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THE FOUNDATIONS OF LITERARY SEMANTICS

THE FOUNDATIONS OF LITERARY SEMANTICS TREVOR EATON Essays in Criticism has recently provided a forum for discussion between F.W. Bateson and Roger Fowler.1 Bateson's view is that, for all their rigour, linguists have never succeeded in throwing critical light upon given literary passages, and that linguistics is of only limited relevance in literary criticism.2 Fowler avers that in linguistics there is no formal category literature.3 The title of the present article, which contains the phrase 'Literary Semantics', might seem to suggest that an attempt is here being made to erect a formal linguistic category of the sort Fowler is concerned to expunge. This, however, is not the aim, for my view is close to Fowler's. My underlying supposition in this paper is that no extra-linguistic principles are required to describe a literary work. Assuming, in other words, that any linguistic utterance may be satisfactorily explained in terms of a linguistic theory, I would expect that any work of literature could also be explained in terms of the same theory. The various entities presupposed by the theory might realign in different quantities and relations, but no specifically poetic component would be posited. Terms such as 'literature' and 'poetry' have obvious uses, for they succinctly http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Linguistics - An Interdisciplinary Journal of the Language Sciences de Gruyter

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Publisher
de Gruyter
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 Walter de Gruyter
ISSN
0024-3949
eISSN
1613-396X
DOI
10.1515/ling.1970.8.62.5
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

TREVOR EATON Essays in Criticism has recently provided a forum for discussion between F.W. Bateson and Roger Fowler.1 Bateson's view is that, for all their rigour, linguists have never succeeded in throwing critical light upon given literary passages, and that linguistics is of only limited relevance in literary criticism.2 Fowler avers that in linguistics there is no formal category literature.3 The title of the present article, which contains the phrase 'Literary Semantics', might seem to suggest that an attempt is here being made to erect a formal linguistic category of the sort Fowler is concerned to expunge. This, however, is not the aim, for my view is close to Fowler's. My underlying supposition in this paper is that no extra-linguistic principles are required to describe a literary work. Assuming, in other words, that any linguistic utterance may be satisfactorily explained in terms of a linguistic theory, I would expect that any work of literature could also be explained in terms of the same theory. The various entities presupposed by the theory might realign in different quantities and relations, but no specifically poetic component would be posited. Terms such as 'literature' and 'poetry' have obvious uses, for they succinctly

Journal

Linguistics - An Interdisciplinary Journal of the Language Sciencesde Gruyter

Published: Jan 1, 1970

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