Varieties of Poetic Syntax

Donald Davie shares with Fenollosa this belief that poet and grammarian are on one side opposing logicians. While poetry has been demeaned at times as nonsyntactical or ungrammatical, Fenollosa makes the point that the poet is "an ideal grammarian who has broken for good the alliance with logic" (253). Grammar seems to develop itself through a cosmic sanction occuring while writing poetry; syntax as music obeys (in the transitive sentence) a law of nature, rendering its own 'form of thought'. Many have their own mode of writing and we talk about form in class sometimes. Some people write and descide the form afterwards (while typing), some people allow the poetry to dictate its own form as it spirals out of poet onto page; most are somewhere inbetween, allowing the poem to dictate its form and be dictated upon by the poet's conscious projection as to what the poem will carry (for us). Can a poem be projected upon? -- Syntax as music -- The poet utilizes grammar to his/her advantage to make music out of structure. Symbolist theories support the grammatical inquiries of poets since grammar will parallel forms of thought and forms of thought best [a verb] parallel forms of non-mental existence -- that is, the well of poetic substance so dive deep. For me the question has always been more the forms of non-mental existence, where and how, and always through the grammatical means, the poet, grammatically perfect in cosmic sanction. To truely appreciate others is to recognize cosmic sanction in a more experiential existence, a conscious interplay with grammar.

Poetic syntax as a skeleton on which to hang, like skin and meat, the poetric elements of imagery or rhythm. Poetic syntax the frame of the poem, neutral only within poems wherein the skeleton or syntax is neither well nor ill-proportioned. Most poems deal with neutral skeletal structures or syntax in poetry versus poetic syntax. Poetic syntax is merely an extension of the poem itself manifested in Pound's Cantos which exist as invertibrates, lacking syntax though not without cause. Poetic syntax does not contribute to critical machinery , rather serves as one of the several sources of poetic pleasure (255).

THE FIVE VARIETIES OF POETIC SYNTAX:

SUBJECTIVE - Key words are "form of thought". Poetic thought. Experience. The subjective piece wants to follow the poet's experience. Through syntax this happens. In "This Lime-tree Bower my Prison" the function of the work happens in two ways. Coleridge wants to express what has been lost, however in starting a sentence with "I have lost" and continuing onward with seemingly no end, the poem shows itself amoung others that the imagination will not be lost. Connections in grammatical sense will mimic a logical link in the thinking/feeling experience of reading a poem. As a poet, the question, ?How do my connection between words affect my readers? Images will come out of images where before the logician would want all images to arise from verbs. "The true voice of feeling" found in syntax. The articulations of subjective syntax will take over in the absense of projected verse.

DRAMATIC - The distinguishing point between dramatic syntax and the prior ( objective syntax) is the origin of the form of thought, as in dramatic syntax coming from another mind other than the poet's. Dramatic syntax happens in plays though is rare due to the aptitude of the dramatic nature to be applied to the ear whereas syntax, the page. Repititions of words function as lashings of a whip "tickly Commodity, / Commodity, the bias of the world, / The world, who of itself is peised well... " (266).

OBJECTIVE - How syntax follows a form of action through the world at large, not limited to any one mind. Concerning itself more with concepts known to man which syntax can work with through changing word order like changing order of time, and rightfully though in the time of a sentence, which to Fenollosa, carries a plot. Syntax with a mimetic function to cling closely to the experience behind it. Much more wholistic than syntax like mathematics, that is more like a skeleton with no meat.

SYNTAX LIKE MUSIC- Wherein a feeling to each form in not specified. As in music, in syntax like music, a common feeling does not associate itself but rather is the presentation of the human feelings as they are born without attachment to one specific feeling. A much more spontaneously becomming child who does not grasp onto sadness, yet changes indefinately as the experience. Thus the thought is followed through the poet's mind, however not defined in syntaxical form. One part of the struggle portrayed, though towards no end. Merely to supply one part of a larger whole, not able to pin down the totality of the experience, for there is not such totality. Lines carry the music quality that tells the reader what to feel. Words a musical tones. Refered to as the figure of grammar. Implying substitution of words to create same meaning/feeling.

SYNTAX LIKE MATHEMATICS- The poem is the poem's subject and does not address the reader. The poem functions to please us only through pleasing itself. Meaningless poems since the structure of the poem is meant to be the interesting point of the poem, not anything the poet has to share besides the mechanical nature of the poem. Differs from other kinds of syntax in giving poetic pleasure. A crowded category.