Poems as pragmemes: On the poetic function of language and pragmatics.

by Alessandro Capone

KEYWORDS
The poetic function of language; pragmemes; Jacob L. Mey; graffiti; toasts; language use
at the market place; argumentation and persuasion.

Abstract
In this paper, I mainly deal with the poetic function of language and contextualism,
accepting some important notions broached by Mey in his book on pragmatics (Mey
2001; see also Capone 2005 and Allan, Capone, Kecskes, eds. 2017). According to Mey,
language use is determined by conditions of society and the role of the scholar in
pragmatics is not only to interpret texts and offer generalizations on them, but to
emancipate society through a critique of its consolidated patterns of oppression through
language use. The poetic function of language surely overlaps (and interacts) with other
functions, e.g. persuading (this is evident in language use at the market place, where
vendors use occasionally or even most of the time poetic rhetorical devices for the
purpose of hammering a notion into their clients’ heads and making it more vivid and
easier to remember (for future use or action), which means that the poetic function is used
to gather large crowds before one’s stall but also to persuade customers (usually women)
to buy the merchandise). In this paper, my main argument is that poems are pragmemes
and each pragmeme is specialized in a task or sphere of language use. Poems are much
more common than one may think they are and are present in many walks of life, from tv
ads to language use at the market place to corners of streets (graffiti) or the walls of an
old prison cell (for example you can see them in Palermo). Each pragmeme is regulated
by its norms of language use; thus, I argue it is an idealization to think of the poetic
function of language as something that can be studied on its own, without having access
to the conditions of society that solicit and determine language uses. For example, official
cases of poetry, inherited through a written tradition of books (and now through internet
and youtube readings) are cases of texts that are open and polyphonous, and where the
message (which is often underdetermined) has to be recovered through literary echoes,
biographical and historical information, the history of literary criticism and, most often,
through the individual textual expertise of the reader who has to interpret hidden levels,
metaphors, symbolic levels and the commentary encoded through the rhyme pattern.
These texts are very different from a toast or a love poem or a case of graffiti.

Introduction

In this paper, I mainly deal with the poetic function of language and contextualism,
accepting important notions broached by Mey in his book on pragmatics (Mey 2001).
According to Mey, language use is determined by conditions of society and the role of the
scholar in pragmatics is not only to interpret texts and offer generalizations on them, but
to emancipate society through a critique of its consolidated patterns of oppression through
language use. The poetic function of language surely overlaps (and interacts) with other
functions (Jakobson 1980), e.g. persuading or the conative function (this is evident in
language use at the market place, where vendors occasionally or even most of the time
use poetic rhetorical devices for the purpose of hammering a notion into their clients’
heads and making it more vivid and easier to remember (for future use or action), which
means that the poetic function is used to gather large crowds before one’s stall but also to
persuade customers (usually women) to buy the merchandise). In this paper, my main
argument is that poems are pragmemes and each pragmeme is specialized in a task or
sphere of language use. Poems are much more common than one may think they are and
are present in many walks of life, from tv ads to language use at the market place to
corners of streets (graffiti) or the walls of an old prison cell (for example you can see
them in Palermo’s old prisons). Each pragmeme is regulated by its norms of language
use; thus, I argue it is an idealization to think of the poetic function of language as
something that can be studied on its own, without having access to the conditions of
society that solicit and determine language uses. For example, official cases of poetry,
inherited through a written tradition of books (and now through internet and youtube
readings) are cases of texts that are open and polyphonous, and where the message
(which is often underdetermined) has to be recovered through literary echoes,
biographical and historical information, the history of literary criticism and, most often,
through the individual textual expertise of the reader who has to interpret hidden levels,
metaphors, symbolic levels and the commentary encoded through the rhyme pattern.
These texts are very different from a toast or a love poem or a case of graffiti, even if they
have something in common with them.

A brief note on the functions of language.

Language plays a crucial role in articulating thought; however, I do not agree with
Chomsky (1986) that this is the only, or even the most important function of language.
Surely, we accept that even without language we can have rudimentary thoughts (we
could, for example be thinking through pictures); but admittedly, (human) language
allows a complexity of thought unequalled in other species. Hence, accepting that
language’s main purpose is to articulate thought, without committing oneself to the
notion that language is essentially for communication, creates some unresolved and
unsolvable mysteries. How is language transmitted? Is culture involved in language
transmission from one generation to the next? Fundamentally, I agree with Allan (2020)
that, even allowing for the important function of articulating a complexity of thoughts,
language is mainly for the purpose of communication (of a message from one human
being to another). Surely there are cases in which we communicate with our (present or
future) selves, as when we leave a reminder in the kitchen (like ‘Turn the gas off’), or
write notes in books destined for future reading (like ‘Never become self-conceited!’);
but such cases are best classified under ‘attempts to articulate thoughts for future use’.
Alternatively, we could say that these cases are modelled upon (or are parasitic on) the
central case of ‘communicating thoughts from one person to another’. But even this is a
simplified version of a human communication which does not solely involve the
transmission of generic thoughts, but allows human beings to create relationships, to
regulate behaviour though laws, to recruit people for carrying out tasks which one person
alone could not manage (e.g. lifting a heavy piano), to express deeper levels of feelings
and states of mind (say in psychotherapy sessions), etc.
For this reason, Jakobson has introduced, with considerable success, the notion of
‘language function’: language forms being used as tools for the accomplishment of
certain functions. Here, he was following a path initiated by Wittgenstein, who was not
only among the first to note that demonstratives (among other functions) serve to
demonstrate objects in the language game of teaching a child how to use words (as in
‘This is a dog’), but in addition, extensively discussed the notion of language use. Of
 course, as Jakobson was well aware, certain functions of language may overlap; as we
shall see, the poetic function certainly overlaps with the conative (and I would add, with
the argumentative) function. Thus, either we define the function of languages more
rigorously or we must be prepared to accept that such overlaps are unavoidable.

An indirect start

But what is the poetic function of language? We may not like to answer this question in
an abstract way: definitions like ‘poetry consists in paying attention to the message and
its form’ are quite general and may apply to prose as well. Even prose may turn the
reader’s attention to form and, in any case, nothing can prevent us from having prose
which is very much like poetic language, or which is just as evocative as is poetry
(consider for example ‘Conversazione in Sicilia’ by Elio Vittorini). 1

Perhaps it would be best to start our investigation in an indirect way to see the
relationship between poems and pragmemes. We remind our readers that, according to
Mey (2001), ‘pragmemes’ are functional units bound with certain functions in virtue of
(or through the force of) the situation of employment/use, the context of use, and the
culture (or common ground), all of which furnish the presuppositions for its use. We may
accept without discussion that culture may consist of a set of propositions which are
generally accepted by the population and which are part of the context set, or the common
ground (to use a term coined by Stalnaker 2002), and furnish the fundamental
assumptions on which the uses of pragmemes are based. Take, for example, teaching.
Teaching may take different forms depending on the culture in which it is practiced.
Teaching in Italian culture is bound up with forms of oppression, such as keeping
students in classrooms for long periods of time, teachers being those who enforce the
rules, books coming from official sources rather than being written by students and
teachers based on research, ways of writing that are disciplined through classical
1
An example could be the following:
Questo era il terribile: la quiete nella non speranza. Credere il genere umano perduto e
non aver febbre di fare qualcosa in contrario, voglia di perdermi, ad esempio, con lui.

This was the most terrible thing: quietness despite lack of hope. Believing that Mankind
is lost and not have the fever for doing something to reverse this, a wish to get lost, for
example, with them (Mankind).
 rehetorical tradition very close to the machinery of the Gricean maxims but rendered
prescriptive in so far as they are enforced by teachers, etc. Usually, Western nations allow
students some freedom in the expression of their thoughts and encourage critical
discussions. These presuppositions may be absent in dictatorial regimes, where teaching
may be equated with some form of indoctrination (the pragmeme of indoctrination is not
inspired by persuasion, but by the imposition of certain values by force). Usually, we
don’t say much about the presuppositions of pragmemes, but authors generally accept
that they are based on culture; and for the time being this may suffice.
Now, why is it that the indirect approach to the poetic function of language by way
of the pragmeme gives us the best hopes to resolve the problem of defining poetry? To
begin with, by starting with pragmemes, we take the perspective of language users and
not of literary critics. While Jakobson was certainly a linguist, his readings were
influenced to a major extent by literary theorists busy with finding general structural
considerations on works of art (and more specifically on poetry). The issue of form may
be of some importance here, as poems are usually associated with rhythm, rhymes, and
figures of speech. But to say, rather generically, that poetry turns the readers’ attention to
form is not enough: novels may do the same, although in different ways. Often. the
difference is based on the degree or prevalence of certain structures in one genre rather
than another.
Then, if we consider poetry as a literary type of discourse, we propose that this type
of discourse, in its various guises, is entrenched in our culture and our daily practices. In
other words, it has work to do by modifying relationships, creating bonds, persuading,
writing graffiti on our walls, courting a lover, advertising merchandise (as in the language
of the market place), producing publicity, popular songs, funerary discourse, and so on
and so forth. Poems can take very simple forms, as in relatively brief toasts, or more
complex ones, as in the discourses we listen to in the market place. 2

The next section will provide some examples of pragmemes.

Toasts and obituaries

2
In my article on pragmemes (Capone 2018), I defined vendors as ‘natural poets’, and overlooked
for a moment the fact that they too have been exposed to the practices of selling goods in the market
place and have learned their art from more experienced vendors.
 We are in an informal occasion, usually a party or a dinner, and before/during drinking
wine or ‘spumante’, one of the guests recites a short segment of discourse in praise of the
host. Rhythm and rhymes are usually present, and mark the event as ‘a toast’. The
speaker may be more or less sincere in expressing his/her feelings and state of mind; also,
the formal occasion imposes some strict limits to what can be said (usually in praise, as
any criticism would spoil the conviviality of the occasion (see Capone 2010)). The same,
more or less, is what happens when we give a speech to commemorate a deceased person;
here, too, there is only a slot for praise (if criticism were to be offered, this would have
to avail itself of other slots, normally outside the current event (see Capone 2010)). 3 Of
course, these need not be high level poems; they have some formal features of poems
and, depending on the speaker, they may be more or less rhythmic. They may also convey
a level of implicitness. But usually, they are superficial poems; and one would indeed be
surprised if they were not, because the occasion (having a dinner) is not the best
opportunity for displays of literary erudition and of the expressive function.

We can also look at poems functioning as part of funerary discourse, as in obituaries or

inscriptions on tombs (see Parvaresh and Capone 2017). Sometimes the dead have left a
poem to be engraved on their tomb or for use in funerary texts, like a sort of spiritual
testament. While alive, a person bothered to write a message for us, usually with the
minimal structure of poems like Gray’s ‘Elegy written in a country churchyard’. and
reflecting both the attitude of a person who still clings to life and recognizes its beauty,
and the moralistic stance of someone who has to leave all this and is preparing to be re-
united with his or her Creator. In older parts of an Italian cemetery, the graves still exhibit
short, minimally moralistic poems that are not the result of a creative imagination, but of
professional craftmanship. They are all similar in their moralistic stance. One such poem
adorns the main gate of the cemetery in the Sicilian community of Pace del Mela and
reads: Fummo come voi, sarete come noi (‘We were like you, you will be like us’).
(Similar structures are also present in modern poems, like those of Mario Luzi).

3
One may ask: But in what way can we be sincere if this is a slot reserved only for praise and
criticism would be considered inappropriate? Sincerity in these cases may signalled through a
different rhetorical device: the degree of passion with which we speak, or the intensity of the
language used; here, the poetic function prevails because usually, inasmuch it has universal
touching qualities, a poetic text can strike the hearts of more people.
Selling goods in the marketplace

In Sicily (especially in the times of old, when I was a boy), vendors used to shout
(vandiari) in order to persuade people to buy their goods. They had their favourite topoi,
like the one of the vendors who got mad and wanted to sell all their goods at very low
prices; but any story would do that was based on the idea that this was the moment to get
rid of their goods and make money. The argumentative relationship had to be clear –
people were motivated to buy the goods not only because they were of the ‘highest
quality’, but also because the vendor had a reason to make his goods as attractive as
possible. Such vendors’ discourses had to be rhythmic, and sometimes were delivered in
rhyme; above all, they were full of rhetorical devices, even to the extent that at some
point I ventured the claim that vendors were ‘natural poets’ (Capone 2018). In reality,
they were disciples of the experienced vendors whom they had observed selling goods
and using precisely those techniques. And even though the topoi could repeat themselves,
there were an infinity of variations, and the repertoire of images and rhetorical devices
could in principle be endless. All of this seems to attest that not only the interpretation of
the topoi but also that their composition could be open-ended, as it involved a degree of
freedom of expression and creativity which far exceeded the creativity of daily usage.
Nevertheless, in generating this endless set of forms, the vendors used one or in any case
a limited number of blueprints. Rhetorical and pragmatic devices have been shown to be
very useful when we are expanding and re-shaping an existing language to cope with the
new communicative needs created by scientific and technological progress and advances
in the arts and philosophy. Even so, only great artists like Shakespeare or Dante were
capable of creating a new language by using old linguistic resources and by shaping
further such resources through inventive freedom and creativity.

Publicity

It is not rare to observe poems being used in advertising language on radio or TV. A
small poem with rhymes can help locate a memory in the context of a stretch of talk that
strikes us, so it becomes memorable. An Italian ad text like the eigthies’ jingle ‘Con
Nelson piatti, i piatti li vuol lavare lui’ (“With Nelson Piatti [a detergent], ‘he’ will want
to do the dishes”) is a rhythmic text resembling poetry, even though we do not find the
expressive function here: this function hich is usually connected with serious poems.
Clearly, these texts have formal affinities with poems, as they preserve the idea that one
should be rhythmic and one should use rhymes (to hammer a concept into the potential
clients’ head); but they are superficial. They clearly subordinate the poetic function of
language to the conative function and put rhymes and other formal features of poetry to
the service of persuasion. Persuasion here is not connected with the cogency of one’s
arguments (although a mini argument is being developed), but is the consequence of
hammering a concept into the potential customer’s brain. Thus, use of a funny situation
may be enough to persuade women to buy this product. The minimal result that one
should obtain, however, is to draw the tv viewers attention to the product to buy, so that
they will at least try it and, then, decide by themselves if the product is good enough and
delivers the goods. After all, this is not like selling a car, where many details have to be
offered to the potential customer. The complexity of the action of selling, in the case of a
detergent, is of an inferior degree. All that is required is that the customer will remember
the name of the product and then find it in a supermarket at a reasonable price.

Courting a lover

How many times have we not seen graffiti containing a poem used to court a specific
person, usually a girl? Such poems vocalize Jakobson’s expressive function and may also
make use of the rhetorical devices rhythm and rhymes. Of course, as passers-by, we do
not know who wrote the poem or who is its ‘beneficiary’ (sometimes the poems may
contain fictional names, sometimes names that are so ordinary that surely more than a
single person fits that name). Hence, our purpose is to guess who wrote the message and
for whom; it may be more fruitful to read the other, predicative parts of the message, as
sometimes only one person has the properties described. But even if occasional passers-
by do not usually have the resources to identify the referent, the recipients of the
message who know the story, as narrated or highlighted in the message, will be able to
identify the writer (and possibly the recipient). To some extent, these poems work like
riddles, as they combine some enigmatic qualities with the expressive resources of the
language.

Like graffiti, poems can provide an efficient means to express the inner world of the
writer and give voice to his or her feelings and states of mind. It is not rare, therefore, for
people to send messages containing a poem; in particular, the poem connects feelings and
states of mind with an action which is still developing and whose success is still in the
balance. Like any written message, a poem has the advantage of a reflective process, and
thus may express a well-articulated piece of argumentation – something which is pretty
much applicable to all written texts. The inferences which serve to fill the gap between
conventional meaning and pragmatics are usually due to such reflective processes and
(given that at every re-contextualization new meanings may emerge, they are not at all
like default inferences). Love poems on the walls (graffiti) may be superficial forms of
art, too. But at least, they are connected with the expressive function and with the
linguistic function of creating human bonds. They may make use of metaphors and other
rhetorical devices and they may certainly display individual stylistic features of the
writer, who writes for himself and, thus, is author and to some extent animator and
principal (if we use Goffman’s categories). He may be anonymous for most of the
readers, but at least recognizable to one, through his style or through knowledge of things
done together in the past. He also takes responsibility for what he says, although most
readers do not hold him responsible for the words and the thoughts. The purpose of the
poem is to create a human bond. This is clearly outside the function of official poetry, as
poems by great literary writers seek universality and, thus, do not address a specific
person, although it is possible that they do both things. One may write addressing a
specific person, but a truly universal poem will carry a meaning for future generations,
even when knowledge of the possible addressee is lost. Furthermore, truly universal
poems do not have practical purposes related to specific individuals and organizations; if
they have them, they may be considered exceptions. The main trait of truly universal
poems is that thy should speak to every human soul, should bear a message that is
recognized by them to be important, touching, useful and forceful – form may be used as
a key to open the human sould and render it receptive to the message. Poems in graffiti
may not have these traits; they are just ways to be recognized by one person, to open up
that person’s soul; they do not have any aspiration to true universality.

Poems and songs

Poems can also appear at texts of songs. Since poems proper are often difficult to
understand and cryptic, they no longer have the wide readerships, for instance, of the
poems of the Romantic writers. The current audience has been reduced considerably
since Romanticism and even the expressive function of language does not easily find
hospitality within poems. Readers move away from this function; it is considered
‘dangerous’ in that it puts the readers in touch with their real aspirations and motivations
(Coleridge depicts the poet as a mad man people are normally scared of (Kubla Khan)).
In contrast with this rather sad development in the history of poetry, songs, with their
immediate appeal, seem to have replaced official poetry and have attracted the wide
audiences which, instead, serious poetry has to aim at. Songs usually have the structural
complexities of poems, but without being too cryptic or hermetic; thus, they do not
require complicated pragmatic processing on the part of the readers. The assignment of
the Nobel Price to Bob Dylan in 2016 is the recognition that songs can be considered
poetic texts and that some of them have the features of serious poetry. Clearly, combining
a poem with a song is a way to reach a greater number of readers. Below is an example of
a poem/song which has become well-known in Italy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mYUAGTdveQ

Poems as pragmemes

I have not given many details for each of the above mentioned pragmemes, because the
purpose of this paper is not to describe pragmemes as such, but to make the general
observation that poetry is more entrenched in our culture than we may be willing to
acknowledge; thus, on many occasions, it may be natural to write or recite a poem, and
the poetic pragmeme kicks in. Of course, ‘official’ poetry also arises embedded in certain,
appropriate contexts.. Sometimes a poem can be written for a political reason (e.g. Il
pianto di una scavatrice, by Pasolini) or for the purpose of celebrating a rich family who
happened to sponsor the poet. As for myself, I wrote my two books of poems both to
record and celebrate the time spent together with a good friend, but also as an attempt to
strengthen our relationship and to make us feel that we are having a place in society.
In general, any occasion can be good for writing or reciting a poem: for instance, as
explained by Goffman (1981), a conference can be a natural context for (re)citing a poem.
Poems, in other words, are not only things that can be written, but are also things that can
be recited and quoted (intertextually, a poem can be seen as quoting many other poems
whose presence is inserted and recognized through implicit quotation marks (see Capone
2013a on implicit quotation)). A poem can be recited at any occasion in which it has
some work to do – its creativity should not be restricted: in effect, the poet is free to
choose the linguistic resources available and combine them to create new words, new
styles, and even new occasions for reflecting on our states of mind; overall this creativity
reflects the ability to adapt the poem to new contexts and purposes and to create new
semiotic spaces.
It is illuminating to choose poems as units eligible to be called ‘pragmemes’, first of
all because in this way, we are moving away from the canonical units of analysis for
linguists: sentences or single utterances; as Goffman (1981) used to say, we should
concentrate on contextualized utterances. But even this may not be enough, as many
people (above all students and philosophers of language) have the impression that the
sentence, contextualized or not, should be the point of departure for our analysis. Instead,
authors like Wittgenstein (1953), van Dijk (1980) Goffman (1981) and Mey (2001) focus
on the ‘language game’ itself, on longer stretches of talk, the macro-speech act, which
consists of several micro-speech acts plus some more global structures, and the
pragmeme, which may, but need not, coincide with a sentence/utterance, especially if we
consider actions which continue for considerable stretches of time, like the speech act of
education or the speech act of emancipation. A poem is an ideal unit of analysis because
it usually is neither too small nor too large, and hence its duration allows us to study it in
detail. But even though poems normally are rather short units, sometimes they may be
pretty long, and in any case, the poem allows for, and requires, intertextual analysis. It
may be useful to see a poem as a stratification of layers, in which the whole unit depends
on smaller units which are usually recognizable through implicit quotation, although
sometimes not; it can be seen like an orchestra of voices where the director subordinates
all units to a single purpose (and function).
As for the context that bears on a poem’s interpretation, it is not only the previous,
immediately preceding co-text (some previous poem in the collection). An extended
context (for example the biography of the author) obviously plays an important role and
we somehow get the impression that any verse at all benefits in terms of illumination,
based on the author’s circumstances of life (in addition to our reading the prior lines). In
this process (resembling what Recanati (2004) has called ‘modulation’; the interpretation
of the verse becomes richer. In general, even if scholars have not dealt with it in fully
satisfactory ways, such a modulation is a modification (to a greater of lesser degree) of a
quality or predication. If we say that a certain car is white, we obviously have to subtract
the non-white parts ( normally, it is the surface of the car that is white); if we say, ‘please
give me some hot tea’, we probably (even presumably) ask someone to give us tea that is
close to ‘hot’, but neither ‘super-hot’ or ‘neither hot nor cold’; some kind of
quantification or qualification must be added.
As an example of non-linear contextual influence, consider how Dante ends Canto 34 of
his Hell. Putting the verse in his own mouth while talking with Virgil, his guide, Dante
says, Finalmente uscimmo a veder le stelle (‘at last we went outside to see the stars’).
Here, ‘stars’ has to be seen in the context of a previous line in which Dante talks about
the beautiful things to be seen in the world; ‘stars’ has to be enriched so that it becomes
anything that is beautiful. However, it has also to be seen against the background of the
horror of the punishments assigned to the people condemned to Hell – people condemned
to stay in water or mud, or to fly in air moved by cruel winds, to experience the stench of
lakes or rivers, to suffer the perpetual war among the people punished in Hell, and so on.
Thus, the ‘finalmente’ has to be contrasted with everything observed so far, and,
therefore, adds a sense of utmost liberation. At last, Dante and Virgil are able to put Hell
behind them and to move their eyes to different, more beautiful sights.
In addition to the co-text and the non-linear context, the context in the sense of
‘shared presuppositions’ may aid our interpretation (see Stalnaker 2002, Capone 2020).
The biography of a poet casts light on the interpreting, in the sense of adding
presuppositions that interact with the poetic verses so as to enrich them, complete them,
and provide us with keys for a deeper interpretation.
Moreover, in contrast with the Gricean maxims which lead us to formulate our
messages as clearly as possible, modern verse is often as obscure as possible. There may
be a reason for this. Given that obscurity requires considerable expenditure of cognitive
effort, the ‘empty slots’ are good places to introduce missing segments. If such efforts are
successful and worthwhile, the contextualizing leads the readers towards starting a new
exploration within the world of the poem. Willed obscurity may encourage readers not to
be content with the surface interpretation of a poem, but rather search for deeper
meanings. Paradoxically, even obscurity of thought may be a requisite for the stability of
a meaning which will be saved in the readers’ minds for many, many years. As a source
of intertextual influence, a poem may illuminate a text by referring to prior reader
experiences. Poems of the past may operate as precedents, warranting a poem’s
contextuality. Poems may contain suggestions that allow certain contexts to facilitate the
interpretation of (parts of) other poems.

The polyphonic game

Whereas the biographical data may be illuminating, and assist us in assigning meaning to
some of the poetic verses which otherwise could appear too obscure, the citations that
appear in the poem itself lead us, albeit largely implicitly, in the direction of a stratified
context, both in place and in time. Such ’citations’ are never explicit, neither are they
escorted by inverted commas; they often take the form of simple words or simple verses.
We know they are citations because they belong to other, well-known texts and, thus, are
to be taken as quotations; the author expects us to recognize them as quotations, while
certain reflective inferences may likewise be involved). Quotations may be illuminating,
as they situate the poem in the context of another poem so that the interpretation of one
poem may help us in the interpretation of another.
In poems, one can perceive echoes of other poems. These echoes can be considered
‘citations’, even if quotation marks are normally missing. Markers like quotation marks
are useful in separating the main voice from the voices in a language game that belongs to
someone else. In prosaic discourse, we ultimately attribute the quote to someone whose
name is provided in the structure of the quotation: the ‘principal’, to use Goffman’s term
(1995/1981) By contrast, in the Goffmanian framework, the person who is doing the
quoting is not the ‘principal’, but an ‘animator’, impersonating another character. Since,
normally, we do not have quotation marks in poems, it is not easy to distinguish the
animator from the principal. If someone were good at reading/interpreting poems, one
could add special marks (e.g. a female voice; an older voice; etc.), so that readers or
hearers can keep the voices distinct.
In addition to quotations proper, we may have semi-quotations, which may be
considered transformations of the original quotations, where some distortion or
approximation is introduced. We need to remind readers that quotations proper in oral
discourse are rather rare, because of memory limitations or because one may want to
adapt the quotation to one’s purpose. Given that quotation marks are not normally used in
poetry, semiquotations may not be totally rare and may serve the function to adapt the
quotation to the occasion of use. It, thus, becomes a theoretical impossibility to say
 whether the semiquotation is a case of language use or merely a case of mentioning
(Lyons 1977).
But what is the function of quoting people’s verses (or entire poems) in the context
of another poem? The poet may desire to create a product that has universal appeal;
through intertextuality, a poem is shown to belong to mankind and not just to a certain
artist or writer; it is a kind of communal attempt at writing. The values which inform the
poem are universal and its verses may touch anybody at all. ‘Universal’ here means that
poetry must be revealing not only for people belonging to a certain culture, but
illuminating for any person at all, regardless of their languages, cultures, and positions in
the world or in society. Hermetic poets like Salvatore Quasimodo or Eugenio Montale
have done a great job in creating a kind of poetry that is universally appealing and
touching, by resorting to intentionally cryptic forms in order to convey their messages;
they were aware that form (however cryptic) may be an excellent way to commit a poem
to heart. Showing how this universality is achieved is a gigantic task, and one which I
will not enter upon seriously here; even so, it appears that, part of the mechanism works
through intertextuality, as a way to render an individual experience in an intersubjective
way: it is a way to depersonalize the poet’s experience in order to show that it is part of a
universal human heritage. Intertextuality works by juxtaposing or collocating verses by
different authors in such a way that a prior text (a prior experience) illuminates what
follows; we can also have the inverse process, in so far as some verses by the current
author illuminate some of his preceding verses (or parts of poems by other poets). From
the literature on contextualism we know that contexts are what I am calling
‘illuminating’, that is to say, they allow us to achieve a better understanding of (a portion
of) the text in question. Schematically, contexts can be illuminating in one of the
following ways: a) the context narrows down the interpretation options; b) the context
expands the interpretation options; c) the context allows us to have access to (an)
interpretation option(s) which otherwise would not be available; d) the context allows us
interpretive access to the author’s intentions; e) the context allows us access to intentions
that do not belong only to that particular author, but also to mankind in general (like all
the people who experience a poem’s polyphonic structure); f) the readers are given the
key to the poem’s interpretation by a certain author quoted in it.4

4
As I said above, these possibilities are only sketched out here, and analyzing certain poems may be
conducive to better interpretative schemes. We may want to add the theoretical possibility that a
poem be only interpreted in a literal way. This would also require an interpretation key, namely one
that compels us to ignore all the possible other, pragmatically based, completions and expansions
 Another important element in poetic texts – whether we consider expansions and
completions or rhetorical devices used pragmatically – is inference. Inference puts the
hearer to greater cognitive efforts, and these seem to reinforce memories which otherwise
would be transitory and fleeting – an all too natural phenomenon, given that we tend to
remember exaggerations (as in hyperbolic style) or minimizations, which have the effect
of introducing us into a hall of mirrors, whose use is to render what we know funny,
grotesque, and always conducive to a picture of reality which in the end we must
recognize despite various distorting lenses. Leopold Bloom, the Jewish main character of
James Joyce’s Ulysses, has had a cookie thrown at him by one of the Irish pub clients
(rather than say, a gigantic stone like the one the cyclope Polyphem threw at the original
Ulysses in Homer)5. The effect of reducing the scale of the narration is an attempt to
show how even a microscopic event can hurt a person’s feelings. The rhetorical device of
hyperbole is used not as an attempt to embellish the narration, but to make the event and
its repercussions assume such proportions that a claim to universality is justified.6

Quasimodo’s ‘Letter to the mother’.

I would now like to discuss the Nobel Prize winner Salvatore Quasimodo’s poem Lettera
alla Madre , while focusing on some of its most critical and cryptic parts. The title (and
its translation) suggest that some lexical items may change the structure of the poem,
denying it some of its universality of feelings: the translation of the title may well
introduce a distortion (‘letter to the mother’ being translated here as ‘letter to my
mother’). Above, while writing on pragmemes (Capone 2010) in the context of funerary
rites, I have pointed out that while a priest eulogizes a dead woman as an ‘affectionate
and hardworking’ mother, he may be weakening his praise, or extend it to all those
members of the audience who recognize their own mothers in this one ‘exemplary
mother’. Analogously in his poem, avoiding the expression ‘my mother’ and instead,

(see Carston 2002). However, since it is natural to enrich metaphors, metonymies, and other
rhetorical tropes and images, entering upon such a ‘literal language game’ would be highly
problematic; it would be like asking us to walk the countryside while ignoring our sensation of
taste, smell, sound, etc. – presumably a herculean task.

5
As described in Book 9 of the Odyssey (v. 480 ff.)
6
Here, it does not matter whether we are discussing an epos, a single poem, or even a novel, as also
novels have their parts.
using ‘the mother’, Quasimodo extends the praise of his own mother to mothers in
general.
The beginning of the poem is characterized by the ‘gimmick’ (Shklovsky’s priëm;
1965 [1916]) of the ‘pathetic fallacy’ (eminently introduced by the Romantics) by which
the characteristics of plants and trees (and nature in general) are transferred to the poet,
and attributed to him. Winter is described in terms reminding us of Dante’s Hell; there is
water everywhere (the poet’s tears?); the bulging, water-logged trees, devastated by the
snow, the confused movements inside the watery channels recall Milan’s navigli
(channels), and remind us of drunk people staggering about. When the poet says ‘I am
not sad in the North’, he may refer to some who have been hinting or saying that he
looked sad. And even though he is explicitly denying that he is sad, he admits that he may
think he looks that way. Here, like everywhere else in the poem, whatever the poet says
seems to contradict what he has just asserted; compare “I am not at peace with myself,
but I do not expect forgiveness” (my interpretation: I did not do anything that has to be
forgiven). But then there is this “many owe me tears from man to man” – a particularly
cryptic verse. What does the poet really mean? Did someone hurt or offended him,
causing tears that may provoke retaliation (or at least trigger some divine retribution? I
finally opted for this interpretation, even, though there may be other, better ones; these
verses clearly have to interpreted. Quasimodo’s metaphors are not standard expressions,
somehow conventionalized in the language. The metaphor in question has to be read off
of the syntactic possibilities in Italian, availing themselves of the combinatorial
affordances of the language.
As a matter of fact, the prepositional phrase “from man to man: considerably enhances
the poetic effect and in addition illuminates the next verse “many owe me tears”. Unlike
in the case of money, ‘owing tears’ is not a matter of or recuperating some tangible
goods, but of benefit from some agency, in particular that of shedding tears. That actions
are at stake, and not just things, is clarified by the phrase ‘from man to man’: unlike
goods (or in general objects), tears cannot be transferred from person to person; hence
another agency has to be involved: actions of receiving and paying back intangible
cultural manifestations of sorrow and pity.
Apparently, metaphors do not only exhibit lexical, but also syntactic transformations.
Most importantly, a cryptic message such as the one discussed here, once unpacked,
leaves its mark on our minds as readers, and we are unlikely to forget it. Also, by alluding
to a universal situation of sorrow and mutual involvement in inflicting pain or suffering
(like in Dante’s imagined Hell), the message creates a resonance in the minds of the
readers.
The poet further describes his mother as being ‘fair in the measure of love for her
children that live far away’. I wondered what the poet could mean by this. I settled on the
possibility that his mother was ‘fair’ – not in sharing her riches, but in distributing her
love by measuring it ‘fairly’, in order to avoid giving any of her children the impression
that she or he was loved more or less than the others.
The last verse that struck me for its obscurity appeals to Death “not to touch the
hands or the hearts of the elderly”. Just like the fact that the hands of the elderly are
bound to become dysfunctional with age, or disfigured by disease, so their hearts will
become disillusioned. The poet asks Death to spare them and to have pity on them. This
pragmeme cannot be understood without an act of simulation, of putting oneself into
another person’s shoes; it requires imaginative empathy.

By saying this, I am putting myself in a vulnerable position. I may be attacked for saying
that pragmemes are situated uses, and that on some occasions, we cannot understand
them without resorting to contextual information that tells us the poet is speaking
figuratively; on other occasions, I have been talking about experiences that are universal
enough to be grasped by anyone at all, and that touch the heart of a ‘universal reader’ (to
the exclusion of cultural or local considerations). But even a ‘universal’ interpretation of
the last verses I discussed above requires an imaginative understanding and a resorting to
universal knowledge, universal experience, things that happen everywhere and at all
times. Nothing prevents us from exploiting the resources of contextual knowledge that
are universal enough to embrace universal suffering, the age of decline, the persistent
anxiety that characterizes our times.
Only poems that do all this have a claim to true universality.

Conclusion

The poetic function of language leads readers to alternative worlds where certain
structural characteristics (rhythm, quantity of syllables, rhymes, rhetorical devices) are
bent to reveal meaning and, in particular, expressive meaning. Poetic verse and poems are
structures where the expressive function and the focus on form intersect. Certain
characteristics of poetry can be transferred to other domains of discourse (e.g.
argumentation); in poetics, the focus on form is subordinated to the expressive function
(not vice-versa). This focus on form occurs from the inside out, not from the outside in –
it is not the literary critic who has to focus on form for the purpose of voicing the
expressive function, but the author, the ‘principal’, or the main voice responsible for the
poem. The focus on form is realized by selecting words, stylistic options, metres,
rhetorical devices and other characteristics mostly typical of poetry, not of prose. A
poem, like any speech act or pragmatic act, may have perlocutionary effects; a poem can
change a nation’s world view, or even its language, provided that it is successful in
having its creations have repercussions on a people’s language and mentality.
Changing the world and inventing alternative realities (like ‘possible worlds’) are
functions that go hand in hand. It would not be possible to change the world if one were
unable to contemplate alternative realities that are compatible with, but also different
from our own in at least some aspects. Unlike politics, poetry changes the world by
allowing us, qua readers, to experience appealing alternative realities. Politics is different
inasmuch as those alternatives emerge in the act of criticizing current realities – an act
which often culminates in eliminative procedures. While poetry involves the power of
imagination, politics involves the power of criticism, rational assessment, and execution.

Appendix

Lettera alla Madre

«Mater dolcissima, ora scendono le nebbie,

il Naviglio urta confusamente sulle dighe,
gli alberi si gonfiano d’acqua, bruciano di neve;
non sono triste nel Nord: non sono
in pace con me, ma non aspetto
perdono da nessuno, molti mi devono lacrime
da uomo a uomo. So che non stai bene, che vivi
come tutte le madri dei poeti, povera
e giusta nella misura d’amore
per i figli lontani. Oggi sono io
che ti scrivo.» – Finalmente, dirai, due parole
di quel ragazzo che fuggì di notte con un mantello corto
 e alcuni versi in tasca. Povero, così pronto di cuore
lo uccideranno un giorno in qualche luogo. –

«Certo, ricordo, fu da quel grigio scalo

di treni lenti che portavano mandorle e arance,
alla foce dell’Imera, il fiume pieno di gazze,
di sale, d’eucalyptus. Ma ora ti ringrazio,

questo voglio, dell’ironia che hai messo

sul mio labbro, mite come la tua,
quel sorriso m’ha salvato da pianti e da dolori.

.
E non importa se ora ho qualche lacrima per te,
per tutti quelli che come te aspettano,
e non sanno che cosa. Ah, gentile morte,
non toccare l'orologio in cucina che batte sopra il muro
tutta la mia infanzia è passata sullo smalto
del suo quadrante, su quei fiori dipinti:
non toccare le mani, il cuore dei vecchi.
Ma forse qualcuno risponde? O morte di pietà,
morte di pudore. Addio, cara, addio, mia dolcissima mater.»

Sweetest of mothers, now the mists are coming down,

The Naviglio hits the dams confusedly,
The trees are swollen with water, they are burning with snow,
I am not sad in the North: I am not
at peace with myself, but I do not expect
anyone’s forgiveness, many owe me tears
from man to man. I know you are not well, that you live
like all poets’ mothers, poorly,
and fair in your measure of love
for your children who live far away. Today, it’s me
who writes to you. “At last”, you will say, “a couple of words
from that boy who escaped at night with a short coat
and a few verses in his pocket. Poor, so generous in his heart,
that they will kill him some day in some place”.
Certainly, I remember, it was from that grey station
of slow trains that carried almonds and oranges,
at the mouth of the Imera, the river full of magpies, 
of salt and eucalypti. But now I thank you,
this is what I really want, for the irony you put 
on my lips, gentle as yours, 
of the smile which rescued me from tears and sorrows. 
And it does not matter if now I have some tears for you,
for all those who like you are waiting
and they do not know for what. Oh, gentle death,
do not touch the clock in the kitchen, ticking on the wall,
all my childhood has gone by on the enamel
of its face, on those painted flowers:
do not touch the hands, the heart of the elderly.
But perhaps someone is replying? Oh, death full of pity,
death full of shamefulness.
Goodbye, dear, goodbye, my very sweet mother.”

(translation mine; revision by Martin McLaughlin)

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