my mothers [ ]3 tukes are
IK
And thn tnnric of the ptitrW de\ devoured of this music's
vaging glamour. \
2. A conjectural reading; the word is not clearly 3. An undecipherable word is crossed out here. legible.
.
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY AND AFTER / A73
fares, 1977, provides a reception history and
contemporary reviews. Jeffares's A Ne w Com
mentary on the Poems of W. B. Yeats, rev. ed.
1984, and A Commentary on the Plays ofW. B. Yeats, 1975, are indispensable references. Also valuable are Sa m McCready's A William Butler Yeats Encyclopedia, 1997, and Lester I. Conner's A Yeats Dictionary, 1998.
In the vast body of Yeats criticism, some important studies are Richard Ellmann's Yeats: The Man and the Masks, 1948, and The Identity of Yeats, 2n d ed. 1964; Thoma s Parkinson's
W. B. Yeats, Self-Critic: A Study of his Early Verse, 1951, rpt. 1971 with The Later Poetry and a new foreword; Frank Kermode's Romantic Image, 1957; Jon Stallworthy's Between the Lines: W. B. Yeats's Poetry in the Making, 1963; Helen Vendler's Yeats's Vision and Later Plays, 1963; Thomas R. Whitaker's Swan and Shadow: Yeats's Dialogue with History, 1964; Harold Bloom's Yeats, 1970; Bornstein's Yeats and Shelley, 1970; Donoghue's William Butler Yeats, 1971; Mary Helen Thuente's W. B. Yeats and Irish Folklore, 1981; Elizabeth Butler Cullingford's Yeats, Ireland and Fascism, 1981; Loizeaux's Yeats and the Visual Arts, 1986; Paul Scott Stanfield's Yeats and Politics in the 1930s, 1988; Finneran's Editing Yeats's Poems, 1990; Stan Smith's W. B. Yeats: A Critical Introduction, 1990; Jahan Ramazani's Yeats and the Poetr)' of Death: Elegy, Self-Elegy, and the Sublime, 1990; Hazard Adams's The Book of Yeats's Poems, 1991; Michael North's The Political Aesthetic of Yeats, Eliot, and Pound, 1991; Cullingford's Gender and History in Yeats's Love Poetry, 1993; M . L. Rosenthal's Running to Paradise: Yeats's Poetic Art, 1994; Maijorie Howes's Yeats's Natiotis: Gender, Class, and Irishness, 1996; Michael J. Sidnell's Yeats's Poetry and Poetics, 1996; Vicki Mahaffey's States of Desire: Wilde, Yeats, Joyce, and the Irish Experiment, 1998; Bornstein's Material Modernism: The Politics of the Page, 2001; Gregory Castle's Modernism and the Celtic Revival, 2001; and Richard Greaves's Transition, Reception, and Modernism in W. B. Yeats, 2002. Collections of essays include William Butler Yeats, ed. Bloom, 1986; Yeats's Political Identities, ed. Jonathan Allison, 1996; and W. B. Yeats: Critical Assessments, ed. David Pierce, 2000. Man y essays
have appeared annually in the journals Yeats and Yeats Annual.
.
Literary Terminology*
Using simple technical terms can sharpen our understanding and streamline our discussion of literary works. Som e terms, such as the ones in Sections A, B, and C of this appendix, help us address the internal style, form, and structure of works. Other terms, such as those in Section D, provide insight into the material forms in which literary works have been produced.
In analyzing what they called "rhetoric," ancient Greek and Boman writers determined the elements of what we call "style" and "structure." Ou r literary terms are derived, via medieval and Benaissance intermediaries, from the Greek and Latin sources. In the definitions that follow, the etymology, or root, of the word is given when it helps illuminate the word's current usage.
Most of the examples are drawn from texts in this anthology. Words boldfaced within definitions are themselves defined in this appendix. Some terms are defined within definitions; such words are italicized.
A. Style In literary works the manner in which something is expressed contributes substantially to its meaning. The manner of a literary work is its "style," the effect of which is its "tone." We often can intuit the tone of a text; the following terms offer a set of concepts by which we can analyze the stylistic features that produce the tone. The groups within this section move from the micro to the macro level internal to works.
(i) Diction "Diction," or "lexis" (from, respectively, Latin "dictio" and Greek "lexis," each meaning "word"), designates the actual words used in any utterance�speech, writing, and, for our purposes here, literary works. The choice of words contributes significantly to the style of a given work.
Connotation: To understand connotation, we need to understand denotation. While many words can denote the same concept�that is, have the same basic meaning�those words can evoke different associations, or connotations. Contrast, for example, the clinical-sounding term "depression" and the more colorful, musical, even poetic phrase "the blues."
Denotation: A word has a basic, "prosaic" (factual) meaning prior to the associations it connotes (see connotation). Th e word "steed," for example, might call to mind a horse fitted with battle gear, to be ridden by a warrior, but its denotation is simply "horse."
* This appendix was devised and compiled by James Simpson with the collaboration of all the editors. A74
.
LITERARY TERMINOLOGY / A75
Lexical set: Words that habitually recur together (e.g., January, February, March, etc.; or red, white, and blue) form a lexical set.
Register: The register of a word is its stylistic level, which can be distinguished by degree of technicality but also by degree of formality. We choose our words from different registers according to context, that is, audience and/ or environment. Thu s a chemist in a laboratory will say "sodium chloride," a cook in a kitchen "salt." A formal register designates the kind of language used in polite society (e.g., "Mr. President"), while an informal or colloquial register is used in less formal or more relaxed social situations (e.g., "the boss"). In classical and medieval rhetoric, these registers of formality were called high style and low style. A middle style was defined as the style fit for narrative, not drawing attention to itself.
(ii) Rhetorical Figures: Figures of Speech Literary language often employs patterns perceptihle to the eye and/or to the ear. Such patterns are called "figures of speech"; in classical rhetoric they were called "schemes" (from Greek "schema," meaning "form, figure").
Alliteration (from Latin "litera," alphabetic letter): the repetition of an initial consonant sound or consonant cluster in consecutive or closely positioned words. This pattern is often an inseparable part of the meter in Germanic languages, where the tonic, or accented syllable, is usually the first syllable. Thus all Old English poetry and some varieties of Middle English poetry use alliteration as part of their basic metrical practice. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, line 1: "Sithen the sege and the assaut was sesed at Troye" (see vol. 1, p. 161). Otherwise used for local effects; Stevie Smith, "Pretty," lines 4�5: "And in the pretty pool the pike stalks / He stalks his prey . . ." (see vol. 2, p. 2377).
Anaphor a (Greek "carrying back"): the repetition of words or groups of words at the beginning of consecutive sentences, clauses, or phrases. Blake, "London," lines 5�8: "In every cry of every Man, / In every Infant's cry of fear, / In every voice, in every ban . . ." (see vol. 2, p. 94); Louise Bennett, "Jamaica Oman," lines 17�20: "Some backa man a push, some side-a / Ma n a hole him han, / Some a lick sense eena him head, / Some a guide him pon him plan!" (see vol. 2, p. 2473). Assonance (Latin "sounding to"): the repetition of identical or near identical stressed vowel sounds in words whose final consonants differ, producing half-rhyme. Tennyson, "The Lady of Shalott," line 100: "His broad clear brow in sunlight glowed" (see vol. 2, p. 1116). Chiasmu s (Greek "crosswise"): the inversion of an already established sequence. This can involve verbal echoes: Pope, "Eloisa to Abelard," line 104, "The crime was common, common be the pain" (see vol. 1, p. 2535); or it can be purely a matter of syntactic inversion: Pope, Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, line 8: "They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide" (see vol. 1, p. 2549). Consonanc e (Latin "sounding with"): the repetition of final consonants in words or stressed syllables whose vowel sounds are different. Herbert, "Easter," line 13: "Consort, both heart and lute . . ." (see vol. 1, p. 1608).