3.5. Allusions, intertextuality

Other markers of extralinguistic information – allusions that in their turn, act as markers of the category of intertextuality³ are not numerous. An implicit allusion to Homer’s Penelope is one of them. This allusion provides an idea of the personage structure that is similar to the structure of its Homeric prototype ( a waiting, faithful wife, rejecting seekers of her hand and bed). This intertextual structure clashes the semantics of Joycean personage that deviates to a great extend from the semantics of its prototype. A second allusion is given in a descriptive way in the opening lines of the passage. Declan Kiberd, the author of commentaries to the academic edition “Ulysses” (1992) believes that the text offers an implicit allusion to Milton’s “Paradise Lost”: "Molly tries to recapture the magnificence of that original moment, just as another epic Paradise Lost the lovers dream of recovering the lost bliss of Eden" [Kiberd, 1992: 1195]. Anyway, intertextuality of this part of the text (up to the words: it is as for them...) is marked by a poetic description (a type of text not characteristic for Joyce) and by a complete absence of geographical and cultural realia that would refer to the physical space of Gibraltar. This allusion performs a structure-shaping function demonstrating that Marion (Molly) is modeled not only upon the image of faithful Penelope, but also upon the universal image of Eve who disobeyed and sinned and was forced to leave Eden (Paradise). A third allusion that could be traced in the sentence: "the watchman going serene with his lamp" links this text with another stable Joycean source that has a structure-shaping function. A watchman with the lamp is a personage from biblical “Song of Songs” and his presence in this text structures another universal situation of love. Joyce, however, changes the attitude of the watchman to the lovers. The watchmen in the “Song of Songs” are cruel to Sulamith, the watchman in Joyce’s text is serene, that means peaceful or tranquil. This word suggests the absence of danger to love.

Thus the analysis of the allusions, that present the markers of intertextuality provided the basis for the conclusion that the structure of Joycean personage is polygenetic. To a certain extend these peculiarities of the personage structure could be regarded as elements of implicit information.

QUESTIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS:

3.6. Linguistic Information

When you pass ever to the analysis of the linguistic information proper you consider four levels of language exposition:

• the level of the sounds,

• the level of the words,

• the level of the sentences,

• the level of the text

QUESTIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS:

3.6.1. Sound Level

Usually the analysis of a sound scheme helps to decode the information of a poem [See Yu.Lotman, 1994]. Numerous researchers and poets tried to define the correspondence between the sound scheme of a poem and its semantics. Poets and critics of symbolic movement, for instance, established the correspondence between the sound “O” and the expression of grief (Paul Verlaine). The “deconstructive” analysis of Shakespearean sonnet N 116 permitted to spot a speech act of threat in the phrase admit impediments, where dental and labial consonants together with short front vowels produce a cacophony [Lye, 1997: Impediments]. The text, which is chosen for analysis is an extract from a novel, still it is advisable to take into consideration its sounding, as Joyce started his literary career as a poet, and many artistic discoveries from his poems (Chamber Music, Pomes Penyeach) are developed in his prose. The sound scheme of the text under analysis rests upon the combination of dominating sonants and diphthongs: the whole place swimming in roses; nothing like nature the wild mountains; sailors playing all birds fly. Such sound scheme is not only the evidence of Joycean poetic and musical talent and of his intention to produce a sort of a love-song, but also the evidence of an additional structural characteristic of his heroine: Marion is at home in the world of music, which corresponds to her social role of a music hall singer.

QUESTIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS: