Cognitive Stylistic Analysis of Tony Harrison's Poem 'Long Distance'

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, Ruhr-University of Bochum (Englisches Seminar), language: English, abstract: In his 1978 poem Long Distance Tony Harrison describes his fathers difficulties incoming to terms with his wifes death and the emotions Harrison himself experiencesupon the death his father. To arrive at this interpretation after reading the poem is, byall means, a valid insight. It would, however, be a pity to be contented with thisalone. For such a reading does probably not allow for the rhetoric means to be fullyappreciated to which Harrison reverted to communicate his poem successfully.Furthermore, the way in which the reader experiences the poem, as well as how itaffects the reader would not find consideration. In short the poems texture wouldnot be accounted for. The following analysis, based on my own natural reading,attempts to describe and explain the texture of Harrisons poem.As is to be expected, the first stanza of the poem has a distinct effect on thereader. For one, this is because the level of concentration is still high. Moreimportantly, however, the first stanza of the poem presents the reader with anappealing text world. Foremost, the agent of the sentence is human, namely thenarrators father. A human agent, in a way, provides the reader with the possibility tointeract mentally with or develop sentiments towards him. Stockwell (2009: 25)illustrates this with his empathetic recognisability scale on which human agents rankhighest. Besides this, the line initial positioning and, somewhat obvious,capitalization of the word Dad (l. 2) attract the readers attention. Furthermore, theactions described are all in the active voice and literally convey motion, which willappear more intense to a reader which Stockwell (2009: 25) terms activeness. Lastly,the objects described in the first stanza, slippers, bottles, and transport pass(ll. 2, 3, 4 respectively), all form good attractors as they are concrete, very ordinaryobjects to which every reader ought to be able to relate easily. Together, these threefactors ensure that the first stanza remains fairly prominent in the readers mindthroughout the reading of the poem.[...]