Table Of Content

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND STYLE The Language of Siegfried Sassoon Marcello Giovanelli Palgrave Studies in Language, Literature and Style Series Editors Rocío Montoro, Dept de Filologías Inglesa y Alemana, University of Granada, Granada, Granada, Spain Paul Simpson, Department of English, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK This series offers rigorous and informative treatments of particular writers, genres and literary periods and provides in-depth examination of their key stylistic tropes. Every volume in the series is intended to serve as a key reference point for undergraduate and post-graduate students and as an inves- tigative resource for more experienced researchers. The last twenty years have witnessed a huge transformation in the analytic tools and methods of modern stylistics. By harnessing the talent of a growing body of researchers in the field, this series of books seeks both to capture these developments and transformations and to establish and elaborate new analytic models and paradigms. Marcello Giovanelli The Language of Siegfried Sassoon Marcello Giovanelli School of Social Sciences and Humanities Aston University Birmingham, UK ISSN 2731-8265 ISSN 2731-8273 (electronic) Palgrave Studies in Language, Literature and Style ISBN 978-3-030-88468-0 ISBN 978-3-030-88469-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88469-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Acknowledgements This book took a long time to complete and at one point, I wondered if it would ever get finished. But it is here now, and I would like to thank the following people for their support. First, I am grateful to Meg Crane, Jennie Giovanelli, Chloe Harrison, Robbie Love, Charlotte May, and Tim Penton, who read various earlier versions of the manuscript and provided supportive and very useful comments and feedback. Many thanks also to Kate Giles for answering queries I had on Sassoon’s prose writing. The research in the book has taken place over many years and I would like to thank all those who asked questions and provided comments on papers I have given on the contents of this book, from the very first at the Cogni- tive Grammar in Literature symposium at the University of Nottingham in February 2013. Since then, I have presented at numerous research seminar series and international conferences. My particular thanks go to those who provided feedback on papers at PALA 2018 in Birmingham and IALS 2019 in Reykjavík, which came to form the basis of Chapter 6. I would also like to thank the series editors Rocío Montoro and Paul Simpson, and Cathy Scott and all of the team at Palgrave Macmillan for their advice, support, and patience. The School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Aston University provided research start-up funding in 2017 which allowed me to undertake some of the research for this book, and then covered permissions fees. My thanks in particular to Phil Mizen for his support in this latter respect. Completing the writing of this book during long periods of lockdown came with many challenges, including not being able to access the library and archive material during that time. But I am grateful to John Wells at the University Library, Cambridge for answering queries, and to John Whale of Stand magazine. I would also like to thank members of the Brenchley and Matfield Local History Society for allowing me to spend some time in their v vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Sassoon archive, and Alison Gibbons for sharing her expertise—and numerous papers—on autofiction with me. Finally, my biggest thanks, as always, for their continued support rests with Jennie, Anna, Zara, and Sophia. I am grateful to be able to reproduce various poems, prose, and diary entries of Siegfried Sassoon throughout this book. These are reprinted with the kind permission of the estate of George Sassoon. Parts of Chapter 3 appeared in an earlier form in ‘Conceptual proximity and the experience of war in Siegfried Sassoon’s “A Working Party” in Cognitive Grammar in Literature’ (eds Chloe Harrison, Louise Nuttall, Peter Stockwell, and Wenjuan Yuan, 2014) published by John Benjamins (https://benjamins. com/catalog/lal.17). Contents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Siegfried Sassoon 1 1.2 Style 3 1.2.1 Definitions of Style 3 1.2.2 Style and Language 5 1.3 Cognitive Stylistics 8 1.3.1 Cognitive Grammar 8 1.3.2 Readers 9 1.4 Modelling the Author 9 1.5 Chapters in This Book 10 References 13 2 Cognitive Grammar 17 2.1 Cognitive Grammar and Cognitive Linguistics 17 2.2 Cognitive Grammar: Basic Parameters 19 2.3 Construal 20 2.4 Construal Phenomena 22 2.5 Specificity 23 2.6 Focusing 24 2.7 Prominence 25 2.8 Perspective 27 2.8.1 Dynamicity 28 2.8.2 Reference Points 30 2.8.3 Vantage Point 31 2.8.4 Subjective/Objective Construal 32 2.9 Cognitive Grammar in Stylistics 35 2.10 Construal Constraints 36 2.10.1 Construal and the World 36 2.10.2 Cognition and Context 36 2.10.3 Creativity and Construal: The Case of Metaphor 38 vii viii CONTENTS 2.10.4 Construal and Creativity 39 2.10.5 Embodiment, Construal and the First World War 40 References 44 3 Observation 49 3.1 Introduction 49 3.2 Sassoon the Georgian Poet 51 3.3 Experience and Prophecy: The Poetry of 1916 54 3.4 ‘A Working Party’ 57 3.4.1 Background 57 3.4.2 Immediate Observation 58 3.4.3 Accessibility 61 3.4.4 Reference Point Relationships 63 3.4.5 Action 65 3.5 ‘The Rear-Guard’ 67 3.5.1 Background 67 3.5.2 Movement 68 3.5.3 Textual Attractors and Reference Points 72 References 77 4 Trauma 81 4.1 Introduction 81 4.2 Trauma and the First World War 83 4.3 Mind Style 87 4.3.1 Parameters of Mind Style 87 4.3.2 Mind Style and Cognitive Grammar 89 4.4 ‘Repression of War Experience’ 92 4.4.1 Background 92 4.4.2 Metaphor and Mind Style 94 4.4.3 Split Construal 98 4.5 Hauntings 101 4.5.1 Dreams and Visions 101 4.5.2 Absence 104 References 107 5 Blame 111 5.1 Introduction 111 5.2 Reacting Against the War 112 5.3 ‘A Soldier’s Declaration’ 115 5.4 Cognitive Grammar and Agency 118 5.5 Clause Structure 118 5.6 Mystification 120 5.7 Intentionality 122 5.8 Assigning Blame 123 5.9 Blame in Counter-Attack and Other Poems 124 5.9.1 ‘Killed’ 125 CONTENTS ix 5.9.2 ‘Die’ and ‘Death’ 127 5.10 Reading Blame Indirectly: ‘The General’ and ‘The Effect’ 131 5.11 Reading Intentionality and Irony in ‘Does It Matter?’ 134 References 141 6 Revision 143 6.1 Introduction 143 6.2 Two Prose Trilogies 144 6.3 War Books 146 6.4 Autofiction 148 6.4.1 The Sherston Trilogy as Autofiction 148 6.4.2 Cognitive Stylistics and Autofiction 150 6.5 Revision as Reconstrual 152 6.5.1 Literary Revisions 152 6.5.2 A Model of Reconstrual 153 6.6 Reconstruing Sassoon’s Diary in MFHM 154 6.6.1 Sherston and the War 154 6.6.2 Arriving in France and Dick Tiltwood 155 6.6.3 Omitting David Cromlech 159 6.7 Reconstruing ‘Died of Wounds’ 163 References 170 7 Reflection 175 7.1 Introduction 175 7.2 The Heart’s Journey 178 7.2.1 On the Threshold 178 7.2.2 ‘Farewell to a Room’ 180 7.3 Vigils and Rhymed Ruminations 184 7.3.1 Re-Journeying in Vigils 184 7.3.2 ‘My past has gone to bed’ 185 7.3.3 Time and Rhymed Ruminations 187 7.3.4 The Past Reborn 189 7.4 Sequences 192 7.4.1 The Spiritual and Religious 192 7.4.2 Metaphorical Construals 193 7.4.3 Image Schemas and Force Dynamics 195 7.4.4 ‘A Chord’ 198 References 200 8 Conclusion: Reading ‘Everyone Sang’ 205 8.1 Introduction 205 8.2 Recentring Sassoon 206 8.3 The Experience of ‘Everyone Sang’ 207 References 211 Index 213