Assignments for stylistic analysis

1. The extract describes despair of one of the characters because of his forthcoming marriage. Analyse the tone of the piece - whether (and in what part exactly) it is formal/ semiformal/ informal/ conversational/ casual/ sym­pathetic/ cheerful/ vigorous/ serious/ humorous/ mock-serious/ lyrical/ dra­matic/ excited/ agitated/ passionate/ impassive/ detached/ matter-of-fact/ dry/ impartial/ melancholy/ moralising/ unemotional/ pathetic/ sarcastic/ ironical/ sneering/ bitter/ reproachful, etc. Specify your consideration.

2. Explain how the exclamations and allusions (point them out) made by the protagonist in the extract, as well as his friend's words and his own judge­ment of himself, characterise him.

3. Analyse stylistic functions of other expressive means and stylistic de­vices within the extract.

4. Make a conclusion of the style and the idea disclosed in the extract.

Theoretical items for independent personal consideration

1. The problem of intertextual relations. Intertextuality and its types.

2. Intertextuality and the problem of the text comprehension.

Literature recommended

Assignments for stylistic analysis

1. Долинин К. А. Интерпретация текста (фр. яз.). - М., 1985. -р 63-99.

2. Домашнее А. И. и др. Интерпретация художественного текста (нем. яз.). - М., 1989. - С. 115-156.

3. Кухаренко В. А. Интерпретация текста. - М., 1988. - С. 79-89

4. Разинкина Н. М. Функциональная стилистика английского язы­ка. - М., 1989.-С. 98-122.

Independent personal work 7 Overall Stylistic Analysis

Item 1

A winter morning; a sombre and secluded library; leather bound unread, unreadable books lining the walls; below the windows, subdued, barely per­ceptible, like the hum of a mowing machine in summer on distant lawns, the sound of London traffic; overhead, in blue and white plaster, an elegant Adam ceiling*; a huge heap of glowing coal in the marble fireplace; a leather topped, mahogany writing-table: the pen poised indecisively above the foolscap -what more is needed to complete the picture of a leisured litterateur embark­ing upon his delicate labour?

Alas! too much. An elderly man has just entered, picked up a French novel and glanced at me resentfully. This is not my library. Nor, in the words of a French exercise, are these my pens, ink or paper. I am in my Club, in the room set aside for silence and heavy after-luncheon sleep. It is three days past the date on which I promised delivery of copy. Leisured litterateur my foot.

'Eats well, sleeps well, but the moment he sees a job of work he comes over queer.' That is my trouble, an almost fanatical aversion from pens, ink or paper.

*Adam ceiling ~ стеля у стилі Адама; на увазі неокласичний стиль англійської архітектури, названий за ім'ям архітектори Роберта Адама (1728-1792).

From Evelyn Waugh's General Conversation: Myself- 168

1. Analyse the theme and the idea disclosed in the extract.

2. Define the way of the subject matter presentation, and the notion "author" of the piece.

3. How many and what logical parts can the extract be subdivided into?

4. Characterise the tone of the extract utterances. What lexical expres­sive means help to identify it?

5. Analyse the types and functions of the syntactic expressive means and stylistic devices observed in the extract.

6. Explain what is expressed in the repetition of the following enumerat­ed objects: "pens, ink or paper" and the phrase "leisured litterateur."

7. Analyse pragmatic stylistic essence of the quotation: "Eats well, sleeps well, but the moment he sees a job of work he comes over queer." What are the other means characterising the protagonist? What image is created through them?

8. What is the compositional and pragmatic correspondence between the first and the subsequent paragraphs? Specify the stylistic essence of the rhetoric question "what more is needed to complete the picture of a lei­sured litterateur embarking upon his delicate labour?" and the elliptical answer "Alas! too much." Make a conclusion about the author's judgement of the profession of a writer.

Item 2

It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, couriers'-and-rabbits' wood limping in­visible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea. The houses are blind as moles (though moles see fine tonight in the snouting, velvet dingles) or blind as Captain Cat there in the muffled middle by the pump and the town clock, the shops in mourning, the Welfare Hall in widows' weeds. And all people of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping now.

From Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood

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