible when you are describing something. It will only make you sound more knowledgeable and professional. It's also interesting to realize, through these examples, that metaphor used in everyday speech loses much of its freshness (see the note on cliches below). Here they are:

1. synecdoche:a type of metaphor where the part replaces the whole. If I asked, "do you have your wheels?" I would simply be asking if you had your car. The wheels represent the entire car in this commonly used metaphor. =

2. metonymy: replacing something with another thing that is similar or related. Stash for Cash? This uses the place you might hide money (or what you might do with it-- stash) with the money itself. The example in the text is also pretty clear: a scythe and spade can represent laborers and farmers. An emblem or something iconic, described with words, is used to stand for a group of things or something more complex. Words become metaphorical the same way that flags and logos can represent ideas, movements, etc.

Here are some examples of metaphor and simile. I’ll let you decide if they work or if they fail: METAPHORICAL LANGUAGE “…I would eat Emmerson, his transparent soul, his/ soporific transcendence./ I would eat his head,/ glazed in pepper-speckled sauce…” Li-Young Lee ,the City in Which I love You “…you can’t stop thinking about the nine:/ those few, randomly plucked from their lives,/ radiance hurtling into dark—” Ruth Schwartz, Accordion Breathing and Dancing “I can’t remember the tale,/ but hear his voice still, a well/ of dark water, a prayer.” Li-Young Lee, Rose SIMILES “Stellate lacerations extend from the cervix/ like an asterisk.” -- Belle Waring, Dark Blonde (describing a cesarean section) “Fingers long as cats.” --Belle Waring, Dark Blonde (describing the hands of a guitar player) Finally, a note on clichés:

Clichés are related to figurative language because they are so often created with familiar figurative expressions. Sometimes a cliché is an overused idiom or saying, as illustrated in the cartoon included here (this cartoon also shows how a cliché can be turned on its head for a new effect). But many times a cliché is simply a good metaphor or simile that has been used one time too many. The original was probably powerful when it was first uttered or put in print, but now its redeployment simply makes the writing seem lazy or dull. Consider these examples:

· Her love is like a rose (or any kind of flower-- the Robert Burn's poem in your text is a classic, so you better not simply lift its imagery for your own work).

· Love is blind.

· The cold is bone chilling (even this simple description has been used a few many times... we just skim over it without "feeling" the cold).

If you are still not convinced that cliches are a challenging problem for writers, this light hearted poem creates a perfect explanation of why clichés should be avoided:

 

Predictable

As poor as a churchmouse. As strong as an ox, As cute as a button, As smart as a fox, As thin as a toothpick, As white as a ghost, As fit as a fiddle, As dumb as a post, As bald as an eagle, As neat as a pin, As proud as a peacock, As ugly as sin: When people are talking you know what they'll say as soon as you hear them begin a cliché. By Bruce Lansky, (from Lighten Up) If you need a small video demonstration of a metaphor before we move on, you can check out this student made video through YouTube. Who knew a standard PB&J could stand for anything other than lunch? Well, in this case the classic sandwich becomes a metaphor for love. It's not Tim Burton, but it's still a clever example of stop motion ingenuity. Enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYPxHD0mFz8 (Links to an external site.)