It was simple to define poetry hundred years ago: a poem had to contain a measure, rhythm and rhymes. Nowadays, none of them is indispensable any more. So, what is poetry? In my opinion, poetry is primarily qualified by a concentrated language. I feel certain that there is a relationship between the German words “Dichte” (concentration, denseness) and “Dichter” (poet, writer). In a poem, every single word should be essential, no word random, nothing to delete or to add. There is only one literary genre where this tightness of language is almost as important – the short story. Sean O’Faolain wrote poems in his youth, and then he switched to short stories. It seems to me that he did not consider himself talented enough as a poet to publish his verses (maybe partly because of the experience he describes in his autobiography “Vive moi!” – as a student, he was laughed at for his naïve poem about Mother Ireland’s teeming navel), but still felt a desire to write poetry. Interestingly, the twenty-four years old hero of “How to write a short story” with whom the author seems to identify, had rested from writing poetry and was trying to write short stories. The short story is a genre that has a long tradition in Ireland and many Irish masters, but that is surely not the only reason why O’Faolain wrote mainly short stories. He must have felt the close relationship between them and verses. He wrote prose, but smuggled poetry into it. O’Faolain either placed his own poems into his stories (a few times, for example, in “Hymenial”), or quoted other poets there (far more frequently), or he made whole passages of his prose sound remarkably poetic – and this he did in almost every story. To analyze this phenomenon, I have chosen O’Faolain’s later stories (from 1970 on, the collections “The Talking Trees and Other Stories”, “Foreign Affairs and Other Stories” and the last stories published only after the author’s death). By the time he wrote them, he was not so susceptible for outer influences as in his youth. These works are more mature and original; they contain less romantic (and other) clichés than his early experiments. Therefore, these compositions are more interesting to study and to decompose into single metaphors, similes, alliterations etc – especially if there are many of them at once, as it often occurs in his stories. I did not use any secondary literature, because I wanted to study O’Faolain’s way of writing by myself.
Table of Contents
1) Introduction
2) Cumulation of poetic devices
2.1 Cumulation of poetic devices in “Something. Everything. Anything. Nothing.”
2.2 Cumulation of poetic devices in other short stories
3) Eyes and eyelids
3.1 Eyelids
3.2 Animal metaphors and similes for eyes and lids
3.3 Women’s eyes (clichés and non-clichés)
3.4 Men’s eyes
3.5 Ideas’ and things’ eyes
4) Animal similes and metaphors
4.1 Dogs, cats and mice
4.2 Birds
4.3 Grotesque and funny images
Objectives and Thematic Focus
This academic paper aims to demonstrate that the Irish author Sean O’Faolain, despite his primary identification as a prose writer, consistently integrated complex poetic devices into his short stories. The work explores how O’Faolain utilized language as a "concentrated" medium, arguing that the intensity of his thematic focus often directly dictated the density of his stylistic innovations.
- The artistic function and cumulation of poetic devices in O’Faolain’s later narrative works.
- A detailed analysis of recurring metaphors and similes, particularly regarding eyes and eyelids.
- The symbolic and stylistic use of animal imagery in human characterization.
- The relationship between literary form, content, and the "tightness" of language in short fiction.
Excerpt from the Book
Cumulation of poetic devices
In Sean O’Faolain’s works, poetic devices tend to stick together. Apparently, sometimes the content was so important to the author that he developed a very complex form for it. There are episodes that make one want to read them aloud; if their composer wanted to accentuate some points by expressing them so artfully, he clearly succeeded. Or did he maybe simply enjoy the poetic arranging of words so much that he just could not stop, once having started? That may be a second reason for those clusters of poetic devices – but not the main one. The analysis of the short story parallelistically entitled “Something. Everything. Anything. Nothing.” makes obvious that the locations of the cumulations have not been chosen at random. They appear where an important thought is to be expressed.
A part of the story deals with Emilio Ratti, a man who seems to live in the past. The narrator is a journalist whose job has to do with today, occasionally with tomorrow, never with yesterday. His relationship to the past as such is described in one striking sentence: I had been seeing far too many memorials to that incorporeal, extramundane, immaterial, miasmic element that is food and drink to men like Emilio Ratti and that Carl Sandburg called a bucket of ashes. There is a parallelism – the list of four adjectives, all of them loan-words and therefore academically sounding.
Summary of Chapters
1) Introduction: This chapter defines the author's understanding of poetry as a concentrated language and introduces the premise that Sean O'Faolain's prose often functions with the linguistic density of verse.
2) Cumulation of poetic devices: This section analyzes how O'Faolain clusters poetic features like parallelisms and climaxes to emphasize critical moments and complex emotions in his short stories.
3) Eyes and eyelids: This chapter investigates the author's recurring fascination with character depiction, focusing on the metaphorical and symbolic significance assigned to eyes and particularly heavy eyelids.
4) Animal similes and metaphors: This concluding thematic chapter explores the frequent use of animal imagery to add layers of meaning, character motivation, and grotesque or humorous effects to the narratives.
Keywords
Sean O’Faolain, short story, poetic devices, literary analysis, metaphor, simile, alliteration, parallelism, Irish literature, symbolism, imagery, narrative style, characterization, linguistics.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the core argument of this work?
The work argues that Sean O'Faolain's short stories are fundamentally poetic, characterized by a deliberate use of concentrated language and complex stylistic devices to convey significant thematic meaning.
What are the primary thematic fields discussed?
The paper focuses on the structural use of poetic devices, the symbolic description of eyes and eyelids, and the application of animal metaphors to human characters.
What is the primary objective of the research?
The objective is to prove that O'Faolain’s prose was not just a vehicle for storytelling, but a sophisticated architecture of language where form and content are inextricably linked.
Which scientific method is applied?
The author employs a close-reading approach, analyzing specific, self-selected passages from O'Faolain's later works without relying on secondary literature, in order to study the author's writing style directly.
What is covered in the main section of the paper?
The main section details the "cumulation" of devices like alliterations and parallelisms, as well as an extensive classification of metaphors related to anatomy and animals.
Which keywords characterize the work?
Key terms include Sean O’Faolain, poetic devices, narrative style, metaphor, symbolism, and literary structure.
How does the author interpret the frequent mention of eyelids in the stories?
The author argues that O'Faolain consistently uses heavy eyelids as a deliberate stylistic trope to signify sex appeal, intelligence, or strong character traits in his female protagonists.
Why does the author consider O'Faolain's usage of "bird" imagery significant?
The author notes that bird imagery is often used both to invoke traditional romantic symbolism and, subversively, to create humorous or ironic distance from the characters' idealized self-conceptions.
- Arbeit zitieren
- Alexandra Berlina (Autor:in), 2004, Poetry in Irish prose - poetic devices in Sean O'Faolain's short stories, München, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/25676
