Language in literature. Edited by Krystyna Pomorska and Stephen Rudy

by Roman Jakobson

"Roman Jakobson was one of the great minds of the modern world," Edward J. Brown has written, "and the effects of his genius have been felt in many linguistics, semiotics, art, structural anthropology, and, of course, literature." At every stage in his odyssey from Moscow to Prague to Denmark and then to the United States, he formed collaborative efforts that changed the very nature of each discipline he touched. This book is the first comprehensive presentation in English of Jakobson's major essays on the intertwining of language and here the reader will learn how it was that Jakobson became legendary.Jakobson reveals himself as one of the great explorers of literary art in our day--a critic who revealed the avant-garde thrust of even the most worked-over poets, such as Shakespeare and Pushkin, and enabled the reader to see them as the innovators they were. Jakobsontakes the reader from literature to grammar and then back again, letting points of structural detail throw a sharp light on the underlying form and linking thereby the most disparate realms into a coherent whole. In his essays we can also learn to appreciate his search for a fully systematic, nonmetaphysical understanding of the workings of Jakobson made possible a deep structural analysis that did not exist before.Among the essential items in this collection are such classics as "Linguistics and Poetics" and "On a Generation That Squandered Its Poets" and illuminations of Baudelaire, Yeats, Turgenev, Pasternak, and Blake, as well as the famous pieces on Shakespeare and Pushkin. The essays include fundamental theoretical statements, structural analyses of individual poems, explorations of the connections between poetry and experience, and semiotic perspectives on the structure of verbal and nonverbal art. This will become a basic book for contemplating the function of language in literature--a project that will continue to engross the keenest readers.

Genres: Linguistics, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Literature, Language, Literary Criticism, Theory

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Roman Osipovich Jakobson was a Russian linguist, formalist, and literary theorist.

As a pioneer of the structural analysis of language, which became the dominant trend of twentieth-century linguistics, Jakobson was among the most influential linguists of the century. Influenced by the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, Jakobson developed, with Nikolai Trubetzkoy, techniques for the analysis of sound systems in languages, inaugurating the discipline of phonology. He went on to apply the same techniques of analysis to syntax and morphology, and controversially proposed that they be extended to semantics (the study of meaning in language). He made numerous contributions to Slavic linguistics, most notably two studies of Russian case and an analysis of the categories of the Russian verb. Drawing on insights from Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotics, as well as from communication theory and cybernetics, he proposed methods for the investigation of poetry, music, the visual arts, and cinema.

Through his decisive influence on Claude Lévi-Strauss and Roland Barthes, among others, Jakobson became a pivotal figure in the adaptation of structural analysis to disciplines beyond linguistics, including anthropology and literary theory; this generalization of Saussurean methods, known as "structuralism," became a major post-war intellectual movement in Europe and the United States. Meanwhile, though the influence of structuralism declined during the 1970s, Jakobson's work has continued to receive attention in linguistic anthropology, especially through the semiotics of culture developed by his former student Michael Silverstein.

Reviews

[James Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roman Jakobson views poetics as a part of linguistics. The functions of language are several, including: referential in the sense of cognitive or denotative purpose; emotive as expressive of the speaker's attitude; conative in the imperative sense; phatic as dialogue is used to prolong communication; metalingual as foundational for and outside discourse; and, poetic by focusing on the message for its own sake. In Jakobson's view one can say that the meaning collapses into the form. The mental image (or direction of your interest, mind-set) toward the message as such, focuses on the message for its own sake and this is the poetic function of language. Samuel R. Delany makes a similar argument in an essay in his collection, The Jewel-Hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction.
“Roman Jakobson was one of the great minds of the modern world,” Edward J. Brown has written, “and the effects of his genius have been felt in many fields: linguistics, semiotics, art, structural anthropology, and, of course, literature.” This book is a comprehensive presentation in English of Jakobson’s major essays on the intertwining of language and literature.
Jakobson reveals himself as a critic who revealed the avant-garde thrust of even the most worked-over poets, such as Shakespeare and Pushkin, and enabled the reader to see them as the innovators they were. Jakobson takes the reader from literature to grammar and then back again, letting points of structural detail throw a sharp light on the underlying form and linking thereby the most disparate realms into a coherent whole. In his essays he also demonstrates a search for a fully systematic, nonmetaphysical understanding of the workings of literature: Jakobson made possible a deep structural analysis that did not exist before.
Among the essential items in this collection are such classics as “Linguistics and Poetics” and “On a Generation That Squandered Its Poets” and illuminations of Baudelaire, Yeats, Turgenev, Pasternak, and Blake, as well as pieces on Shakespeare and Pushkin. The essays include fundamental theoretical statements, structural analyses of individual poems, explorations of the connections between poetry and experience, and semiotic perspectives on the structure of verbal and nonverbal art. This is a basic book for contemplating the function of language in literature and it is an important contribution to poetics and literary theory.

[Andrew]

I'm not entirely sure what to make of this. Jakobson's approach is clearly an important step, but the idea of a highly mathematized approach to semantics leaves me cold. I'm glad this kind of analysis exists, even if I don't necessarily agree with its premises, but it's not something I feel I'm going to spend any more time reading. Especially considering how much of Jakobson's deep exercises are based on the sonorities of Russian writers I haven't read, even in English translation.

[I. Mahmood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jakobson writes in a way that is easy to follow and understand. In this book, Jakobson presents an argument that helped me broaden my view of linguistic as well as poetic functions. It also provided me with a better understanding of the not-so-popular theoretical paradigm of "structuralism" in relation to semiotics.

[Maria Thomarey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Και λιγο στα αγγλικά . Η επανάληψη μήτηρ πάσας μαθησεως

[Illiterate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jakobson is more formalist than structuralist: he describes patterns but doesn’t suggest they explain content. I thus find him more insightful (if at times dull) than idiotic.

[Lu Tsun · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not poetry critic, but I am very convinced by Jakobson's notion of 'poetic function' in relation to linguistics and phonology. It is useful in analyzing Hebrew poetry in the Bible.

[Onur · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read: 'Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances," pp 96-114.