The stylistic analysis of the Shelley’s song «To the Men of England» will be better understood with the help of the following table:
| Example | Commentary |
| «Men of England, wherefore plough For the lords who lay ye low?» | Here is the imperfect rhyme in the first stanza. These first two lines are meant to be an appeal, expressed through a syntactical stylistic device of rhetorical question. |
| «Wherefore weave with toil and care, The rich robes your tyrants wear?» | Here is the incomplete compound rhyme, which can only be perceived in reading aloud, since the pronunciation of «care» and «wear» are quite similar: [keə] and [weə]. There is also a case of alliteration – werefore, weave, with; rich robes. Here it aims at imparting a melodical effect to the stanza, thus making it sound agitative. |
| «Wherefore feed, and clothe, and save From the cradle to the grave…» «Have ye leisure, comfort, calm, Shelter, food, love’s gentle balm?» «Weave robes, – let no idler wear; Forge arms, – in your defence to bear.» «Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells; In halls ye deck, another dwells.» | Here are the cases of the full or identical rhyme. The rhyming scheme is couplet (aa bb). Throughout the whole poem there are only several cases of different kinds of incomplete rhymes and the full rhymes are prevailing. Using rhymes, the author reinforces the meaning he wishes to convey and gives a tone and pace of the poem, making it sound agitating, worrying and sometimes even looming. |
| «The seed ye sow, another reaps; The wealth ye find, another keeps;… «Sow seed – but let no tyrant reap; Find wealth, – let no impostor heap;…» | The ideas, expressed in these lines from fourth and sixth stanzas are expressed through a syntactical stylistic device of parallel constructions, forming a kind of antithesis. Although this stylistic device is syntactical, it also produces a strong phonetic effect, making these lines sound imperative. |
| «With plough and spade, and hoe and loom, Trace your grave, and build your tomb, And weave your winding-sheet, till fair England be your sepulchre.» | The lines of the last stanza bear cases of compound rhyme, which can only be perceived in oratory speech. The last words of each line are pronounced quite similar: [lu:m] – [tu:m], [feə] – ['sep(ə) lkə]. This stanza with its broken rhymes presents a kind of sinister warning. |
| «Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see The steel ye tempered glance on ye.» «The robesye weave, another wears; The arms ye forge, another bears.» | One must note that the use of archaic form of pronounce «ye» adds to a solemn atmosphere created by the use of phonetic stylistic devices and some syntactical stylistic devices and heightens the emotional appeal of the poem. In the seventh stanza «ye» and «see» also produce a full rhyme. |
Having analyzed the song «To the Men of England», it can be said that he possesses a great mastery, expressing it through the use of the phonetic stylistic devices and expressive means. Through his strikingly beautiful prose and poetry he conveys a message of hope and aspiration, though he has been criticized for his obscure symbolism and arrogance.
In this song Shelley pays special attention to rhymes, especially to full or perfect rhymes, and also to alliteration. With the help of alliteration he makes his stanzas sound imperative and also gives them a colouring of bitter irony. The rhyming scheme of the poem is couplet, which is the most melodical one. [9]
All phonetic expressive means, used by Shelley in the poem, were introduced with the help of syntactical stylistic devices and graphical means.
There are imperfect compound rhymes in the two first stanzas and in the last one. These compound or broken rhymes produce an effect of sinister warning.
There is no cases of direct or indirect onomatopoeia in the poem, but the choice of sounds, especially of consonants [w], [r], [s] makes the poem sound loom and sinister and on the same time quite melodically, so it is even called song.
Throughout the poem the archaic form of the pronoun «ye» was used. The use of this archaic form makes the atmosphere of the poem more solemn and also produces a certain melodical effect, since the sound [i] repeats quite often throughout it.
The results of the investigation of the poem can be seen in Supplement №2.
Conclusion
So, the poem «To the Men of England» was investigated from the point of view of the most widely used expressive means and stylistic devices, with the help of the works of different linguists and phoneticians, both Russian and foreign. After this investigation the following summaries can be made:
- Among all the stylistic devices and expressive means, the phonetic ones are the most powerful, because they can produce any emotional effect that an author wishes, they can add solemnity or severity to an utterance or make it imperative, loom or worrying, or, on the contrary, gentle and pleasant.
- Phonetic expressive means, such as intonation, stresses, pitch of the voice or speech tempo and tamber are mainly introduced in oratory speech or while reading aloud and they are considered to be changeable ones. That’s why in writing one can come across only phonetic stylistic devices. Phonetic expressive means are introduced in writing with the help of syntactical stylistic devices of different repetitions, rhetorical questions, parallel constructions and so on, and also with the help of graphical means of exclamation and question marks, commas, dashes and points. That’s why sometimes authors introduce their own, authors’ punctuation, aiming at emphasizing the thoughts or points they want the reader to pay special attention to or to think about.
- Speaking about Shelley’ works, their mastery through the use of the phonetic stylistic devices can not be denied. Through his strikingly beautiful prose and poetry he conveys a message of hope and aspiration, though he has been criticized for his obscure symbolism and arrogance.
- In the song «To the Men of England» Shelley pays special attention to rhymes, especially to full or perfect rhymes, and also to alliteration. With the help of alliteration he makes his stanzas sound imperative and also gives them a colouring of bitter irony. The rhyming scheme of the poem is couplet, which is the most melodical one. [9]
- There are imperfect compound rhymes in the two first stanzas and in the last one. These compound or broken rhymes produce an effect of sinister warning.
- There is no cases of direct or indirect onomatopoeia in the poem, but the choice of sounds, especially of consonants [w], [r], [s] makes the poem sound loom and sinister and on the same time quite melodically, so it is even called song.
- Throughout the poem the archaic form of the pronoun «ye» was used. The use of this archaic form makes the atmosphere of the poem more solemn and also produces a certain melodical effect, since the sound [i] repeats quite often throughout it.
So, it is obvious that the sound of most words taken separately will have little or no aesthetic value. It is in combination with other words that a word may acquire a desired phonetic effect. The way a separate word sounds may produce a certain euphonic effect, but this is a matter of individual perception and feeling and therefore subjective. Thus the theory of sense – independence of separate sounds is based on a subjective interpretation of sound associations and has nothing to do with objective scientific data. However, the sound of a word, or more exactly the way words sound in combination, can not fail to contribute something to the general effect of the message, particularly when the sound effect has been deliberately worked out. This can easily be recognized when analyzing alliterative word combinations or the rhymes in certain stanzas or from more elaborate analysis of sound arrangement and from this work it is clear that the works by Percy Bysshe Shelley can be a very good example of it.
Although the importance and significance of the stylistic phonetics is obvious, still there is no clear definition of it, may be because of the extensiveness of the studied subjects and their ambiguousness. Professor Seymour Chatman introduces the term «phonostylistics» and defines it as a subject the purpose of which is «the study of the ways in which an author elects to constrain the phonology of the language beyond the normal requirements of the phonetic system. "[8] As can be inferred from this quotation, phonetic expressive means and particularly phonetic stylistic devices are not deviations from «the normal requirements of the phonetic system» but a way of actualizing the typical in the given text. [8]
Because of the ambiguousness of the subjects of stylistic phonetics, some authors prefer even not to enumerate phonetic stylistic devices, considering them quite similar and interdependent, for example I. Arnold. She states that on all levels, especially on the phonetic one, all expressive means and stylistic devices are united by the cohesion. She defined cohesion as «similar elements in ‘similar position that make text coherent. This phenomenon may occur on different levels – phonetic, structural or semantic.» [1] Her concept is very interesting and really unconventional, but this work was made following the more generally accepted concepts of I.R. Galperin. The use of his concepts of stylistics and the idea of stylistic phonetics allowed making a thorough analysis of the Shelley’s song «To the Men of England» and understanding on its examples the ways of imparting a piece of work a strong emotional effect with the help of the sound features. It is necessary for the points of stylistic phonetics to be investigated further.
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