Copenhagen, Linguistics and Poetics - Artsweb.docVIP

What do poets show and tell linguists? Michael Toolan Abstract My paper briefly reviews where Jakobson contributed to the productive conjunction of linguistics and poetics and comments on where he seemed to fail, and why. It then emphasizes the singularity of literature and reiterates (as it were) the importance of repetition in verbal art. I believe that all Jakobson’s ideas in the Closing Statement, when brutally transformationally reduced, amount to saying that repetition lies at the core of verbal art (even if it is not the only phenomenon crucial to verbal art). It is by dint of the diversity of kinds of partial repetition that are licensed in verbal art, that we accord it such an important place in our culture, deeming it a fit means for achieving depth and complexity of representation, or for seeing ‘ into the life of things’—including that deepest and most mysterious of things, human consciousness. Finally I turn briefly and with the help of a relatively simple poem by Seamus Heaney to the idea that poets continually show linguists things about language, things of which linguists themselves can easily lose sight: especially our power through language to re-think everything and anything. 1. Problems in Jakobson’s Poetics. Let me begin by saying that I am very doubtful of the possibility of reducing verbal art to scientific and rule-governed description and explanation. A different (not necessarily more modest, but arguably more realistic) humanistic goal is simply understanding: the hope that with linguistic categories and methods a different and possibly deeper understanding of the craft of literary writing may be achieved. What, finally, did Jakobson in his closing statement specify as the poetics of verbal art, that is, its defining and central feature, rule-observance, or characteristic? A focus on the message for the message’s own sake? But, insofar as this formulation can be clearly delimited, and a distinction can be made between message and code