Spatial semantic concepts in poetic discourse

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Taras Shevchenko National University, Ukraine

Spatial semantic concepts in poetic discourse

Natalia Pavlovna Neborsina

Doctor of science, assistant professor, Professor of English

Philology Department, Institute of Philology



Summary

poetic experience spatial semantics

Space is a universal aspect of human experience in general and poetic experience in particular. The purpose of this paper is to show how poets conceptualize space with a particular reference to the use of spatial preposition in. The main interest is in the interplay of the agent and the environment with respect to spatial orientation. The result of the research is seven semantic mental models. The article has been conceived as a contribution to the field of spatial semantics with the view of in as a form of epistemic marking.

Keywords: semantic mental models, poetic discourse, epistemic rhetoric



The idea of great distance Is permitted, even implicit in the slow dripping Of a lute.

John Ashbery Space ails us moderns: we are sick with space.

Robert Frost

Introduction

Space is a universal aspect of poetic discourse. The purpose of this paper is to show how space is conceptualised with a particular reference to the use of spatial preposition in. Spatial semantics has been a field of extensive study due to its intermediary positon between perception, conception, and language [Zlatev, 2010].

The object of this paper is spatial semantic concepts; the subject is their epistemic rhetoric in poetic discourse. The scope of spatial semantic concepts is limited due to the fact that the preposition in profiles the area containing a location between a figure and a ground.

Basic spatial semantic concepts include the following [Zlatev 2010: 326-333].

FIGURE (trajector): a person, an object, an event-static or dynamic.

PATH (the trajectory of motion): actual or imagined.

GROUND (landmark): specifies the trajectory of motion - intrinsic /imaginary.

DIRECTION (if there is no landmark): a) object-centered; b) view-point centered.

Reference to space, especially with prepositions, plays a central role in natural language and is receiving more and more attention over the past decades.

According to [Zwarts, 2017], one line of research uses formal semantic modelling (topological, geometrical concepts - regions, vectors, and paths). Another line of research has drawn attention to the role of function, force dynamics polysemy, prototypes and cross linguistic variation in this domain. The third line of interest is the synthesis, based on conceptual spaces and semantic maps.

The subject matter of this paper is conceptualization of in in terms of spatial mental models (SMM) with the view of establishing different discourse settings. As [Langacker, 2002: 56] notes, meanings are always characterized relative to domains, e. knowledge systems or conceived situation of any degree of complexity. At the same time the attention is drawn to the importance of imagery in semantic structure: the relative salience of different facets of a scene, the level of specificity at which it is characterized, the figure / ground organization imposed in it, the vantage point from which it is viewed."

The argument I am pursuing, then, following [Zlatev 2007], is that spatial mental modals are cognitive knowledge structures based on perceptual and phenomenological experience.

With reference to [Foley, 1997 and Johnson, 1987], Thiering [2014: 40] admits that as such, spatial knowledge is not only encoded in mental concepts and categories, but is emboded in the lived histories of human beings, and their cultural and linguistics practices as encoded in texts and maps. Thiering argues that it is not only language and visual perception which influence cognition, but, conversely, too, cognition influences language. The attention is called [Thiering 2014: 23] to a new trend in cognitive science which is associated with terms like embodiment, enactivism, distributed cognition and the extended mind. First, cognition depends not just on the brain but also on the body (the embodiment thesis). Second, cognitive activity exploits structure in the natural and social environment (the embedding thesis). Third, the boundaries of cognition extend beyond boundaries of individual organisms (the extension thesis). Each of these contributes to a picture of mental activity as dependent on the situation or context in which it occurs, whether that situation or context is relatively local (as in the case of embodiment) or relatively global (as in the case of embedding and extension)." It follows that a new trend in cognitive science acquires sociocultural significance.

In order to carry our analysis of the interplay between the agent and the environment with respect to spatial orientation we need a new perspective on understanding sociocultural essence of spatial conceptualization within the context of poetic discourse. This new perspective is associated with "epistemic rhetoric”.

The notion of "epistemic rhetoric” is borrowed from Barry Brummentt [Brummett, 1979] who suggests in his essay three possible meanings of "rhetoric is epistemic”: methodological: rhetoric as a discipline has no real subject matter of its own, it is only concerned with making clear the subject matter of other disciplines;

sociological: the reality is not merely discovered, it is created in rhetoric;

ontological: rhetoric as a discipline has a co-equal status with any other discipline in that it studies a dimension of all action. Brummentt is clearly right in claiming that "rhetoric as a dimension of action" follows from the argument that meaning is a dimension of reality, for meanings are created and urged upon others rhetorically” [1979: 4].

According to [Bradley 1996:33], "Epistemic rhetoric is a rhetoric that assumes and teaches that language is the basis for all human understanding of knowledge, whether foundational or antifoundational, and that effective use and understanding of language leads to the creation or discovery of knowledge, either from or for the self, or from or for the society. Effective use and understanding of epistemic rhetoric would emphasize the dialectical, as well as formalistic, nature of language and knowledge In relation to the self, society, and what is perceived to be reality."

In what follows, in is treated as a form of epistemic marking to ensure a scrupulous sociocultural understanding of SMMs. For the discussion of the epistemic rhetoric of SMMs, it seems worthwhile to adduce a short account of Heidegger's "The Origin of the Work of Art". According to Heidegger [Wood 2010:223], "the work of art, like what is merely present-at-hand has certain sensorily determinable properties. One has to distinguish between the art product and the work it does. The work of an art object, what it does, is a certain kind of affection: it works upon those whom it despises to open up a World for meaningful dwelling and to set it upon the Earth that then appears as native soul.

Setting upon the Earth is the fashioning of the sensory; opening up a World is the showing of meaning for human dwelling. Earth in Heidegger's sense is neither a chemical mass nor a location in a solar system. Earth is what rises up in sensory manifestation out of an ultimate opaqueness in the thing sensed as it also grounds sensation in the ultimate opaqueness of our bodies in our lives self-awareness. World opens up but also links us to the background of being that lies concealed behind the opening. ...ever more fundamental for our life is what is uncovered in the Artwork. In Heidegger's words, the working of the Work of Art creates so much "world-space" that in it, even the ordinary appears extraordinary" and epistemologically marked.

What has been expounded above can be considered as the elucidation of the ontological meaning of epistemic rhetoric. In order to make it operational, let us present Heidegger's point in the form of the following questions.

Are there any relevant sensorily determinable properties?

What kind of affecting do they do?

What world of meaningful dwelling do they open?

How is the fashioning of the sensory done?

What is sensorily manifested?

What do sensorily determinable properties uncover?

The questions formulated above have methodological significance since they are aimed to facilitate understanding the peculiarities of spatial mentality in poetic discourse.



Results and discussion

The empirical evidence shows that the preposition in as a means of triggering the emergence of space for individual experience that leads to opening the window upon the poet's “mind style."

The collected data that ranges from the 17^th century up to the present time, has been tagged in terms of spatial semantic concepts to avoid ambiguities.

The process of disambiguation, which consists in tagging the local content, has resulted in five prototypical SMMs. Here they are.

SMM 1. Figure (f) -- Actual Path (ap) -- Intrinsic Ground (intr.g).

I (f) go (ap) in the wood (int.g)

SMM 2. Figure (f) -- Actual Path (ap) -- Imaginary Ground (im.g)

The ravens (f) swoop down and settle (ap)

In the gorgeous pages of the gospel (im.g)

SMM 3. Figure (f) -- Imagined Path (im.p) -- Imaginary Ground (im.g)

The birds and I (f) had often shared (im.p)

In Nature's - Dining Room (im.g).

SMM 4. Figure (f) -- Imagined Path (im.p) -- Intrinsic Ground (int.g)

...my song (f) was swallowed up (im.p)

In leaves that blow away (int.g)

SMM 5. Ground (g) -- Figure (f) -- Path (p)

In his woods (g) love (f) knows (p) no wrong.

As can be observed, the ontological status of prototypical SMMs is marked by duality: the category Figure is represented by initial position vs inverted order; the category Path - by actual vs imagined; the category Ground - by intrinsic vs imaginary; the category Direction - by initial vs invert. The inverted members of the oppositions are epistemically marked. The rhetoric of Figure is the inverted order; the rhetoric of Path - the appeal to imagination; the rhetoric of Ground - imaginary transformation; the rhetoric of Direction - the view point. The rhetorical types of SMMs are encoded representations of conceptual schematization of reality - past and present.

Let us consider the following fragments of poetic discourse with in as a cognitive event.

SMM I: Figure -- Actual Path -- Intrinsic Ground.

I go in the wood alone. R. Frost

It was far in the sameness of the wood. R. Frost

...found the fresh Rhodora spreading its leafless blooms in the wood.

R. Emerson

As late I found my lukewarm blood

Chilled wading in the snow-choked wood. R. Emerson

Young men go walking in the woods. W. Stevens

I've always enjoyed being outside playing in the woods. A. Motion

The lone grey cots and pastoral steep

That shine inverted in the deeps

Of Grasmere's quiet vale. W. Wordsworth

...the spot she eventually

Found in the field. A. Motion

My candle burned alone in an immense valley. W. Stevens

The sun rises green and blue

In the field and in the heaven. W. Stevens

Just living there in the vastness. A. Motion

A tea garden shows you how

You sit in rhododendron shade

At table / On a pavilion-like lawn. A.R. Ammons

Finds consummation in the wood. W. Auden

It was Easter as I walked

In the public gardens. W. Auden

... steps that can be taken against danger

Now and in the future, in cool yards,

In quiet small houses in the country,

Our country, in fenced areas, in cool shady streets. W. Auden

The analysis show that there is an apparent contrast between 'wood', 'vale', 'field', 'public gardens', 'a pavilion-like lawn'. They are opposed not only essentially, but also 'ideationally', i.e. they stand for different life-worlds. The life experience of R. Emerson and R. Frost is closely connected with the landscape of New England. They were both under the impression of the primeval forest, which gave the experience of the verticality of space. While for W. Wordsworth and A. Motion the deepest part of their sensibilities is connected with the vastness of England's horizontal space W. Auden and Ammons point at urbanized spaces. The vertical and horizontal measure of natural space, and the casual experience of urban space (pavilion-like lawn, public gardens) might be regarded as epistemically marked, pointing to 'ideational' and cultural shifts in the mental perception of space.

SMM II: Figure -- Actual Path -- Imaginary Ground.

There are hermit souls that live withdrawn

In the place of their self-content;

There are souls like stars, that dwell apart, In a fellowless firmament. Walter Foss

You are in your far landscape,

I am in mine we met in torn design. Rosanna Warren

The relevant sensorially determinable properties in (16) are 'stars' and (17) 'far landscape'. They qualitatively measure the space manifesting the mystery by simile and hyperbolical reference to space; the metaphor 'torn design' uncovers the impossibility for a joint aspiration for Immortality.

As it turns out, the metaphor 'torn design' may symbolically represent the chasm between heaven and earth as in the following:

A wonder tortured in the space

Betwixt this world and that of grace. G. Herbert

In (19) the act of reading opens the World of meaningful dwelling which is manifested by the metaphor 'the large volumes of the skies'. Epistemically marked, it indicates an important turn from wondering and dreaming of heaven to its cognition:

My soul her wings doth spread

And heaven-ward flies, Th' Almighty's Mysteries to read

In the large volumes of the skies. W. Blake

Here the poet opens a meaningful dwelling - 'the large volumes of the skies'.

The relevant sensorily determinable property in what comes next is 'Joy' which is associated with 'the winged life' and opens the World of meaningful dwelling - 'Eternity's sunrise':

He who bends to himself a joy / Doth the winged life destroy;

But he who Kisses the Joy as it flies / Lives in Eternity's sunrise.

W. Blake

Free word combination 'Eternity's sunrise' is synonymically linked with a neutral lexeme 'dawn' in the following:

Well I know where to hie - in the dawn. R. Frost

And Others, Vaguer Presences

Are built out of the meshing of life and space

At the point where we are wholly revealed

In the lozenge-shaped openings. J. Ashbery

Sensorily manifested 'the meshing of life and space', uncovers he world of new technologies.

That fit of fire once off, our bodies shall aspire

To our souler bliss: then we shall rise

And view our selves with clearer eyes

In that calm region, where no night

Can hide us from each other sight. Henry King

In (23) the poet opens a meaningful dwelling - 'calm region'.

SMM III: Figure -- Imagined Path -- Imaginary Ground.

How grandly would our virtues bloom

In a more conscionable dust. W. Auden

The Birds and I, had often shared

In Nature's - Dining Room. E. Dickinson

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or pensive mood. W. Wordsworth

The birds have less to say for themselves

In the wood-world's torn despair. R. Frost

Now that my ladder's gone,

I must lie down where all the ladders start,

In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart. W.B. Yeats

We live in the sigh of our present. J. Ashbery

SMM IV: Figure -- Imagined Path -- Intrinsic Ground.

My song was swallowed up

In leaves that blow away. R. Frost

We found one claim to immortality

In the depth of a brook. R. Frost

The winter evening settles down.

With smell of steaks in passageways. T. S. Eliot

I can predict the change

In the direction of currents. A. Motion

SMM V: Ground -- Figure -- Path

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale

Sat grey-haired Saturn quiet as a stone. J. Keats

Ay, in the very temple of Delight

Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine.

Much favoured in my birth-place, and more less

In that beloved Vale to which, erelong,

I was transplanted. W. Wordsworth

In every babbling brook he finds a friend

Or lurk in woody sunless glens profound. W. Wordsworth

In every clime a flying ray

Is all we have to cheer over wintry way. W. Wordsworth

In my room the world is beyond my understanding. W. Stevens

In the pine wood which grows on the sand at Es Grau rumour has it there are nighteengales. A. Motion

We come from stardust; stardust's in our veins and in the microcosm of our brain. J. Aitchison

I saw a cottage in the sky. J. Ashbery

SMM VI: Figure -- Direction

He (the eagle) clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands. A., Lord Tennison

We were two figures in the wood. W. Stevens

There are some birds in the valley. W. Auden

There's a flying trickster in the wood. W. Auden

Finds consummation in the wood. W. Auden

Beauty is momentary in the mind -

The fitful tracing of a portal. W. Stevens SMM VII: Direction -- Imaginary Ground

Easy for him to find in your face

A pool of silence or a tower of grace. W. Auden

Alone with his heart at last, does the fortunate traveler find

In the vague touch of a breeze, the fickle flash of a wave, Proofs that somewhere exists, really, the Good Place. W. Auden

There is still another group of instances united by a special rhetorical power of in which consists in the creation of semantic-conceptual space based on the blending of empirical and speculative evidence.

Such stars I counted mine: both heaven Paid me my wages in a world of mirth and earth. G. Herbert

A wonder tortured in the space Betwixt this world and that of grace. G. Herbert

I heard a thousand blended notes, While in grove I sat reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind. W. Wordsworth

Shall she not find in comforts of the sun, In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else

In any bal or beauty of the earth, Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven. W. Stevens

The dimention of the epistemic rhetoric depends also on the discursiveness of syntactic arrangement:

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong

To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.

D.H. Lawrence

Here due to sensorily property of 'the insidious mastery of song' evokes emotional upsurge - 'till the heart of me weeps' and the reco llection of 'the cosy parlour'.



Conclusion

In this article I have addressed the problem of how space is being conceptualized in poetic discourse with a special reference to the preposition in. My aim was to understand what sort of knowledge in is pulling to itself. In order to do so the collected data had been processed and categorized into seven spatial mental models. The results obtained have shown that semantic-conceptual space is based on empirical and speculative evidence. The empirical evidence includes the following nominations of space: wood, vale, valley, public gardens, room. Speculative evidence of space is represented by word-combinations: the place of their self-content, the shady sadness of a vale, the large volumes of the skies, the wood-world's torn despair.

It would be worthwhile to look more closely at epistemic rhetoric as theoretical foundation for the study of sociocultural significance of poetic conceptualization of space in poetic discourse.



References

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