Metaphor and grammar in the poetic representation of nature

As in Thomas generally, this poem celebrates the power of birds as Sayers, birdsong. As transitive Actor birdsong `assembles the earth' at dawn, solves the problems of the tree, and lets `the pieces fall' (2, 3, 4). But this powerful Actor is itself a process, a nominalisation of (birds) sing. Moreover, if you sing a song, the song does not exist independent of the process in the verb sing. The poem blends this song with the sun, phonologically, of course, `by means of a song into the sun to be sung', and because the sun ends up `singing' as well (18), but also because the sun too is a powerful transitive Actor or Instigator (10): it `gathers ... instruments ... the yard ... the sound of the road ... the river ... silence of clouds ... the mind ... all trees ... bones in the ... eardrum', with this latter emphasising nature's power over humans. Notice how the human mind is co-ordinated the silence of the clouds, and all trees, suggesting an equivalence (17). It also seeks a steady state (18) -- a state that does not change over time `not quite in time', unlike the `dawn'. The gathering is done with the sun's `fingers' (8) personifying it, just as `shivering' (13) personifies the river, and `ears' (16) the trees. This latter metaphor echoes the literal `eardrum', suggesting a deliberate literalisation, confusing humans and nature. Conversely `shell' (15) referring to the skull or brain, by dis-personification, blurs the human-nature distinction in the opposite direction.

There are other nominalisations which emphasise process--`scaffolding' (11) could be the actual metal bars but it only produces sounds in the process of assembly/disassembly. `Echoes' (11) and `swerving' (12) are clear nominalisations, and less obviously `sound/s' refer to processes or the results of processes. The nominalisation `misgiving' (6), rather than emphasising process, might remove an explicit Experiencer. `Eardrum' and `misgiving' and `mind' hint at an Experiencer, but human presence is downplayed, and the trees with `their ears to the air' are just as likely the Experiencers. In any case, `misgiving' is ambiguous and might be nominalising a material process, meaning “the giving of the birdsong which is faulty because not quite in time”. So the absent Experiencer is also possibly a hidden recipient.

The only place where human consciousness is obviously present is in `the mind whispering' (14). But this inner verbal process is comparatively weak, soft and uncommunicative compared with the all-powerful creative song of the birds and the sun.

Besides the nominalisations of the form -ing we have several present participles: `shivering', `whispering', `seeking' and `singing' suggesting ongoing and repeated processes. discourse ecological metaphorical grammar

This poem uses nominalisation to emphasise the process basis, the vibrations as of instruments producing sounds, reflecting the theory of quantum mechanics. Moreover, by the use of the phrase `steady state' and the emphasis on repetition (`sung', `singing', `sung repeatedly') it may hint that this steady state can be achieved by the repetitive processes behind the dynamic equilibrium that Gaia theory celebrates.

Table 12 Song of a Stone by Alice Oswald 1. Nominalisation/Personification

We can note the familiar patterns of natural elements as a Sayer in a verbal processes (1) (17), (37) Instigator in an ergative material process (9, 11, 13, 25, 34), Actor in a nominalised noun phrases (22) (23) and use of passive/past participle with unstated Actor (6). But, most of the processes in this poem are relational, and, correlating with this is the compounding or layering of metaphors. The compounding makes identification of the literal and metaphorical problematic.

Stone (literal) is flower (metaphorical),

Flower (literal) is circle full of light (metaphorical)

Light (literal) is flood (metaphorical)

etc., etc.

This layering or compounding pattern makes literalisation so common that I have not noted it in these cases.

An alternative, and, perhaps, preferable interpretation of the poem is to regard it as phenomenalistic metaphor (Levin 1977). This occurs when, instead of interpreting local metaphors according to a familiar common-sense world, we imagine a (metaphorical) world in which the statements are literal. So, for example, in reading animal fables, when we read a sentence like `the mouse spoke to the lion', we do not interpret `spoke' as meaning “squeaked”, but we imagine a world in which mice can speak to lions.

According to this interpretation, the poem describes a series of interpenetrating processes, qualities and transitory things, where neither stones, flowers, light, floods, plains, heart, sea, conscience, man, thought, flare, heartbeat, earthquake, indeed existence itself, are permanent, but shifting aspects of fleeting perception. That many of these are impermanent processes can be detected in the nominalisations of verbs: `flood', `offthrow', `thought', `flare', `answer', `lamentation', `existence', `heartbeat', `jarring', `earthquake'. But we also note the nominalisations of adjectives: `length', `width', `heat', and `dark'.

These processes, qualities and things shift between the abstract, the animate (animal) the human, and the concrete/inanimate, which accounts for the concretisation (14) (28), personifications (1) (4) (18) (22) (23) (37), animations (5), (16), dis-personifications (29), (36), and de-animations (7), (20). Our commonsense categories are further jumbled, and our sense of fluctuating impermanence heightened by the literalisations extra to those arising from compounding (2), (3), (8), (19). The literalisation of earth and stone (2) (3), framing the beginning and end of the poem, suggest a circular repetition of processes. As in Gaia theory, the concrete/inanimate, the animate, and the human, merge into an interdependent unity of interconnected and re-emerging entities and processes. The poem suggests an ignorance on the part of man predicated on his transitoriness and his dependence on and involvement in these processes.

Summary and postscript

Though the data from just a few poems is limited, they illustrate patterns observable in the larger Thomas and Wordsworth corpus.

¦ Ergative verbs are used or created to construct nature (landscape) as possessing its own energy

¦ Experiences are activated into Actors making the experience of nature very powerful

¦ Nature is frequently a Sayer or Experience, communicating and affecting human consciousness

¦ Tokens and Existents are activated into Actors: nature does rather than is

¦ Nominalisations emphasise the process-basis of nature, and these processes become powerful Actors

¦ Passives suggest a powerful natural (or divine) force

And in addition Thomas and Oswald blur the human-nature distinction through:

¦ Personification, animation (and their reverse)

¦ Literalisation -- using metaphors triggered by the literal context

¦ Co-ordination of the human and non-human

The view of the natural world represented by these poets, reflected in their grammar and metaphors, provides a much better model for our survival than SOTW 2012. It emphasises our inclusion within nature, nature's power to act and communicate, and our need to respond to it as Experience and recognise it as process. In this latter respect, poetry and science seem in accord with each other and to resist representing nature in a common-sense way as a passive resource. We had better take note of Wordsworth, Thomas, and Oswald, the physicists and the ecologists, if we are to avoid the dire predictions of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change.

References

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3. Goatly, A. (in press) `The poems of Edward Thomas: a case study in Ecolinguistics'.

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15. Schleppegrell, Mary, J. (1996) `Abstraction and agency in middle school environmental education', in J. C. Bang, J. Door, Richard J. Alexander, Alwin Fill and Frans Verhagen (eds) Language and Ecology: proceedings of the symposium on ecolinguistics of AILA '96, Jyvaskala, Odense: Odense University Press, pp. 27--42.

16. Semino, E. (2008) Metaphor in Discourse, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

17. State of the World 2012: creating sustainable prosperity, (2012) The Worldwatch Institute. Thomas, E. (1949) Collected Poems, London: Faber and Faber.

18. Wordsworth, W. (1933/1960, first published 1805) The Prelude, Oxford University Press.

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