Chapter Three

Denotation and
Connotation

A primary distinction between the practical use of language and the liter-
ary use is that in literature, especially in poetry, 2i fuller use is made of in-
dividual words. To understand this, we need to examine the composition
of a word.
The average word has three component parts: sound, denotation, and
connotation. It begins as a combination of tones and noises, uttered by
the lips, tongue, and throat, for which the written word is a notation. But
it differs from a musical tone or a noise in that it has a meaning attached
to it. The basic part of this meaning is its denotation or denotations: that
is, meaning or meanings of the word. Beyond its denota-
the dictionary
tions, aword may also have connotations. The connotations are what it
suggests beyond what it expresses: its overtones of meaning. It acquires
these connotations from its past history and associations, from the way
and the circumstances in which it has been used. The word home, for in-
stance, by denotation means only a place where one lives, but by conno-
tation it suggests security, love, comfort, and family. The words childlike

and childish both mean "characteristic of a child," but childlike suggests

meekness, innocence, and wide-eyed wonder, while childish suggests pet-
tiness, willfulness, and temper tantrums. If we list the names of different
coins — doubloon
nickel, peso, lira, shilling, sen, —
the word doubloon, to
four out of five readers, immediately wiU suggest pirates, though a dic-
tionary definition includes nothing about pirates. Pirates are part of its

connotation.
Connotation is very important in poetry, for it is one of the means by
which the poet can concentrate or enrich meaning say more — in fewer

words. Consider, for instance, the following short poem:

 — —
758 CHAPTER THREE / DENOTATION .-VXD CONNOXATION

There is no Frigate like a Book

There is no Frigate like a Book

To take us Lands away

Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetr}
This Traverse ma\' the poorest take 5
Without oppress ot Toll
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human soul.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

In this poem Emih- Dickinson is considering the power ot a book or

of poetry to carry us away, to take us from our immediate surroundings
into a world of the imagination.To do this she has compared literature to
various means of transportation: a boat, a team of horses, a wheeled land
vehicle. But she has been careful to choose kinds of transportation and
names for them that have romantic connotations. "Frigate" suggests ex-
ploration and adventure; "coursers," beautv, spirit, and speed; "chariot,"

speed and the abilitv to go through the air as well as on land. (Compare
"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and the m^th of Phaethon, who tried to
drive the chariot of ApoUo, and the famous painting ot Aurora with her
horses, once hung in almost every school.) How much of the meaning of
the poem comes from this selection of vehicles and words is apparent if
we substitute steamship for "frigate," horses for "coursers," and streetcar for
"chariot."

QUESTIONS
1. What is lost \i miles is substituted for "Lands" (2) or cheap for "frugal" (7)?
2. How is "prancing" (4) peculiarh- appropriate to poetry as well as to coursers?
Could the poet without loss have compared a book to coursers and poetry to
a frigate?
3. Is this account appropriate to aU kinds of poetry or just to certain kinds? That
is, was the poet thinking of poems like Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum
Est" (page 722) or of poems like Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" (page 1034) and
Keats 's "La Belle Dame sans Merci" (page 1067)?
 CHAPTER THREE / DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION 759

Just as a word has a variety of connotations, so may it have more

than one denotation. If we look up the word spring in the dictionary, for
instance, we will find that it has between twenty-five and thirty distin-
guishable meanings: It may mean (1) a pounce or leap, (2) a season of the
year, (3) a natural source of water, (4) a coiled elastic wire, and so forth.
This variety of denotation, complicated by additional tones of connota-
tion, makes language confusing and difficult to use. Any person using
words must be careful to define precisely by context the denotation that
is intended. But the difference between the writer using language to com-
municate and the poet is this: the practical writer will usually attempt to
confine words to one denotation at a time; the poet wiU often take ad-
vantage of the fact that the word has more than one meaning by using it

tomean more than one thing at the same time. Thus, when Edith SitweU
inone of her poems writes, "This is the time of the wild spring and the
mating of the tigers,"* she uses the word "spring" to denote both a season
of the year and a sudden leap (and she uses "tigers" rather than deer or
birds because it has a connotation of fierceness and wildness that the oth-
ers lack). The two denotations of "spring" are also appropriately possessed
of contrasting connotations: the season is positive in its implications,
while a sudden leap may connote the pouncing of a beast of prey. Simi-
larly, in "Mirror" (page 749), the word "swallow" in line 2 denotes both
accepting without question and consuming or devouring, and so connotes
both an inability to think on the one hand, and obliteration or destruction
on the other.

When my love swears that she is made of truth

When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies.

That she might think me some untutored youth,

Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.

Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young.

Although she knows my days are past the best.
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;
On both sides thus is simple truth supprest.

* Collected Poeim (New York: V'anguard, 1954) 392.

760 CHAPTER THREE / DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION

But wherefore says she not she is unjust?° unfaithful

And wherefore say not I that I am old? 10

Oh, love's best habit is in seeming trust,

And age in love loves not to have years told:

Therefore I lie with her and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flattered be.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

QUESTIONS
1. How old is the speaker? How old is his beloved? What is the nature of their
relationship?
2. How is the contradiction in line 2 to be resolved? In lines 5-6? Who is lying
to whom?
3. How do "simply" (7) and "simple" (8) differ in meaning? The words "vainly" (5),
"habit" (11), "told" (12), and "lie" (13) all have double denotative meanings.
What are they?
4. What is the tone of the poem — that is, the attitude of the speaker toward his
situation? Should line 11 be taken as an expression of (a) wisdom, (b) conscious
rationahzation, or (c) self-deception? In answering these questions, consider
both the situation and the connotations of all the important words beginning
with "swears" (1) and ending with "flattered" (14).

A frequent misconception of poetic language is that poets seek al-

ways the most beautiful or noble-sounding words. What they really seek
are the most meaningful words, and these vary from one context to an-
other. Language has many levels and varieties, and poets may choose from
all of them. Their words may be grandiose or humble, fanciful or matter-

of-fact, romantic or realistic, archaic or modern, technical or everyday,

monosyllabic or polysyllabic. Usually a poem will be pitched pretty much
in one key: the words Emily Dickinson's "There is no Frigate like a
in
Book" (page 758) and those in Thomas Hardy's "The Man He KiUed"
(page 739) are chosen from quite different areas of language, but both po-
ets have chosen the words most meaningful for their own poetic context.

It is always important to determine the level of diction employed in a

poem, for it may provide clear insight into the purpose of the poem by
helping to characterize the speaker. Sometimes a poet may import a
word from one level or area of language into a poem composed mostly
of words from a different level or area. If this is done clumsily, the result
will be incongruous and sloppy; if it is done skillfully, the result will be a
 CHAPTER THREE / DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION 761

shock of surprise and an increment of meaning for the reader. In fact, the
many varieties of language open to poets provide their richest resource.
Their task is one of constant exploration and discovery. They search al-

ways for the secret affinities of w^ords that allow^ them to be brought to-
gether with soft explosions of meaning.

Pathedy of Manners

At twenty she was brilliant and adored,

Phi Beta Kappa, sought for every dance;
Captured symbolic logic and the glance
Of men whose interest was their sole reward.

She learned the cultured jargon of those bred 5

To antique crystal and authentic pearls.
Scorned Wagner, praised the Degas dancing girls.

And when she might have thought, conversed instead.

She hung up her diploma, went abroad.

Saw catalogues of domes and tapestry, 10
Rejected an impoverished marquis.
And learned to tell real Wedgwood from a fraud.

Back home her breeding led her to espouse

A bright young man whose pearl cufflinks were real.
They had an ideal marriage, and ideal 15
But lonely children in an ideal house.

I saw her yesterday at forty-three,

Her children gone, her husband one year dead,

Toying with plots to kill time and re-wed
Illusions of lost opportunity. 20

But afraid to wonder what she might have known

With all that wealthand mind had offered her.
She shuns conviction, choosing to infer
Tenets of every mind except her own.
 .

762 CHAPTER THREE / DENOTAtlON AND CONNOTATION

A hundred people call, though not one friend, 25

To parry a hundred doubts with nimble talk.
Her meanings lost in manners, she will walk
Alone in brilliant circles to the end.

Ellen Kay (b. 1931)

QUESTIONS
1 The title alludes to the type of drama called "comedy of manners" and coins a
word combining the suffix -edy with the Greek root path- (as mpathetic, sympa-
thy, pathology). How does the poem narrate a story with both comic and pa-
thetic implications? For what might the central character be blamed? What
arouses our pity for her?
2. Explore the multiple denotations and the connotations attached to each deno-
and 28), "interest" and "reward" (4), "cultured"
tation of "briUianf (both in 1
and "jargon" (5), "circles" (28).
3. Why are the poet's words more effective than these possible synonyms: "cap-
tured" (3) rather than learned; "conversed" (8) rather than chatted, gossiped,
or talked; "catalogues" (10) rather than volumes or multitudes; "espouse" (13)
rather than marry? Discuss the momentary ambiguity presented by the word
"re-wed" (19).
4. At what point in the poem does the speaker shift from language that represents
the way the woman mighthave talked about herself to language that reveals
how the speaker judges her? Point out examples ot both kinds of language.

People using language only to convey information are usually indif-

ferent to the sounds of the words and may feel frustrated by their conno-
tations and multiple denotations. They would rather confine each word
to a single, exact meaning. They use, one might say, a fraction of the word
and throw away the rest. Poets, on the other hand, use as much of the
word as possible. They are interested in connotation and use it to enrich
and convey meaning. And they may rely on more than one denotation.
Perhaps the purest form of practical language is scientific language.

Scientists need a precise language to convey information precisely. The

existence of multiple denotations and various overtones of meaning may
interfere with this purpose. As a result of this, scientists have even devised
special "languages" such as the following:

SO2 + //2O = -^2503

In such a statement the symbols are entirely unambiguous; they have been
stripped of all connotation and of all denotations but one. The word sul-
 CHAPTER THREE / DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION 763

furous, if it occurred in poetry, might have all kinds of connotations: fire,

smoke, brimstone, hell, damnation. VtwtHjSOi, means one thing and one
thing only: sulfurous acid.
The ambiguity and multiplicity of meanings possessed by words
might be an obstacle to the scientist, but they are an advantage for the
poet who seeks richness of meaning. One resource for that is a multi-
dimensional language using a multidimensional vocabulary, in which the
dimensions of connotation and sound are added to the dimension of
denotation.
The poet, we may say, plays on a many-stringed instrument and
sounds more than one note at a time.
The first task in reading poetry, therefore, as in reading any kind of
literature, is to develop a sense of language, a feeling for words. One needs
to become acquainted with their shape, their color, and their flavor. Two
of the ways of doing this are extensive use of the dictionary and exten-
sive reading.

EXERCISES
1. Which word in each group has the most "romantic" connotations: (a) horse,
steed, nag; (b) king, ruler, tyrant, autocrat; (c) Chicago, Pittsburgh, Samar-
kand, Detroit?
2. Which word in each group is the most emotionally connotative: (a) female par-
ent, mother,dam; (b) offspring, children, progeny; (c) brother, sibling?
3. Arrange the words in each of the following groups from most positive to most
negative in connotation: (a) skinny, thin, gaunt, slender; (b) prosperous, loaded,
moneyed, affluent; (c) brainy, intelligent, eggheaded, smart.
4. Of the following, which should you be less offended at being accused of: (a) hav-
ing acted foolishly, (b) having acted like a fool?
5. In any competent piece of writing, the possible multiple denotations and con-
notations of the words used are controlled by context. The context screens
out irrelevant meanings while allowing the relevant meanings to pass through.
What denotation has the wordfast in the following contexts: fast runner, fast
color, fast living, fast day? What are the varying connotations of these four de-
notations oifast?
6. Explain how in the following examples the denotation of the word white re-
mains the same, but the connotations differ: (a) The )Oung princess had blue
eyes, golden hair, and a breast as white as snow; (b) Confronted with the evi-
dence, the false princess turned as white as a sheet.