Stylistic Features of Oscar Wilde

 Oscar Wilde does not pay much attention to metonymy. But his metonymies have a great potential power. They reach the emotional reliability, which creates the effect of reader’s presence in the literary world. Metonymical details and particulars sometimes serve the so called “evidences” of the actions and feelings of the heroes.

 As a brief conclusion we can say that Oscar Wilde resorts to the use of a great number of stylistic devices in his plays.

 For Wilde language is the most important way for expression of his thoughts and feelings. According to the examples mentioned above, we can see that Wilde’s language is very expressive and vivid, and at the same time it is plain and understandable to any reader.

  

 Syntactical expressive means and stylistic devices.

 The expressive means of a language exist as a certain system of literary devices within the literary form of the common language. The system of expressive means of language differs from that of another, not in the existence of some device but in the role which this device plays, and the place which it occupies in this system.

 The syntactical level plays an important role in the system of language expressive means. Generally speaking, the examination of syntax provides a deeper insight into the stylistic aspect of the utterance.

 Stylistics takes as the object of its analysis the expressive means and stylistic devices of the language which are based on some significant structural point in an utterance, whether it consists of one sentence or a string of sentences.

 The problem of syntactical stylistic devices appears to be closely linked not only with what makes an utterance more emphatic but also with the more general problem of predication. As is known, the English affirmative sentence is regarded as neutral if it maintains the regular word order, that is subject – predicate – object (or other secondary members of the sentence, as they are called). Any other order of the parts of the sentence may also carry the necessary information, but impact on the reader will be different. Even a slight change in the word order of a sentence or in the order of the sentences in a more complicated syntactical unit will inevitably cause a definite modification of the meaning in the whole. An almost imperceptible rhythmical design introduced into a prose sentence or a sudden break in the sequence of the parts of the sentence, or any other change will add something to the volume of information contained in the original sentence.

 Unlike the syntactical expressive means of the language, which are naturally used in discourse in a straight-forward natural manner, syntactical stylistic devices are perceived as elaborate designees aimed at having a definite impact on the reader. It will be borne in mind that any stylistic device is meant to be understood as a device and is calculated to produce a desired stylistic effect.

 The first syntactical expressive means used by Oscar Wilde is inversion.

 According to Prof. Kurkharenko V.A., inversion is very often used as an independent stylistic device in which the direct word order is changed either completely so that the predicate (predicative) precedes the subject, or partially, so that the object precedes the subject – predicate pair.27

 According to Prof. Galperin I.R. the stylistic inversion aims at attaching logical stress or additional emotional colouring to the surface meaning of the utterance. Therefore, a specific intonation pattern is the inevitable satellite of inversion.28

 Although Oscar Wilde doesn’t pay much attention to such expressive means as inversion, he also resorts to its usage in his plays. Here are some examples of inversion from Wilde:

 e.g. “Told me she that entirely disapproved of people

 marrying more than once.” (p. 53)

 “Except amongst the middle classes I have been told”.

 (p.117)

 “But so am I.” (p.261)

 “Let go us into the house”. (p.331)

 These sentences comprise the simple and common models of inversion. It is very important to know that inversion as a stylistic device is always sense-motivated; and it depends on the context. These inversions are used by the author for more expressiveness and for showing the feelings of his characters in a certain situation.

 The next syntactical expressive means is a repetition. As the word “repetition” itself suggests, this unit of poetic speech is based upon a repeated occurrence of one and the same word or word group.

 According to Prof. Galperin I.R., repetition as a syntactical stylistic device is recurrence of the same word, word combination or a phase for two and more times.29

 So, repetition is an expressive means when a certain word or a phrase is repeated for several times. It is an expressive means of language used when the speaker is under the stress of strong emotion. It shows the state of mind of the speaker as in the following example from Wilde:

 e.g. “I love you – love you as I have never loved any living

 thing. From the moment I met you I loved you, loved

 you blindly, adoringly, madly!” (p.51)

 Here we can observe the inner state of the hero, his emotions, his great feeling of love.

 e.g. “My boy! My boy! My boy!” (p. 168)

 In these words repeated for several time we can guess the great emotional background. Wilde has a graphic eye and the use of repetition which as it may seem is one of the weak expressive means helps us to be closer to the hero, to understand his feelings. Depending on the position of a repeated unit occupied in the sentence there are four types of repetition: anaphora, epiphora, framing and anadiplosis. The first function of repetition is to intensify the utterance.

 Here are some more examples of repetition:

 e.g. “Oh, Arthur, do not love me less, and I will trust you more. I will

 trust you absolutely.”(p.88)

 “Do not hold me, mother. Do not hold me- I’ll kill him!”(p.151)

 “Choose! Oh, my love, choose!”(p.51)

 In the first example we have anadiplosis. The structure of this device is the following: the last phrase of one part of an utterance is repeated at the beginning of the next part, thus hooking the two parts together. The writer doubles this phrase for better concentration of the reader. If the repeated phrase come at the beginning of two or more consecutive sentences, we have anaphora, as in the second example. As for the third example, here we have framing (or as it is often called “ring repetition”). It is the repetition of the same unit at the beginning and at the end of the same sentence.

 As you must have seen from the brief description, repetition is a powerful means of emphasis. Besides, repetition adds rhythm and balance to the utterance.

 Wilde often uses parallel constructions, a perfect means of creating the clean-cut syntax of his plays. By Prof. Galperin I.R.: “Parallel construction is a device which may be encountered not so much in the sentence as in the macro-structures dealt with earlier, viz. the syntactical whole and the paragraph. The necessary condition in parallel construction is identical, or similar, syntactical structure in two or more sentences or parts of a sentence”.30

 As you must have seen from the brief description, repetition is a powerful means of emphasis. Besides, repetition adds rhythm and balance to the utterance.

 Parallel constructions deal with logical, rhythmic, emotive and expressive aspects of the utterance. They create rhythmical shape of the sentence, make it more emotional.

 e.g. “Nobody is incapable of doing a foolish a foolish

 thing. Nobody is incapable of doing a wrong

 thing.” (p.216)

 “How hard good women are! How weak bad men are!”

 (p.77)

 “Oh! Wicked women bother one. Good women bore

 one.” (p.68)

 These examples prove that Oscar Wilde wishes to give a musical value to every phrase. The parallel constructions produce a certain rhythm, wonderful sound and expressiveness.

 Enumeration is the next syntactical stylistic device used by O.Wilde in his plays.

 According to Prof. Galperin I.R., enumeration is a stylistic device by which separate things, objects, properties or actions are named one by one so that they produce a chain, the links of which, being syntactically in the same position (homogeneous parts of speech), are forced to display some kind of semantic homogeneity, remote though it may seem.31

 e.g. “Bad women as they are turned, may have in them

 sorrow, repentance, pity, sacrifice.” (p. 67)

 “She has got a capital appetite, goes long walks, and

 pays no attention at all to her lessons.” (p. 301)

 “I have also in my possession, you will be pleased to

 hear certificates of Ms. Cardew’s birth, baptism,

 whooping cough, registration, vaccination,

 confirmation, and the measles”. (p.340)

 Analysing these sentences we can see the musical chain of enumeration. It gives more objective value of the character’s speech. It gives the variety of thoughts and feelings.

 One of the most typical phenomenon of Wilde’s plays is ellipsis. But this typical feature of the spoken language assumes a new quality when used in the written language. By Prof. Sosnovskaya V.B., ellipsis is an intentional omission from an utterance of one or more words.32

 Ellipsis makes the utterance grammatically incomplete. The meaning of omitted words is easy to understand. The context helps to understand the meaning of such words and the whole situation.

 e.g. “Been dining with my people”. (p.45)

 “Quite sure of.” (p.149)

 “Jack: Dead!

 Chasuble: Your brother Ernest dead?

 Jack: Quite dead.” (p.312)

 Ellipsis gives the picture of real life, real people, their feelings and emotions, the simplicity of their speech. It adds a certain charm to the conversation. It is right to suppose that the omission of the words in these sentences is due to the requirements of the rhythm.

 Syntactical expressive means and stylistic devices add also logical, emotive, expressive information to the utterance.

 There are also certain structures, whose emphasis depends not only on the arrangement of sentence members but also on their construction with definite demands on the lexico-semantic aspect of the sentence. They are known as lexico-syntactical stylistic devices.

 Chiasmus is a good example of them.

 According to Prof. Galperin I.R., chiasmus is based on the repetition of a syntactical pattern but it has a cross order of words and phrases.33

 e.g. “All the married men live like bachelors, and all the

 bachelors like married men.” (p.114)

 The effect of a cross order of words in this example produces an ironic character. Like parallel construction, chiasmus contributes to the rhythmical quality of the utterance.

 e.g. “The body is born young and grows old. That is life’s

 tragedy. The soul is born old but grows young. That is

 the comedy of life.” (p.111)

 In this example the effect is increased because the members of chiasmus are antonyms “young, old, comedy, tragedy”. Usually chiasmus is a syntactical stylistic device, not a lexical one, but in this example the witty arrangement of the words gives the utterance an epigrammatic character. This can be considered as lexical chiasmus. Examples show the brilliancy of Wilde’s style.

 One more stylistic device used by Wilde is antithesis.

 According to Prof. Galperin I.R antithesis is based on relative opposition which arises out of the context through the expansion of objectively contrasting pairs.34

 Syntactically antithesis is just another case of parallel constructions. But unlike parallelism, which is indifferent to the semantics of its components, the two parts of an antithesis must be semantically opposite to each other, as in these examples from O.Wilde:

 e.g. “Don’t use big words. They mean so little.” (p.252)

 “Curious thing, plain women are always jealous of

 their husbands, beautiful women never are!” (p.108)

 Here we can see the semantic contrast, which is formed with the help of objectively contrasting pairs “big – little”, “plain – beautiful”, “always – never”.

 e.g. “She certainly had a wonderful faculty of remembering

 people’s names, and forgetting their faces.” (p. 98)

 In this example we can see antonyms: “remembering” and “forgetting”, which create the contrasting pair and make the antithesis more expressive. But in his antithesis Wilde also uses some contextual antonyms.

 e.g. “Men become old, but they never become good”.

 (p.33)

 “Men can be analysed, women merely adored.”

 (p.180)

 “…if one plays good music, people don’t listen, if one plays bad music, people don’t talk”. (p.199)

 It is important to note, that Wild’s antithesis is always accompanied by parallelisms, thus showing the difference of phenomena compared.

 e.g. “Cecil Graham: What is a cynic?

 Lord Darlington: A man who knows the price of

 everything and the value of nothing”. (p.72)

 Thus we can make a conclusion that syntactical expressive means and stylistic devices play an important role in Wilde’s style. Wilde is a talented writer who can make us feel the way he wants us to feel. This co-existence is built up so subtly, that the reader remains unaware of the process. It is still stronger when the aesthetic function begin to manifest itself clearly and unequivocally through a gradual increase in intensity, in the foregrounding of certain features, repetitions, of certain syntactical patterns and in the broken rhythm of the author’s mode of narrating events, facts and situations.

 One can find different syntactical expressive means and stylistic devices in Wilde’s plays such as parallel constructions, repetition, chiasmus, antithesis and many others. These expressive means help the author to create his clear-cut and elegant style, to give rhythm to his language. They give a musical value to every phrase.

 Wilde’s writing is skilful, playing, and understandable to everybody. It has a great charm and brilliancy of the author’s personality.