Roman Jakobson - Verbal Art, Verbal Sign, Verbal Time
29.06.2023
On now to the writings of others based on Jakobson's work. Waugh's statement that "The ambiguities result from the potentialities inherent in the partially codified contextual variants. Thus, with a minimum of means a maximum of menaings is generated" when referring to the poetic function... YESSSSSS. I REALLY LIKE THIS.
Now Melchuk's focus on Jakobsonian markedness in his chapter is making me think about the relation of markedness to social structures (e.g. gender) and phenomenology (the unmarkedness (neutrality) belonging to the third person... hm!).
28.06.2023
The painstaking analysis of all the grammatical and phonological elements in the poetry Jakobson examines is greatly solidifying within me the feeling that great writing truly does require a artistic "sense" that theory and practice may sharpen but never subsititute. One either has the feeling for what makes words flow well together, what makes them contrast against each other, or one does not.
He is really making me want to check out Mayakovsky.
The difference between "function" and usage... I get it now. Very useful (heh) distinction.
27.06.2023
His phonological and grammatical analysis of poetry is actually really fascinating. Many things I never thought of before but he is making excellent observations. So far I have read his analyses of particularly structured verse—I wonder if he ever analyzed free verse? His writing about the subconscious, not logically perceived mechanisms in poetry is making me wonder more about Kant's concept of sensus communis as applied to beauty—perhaps should read more on that after all.
Driving me insane that the anglosphere seems largely to have adapted Jakobson's concept of "adresser/adressee" in linguistic theory and not literary, especially as Jakobson himself USED THE ADRESSER/ADRESSEE CONCEPT IN HIS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE LITERARY THEORY. It's an extremely useful concept given the difference between author, adresser, and narrator and between reader and adressee. At least it gets used in Polish literary theory.
26.06.2023
THE IDEA THAT PRONOUNS PLAY SUCH A PIVOTAL ROLE IN POETRY BECAUSE OF THEIR PURELY GRAMMATICAL NATURE... OH HE IS ONTO SOMETHING. And the obsession with pronouns in my own poetry... the fact I write such "imageless" poetry as someone who thinks in images rather than words... oh this is exploding my mind. I love it.
Jakobson's commentary on Pushkin's Я вас любил... quite insightful. He does indeed make very potent commentary on the role of grammatical structure in influencing a poem even when the meaning remains the same. Appreciated his commentary on Tuwim's translation as well. Even though I no longer plan on literary translation as a career, the topic still carries quite a lot of interest for me. I might become a Pushkinhead now.
25.06.2023
His idea of dynamism in synchronity and staticism in diachronity is quite interesting, as well as his application of "shifters" such as the past tense to allowing someone to speak beyond the here and now. However I have to wonder about languages without grammatical tenses... Oh! I did appreciate also how he remarked the difference in how speech and writing interact with space and time.
24.06.2023
My first entry in my first reading journal. So far have only read the introduction. Have not really engaged directly in structuralism before, and Jakobson was quite a prominent one. I have my wariness for it of course, but its influence cannot be denied, and I do not believe it was entirely bad. I shall hope to find something of interest in Jakobson, though of course his claims to have found any universality are to me dubious. I am intersted to see what he has to say on schizophrenic use of language, as he seems to take a proper interest rather than dismissing it as incomprehensible.