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STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF POEM, “Floods”

analysis. The analysis is made under the aspects of Graphlogical, Grammatical, Syntactical,

and Phonological patterns. This research is helpful to analyze the structure and style Daud

Kamal’s poetry, and his themes, views, and treatment of the aftermath of the flood that he

talks about, in the poem.

KEYWORDS: Stylistic Analysis, Graphogical, Phonological, Lexical, Deviation

INTRODUCTION

Style

It has many definitions as Chapman (1973) says “style is the product of social situation”. We

can say that “style is the dress of thought”. According to Leech (1969) “Style is the way in

which something is spoken, written or performed”. He believes that style refers to the way in

a given context, a give person for a given person and so on.” According to Fowler “style is

property of all texts, not yet just literary”.

Stylistics

“Stylistics is the systematic study of style”. Stylistics is the discipline that studies the way in

which language is used. To Leech and Short (1981, p.13) “Stylistics is simply defined as the

(linguistic) study of style, is rarely undertaken for its own sake, simply as an exercise in

describing what use is made of language”.

Principles of Stylistics
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In order to analyse a text we need certain yard sticks they are called stylistics tools or

principles. There are three main principles of stylistics.

Foregrounding

It refers to a prominent portion of text that contributes to the total meaning. Halliday

characterized foregrounding as ‘motivated prominence’. It is a technique for making strange.

Norms

“Set of accepted, settled and established rules and regulations of a society are called norms”.

Norms has three kinds:

General, authorian and lexical norms. General norms are already settled and accepted from

everyone. Authorian are the individual specific norms oriented by an author.

Deviation

It is derived from word ‘deviated’ who means ‘to violate’ or to go against the rules that are

established.

Levels of Stylistics Analysis

 Graphology

 Phonology

 Morphology

 Lexical

Graphology

This is the type of deviation. In this we study about the physical appearance of the text i.e.

from where and how it starts, paragraph style etc.

Phonology

The study of the distribution and patterning of speech sounds in a language and of the tacit

rules governing pronunciation.

Morphology

The study of patterns of word information in a particular language, including inflection,

derivation and composition.

Lexical

The study of pertaining to the words or vocabulary of a language.

“Floods” by Daud Kamal (from Recognitions)

How does one forgive 1

the treachery of 2

blind rivers and 3

water buffaloes 4

dissolving in the mud? 5

their hut was 6

forty years old. 7

three wooden 8

boxes of dowry 9
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and a sackful 10

of expensive rice. 11

At the relief-camp 12

the bride-to-be 13

covers her head 14

while her parents 15

look the other way. 16

Introduction to Poet

Daud Kamal (1935–1987) was a Pakistani poet and academic, from Peshawar city. Daud

Kamal was born on January 4, 1935 in Abbottabad. His earliest inspiration came from Burn

Hall, Cambridge School in Srinagar, Kashmir where he studied for seven years. He was a

Professor of English Literature at University of Peshawar. He wrote some poems in English.

His poems were recorded for the Library of Congress in the United States. He also did

translations of the classic Urdu poet Ghalib in English. He received three gold medals for his

poetry from the Triton College and his poems were recorded for the Library of Congress,

Washington DC. USA.‘Remote Beginnings’ and ‘A Selection of Verse’ are his anthologies.

He also did translations of the classic Urdu Poet Ghalib in English. Kamal’s poetry is

interwoven with local and religious imagery; of kingfishers and monasteries, of Hindu

temples Silhouetted by the glamour and mystique of the Arabian Nights. Yet his poetry over-

arches into the present where the Arabian Nights have twisted endings that reflect the violent

contemporary.His writing style is deeply influenced by the Imagists. “Poetry for him was
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Yeats and Pound” recalls his daughter Fatima. However, he was a voracious reader of poetry,

“I have never seen one enjoy reading others’ poems as much as he did,” shared his daughter.

In his later life, he was deeply moved by Latin American authors. A man of heightened

sensitivities, he was not unaware of what was happening around him. His poetry has a unique

sense of history and the need of an artist. The need to connect to the culture of the past –

images of monasteries, miniature paintings, bullock carts and antiques are recurrent themes.

As Carlo Coppola, in his writings, pointed out, Daud’s poetry is like a “primordial scripture

of a people betrayed not only by kings and priests but by weather, geography, history,

foreigners, and most treacherously by each other”

A mere biographical sketch would clearly be unjust to a man of his brilliance and the pride he

brought to the country. Daud Kamal won three gold medals and two certificates of

recognition in the international poetry competition in the US, the Faiz award in 1987, and a

posthumous Pride of Performance award in 1990.

His poem ‘floods’ is about a flood that came at some time in past. The date of which is not

known.

Main Theme of the Poem

The poem is the story of a family and a to-be-bride who has become widow before her

marriage. Her husband passed away in the flood which also left them homeless.

Foregrounding

In this poem the main theme is foregrounded through vocabulary items. Treachery of the

blind rivers, dissolving in the mud and hut and wooden boxes all foreground the theme.

Stylistical Analysis of Poem, “Floods”

Deviation
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In the start of the poem we see gloom and darkness. We see various types of deviations in this

poem. Let us look at them in some detail.

Graph Logical Level

i. The poem consist of 14 lines.

ii. There is no division of stanzas.

iii. There is usual capitalization

iv. There is unusual line breaks. This reflects the effect of flood on humans and their
land – disrupting and causing havoc.

Semantic Deviation:
Transference of meaning
Semantic oddity

In line 3-4 we see semantic deviation –blind rivers, and water buffaloes. Blindness is the

quality of living beings and water has association with river but these qualities have been

used in a deviant manner. It can refers to the deviant behavior of the river. Instead of

following its usual course the river flooded and took away human lives and properties.

Grammatical Level

Use of Punctuation

Question mark is used in the poem and it shows that poet has a conflict in his mind. He is

bewildered at the destruction and the misery that the flood has brought in the lives of people.

Use of full stop:

Poet uses full stop three times in the poem. Each full stop shows the completion of one

image.
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i. Firstly the poet describes the condition of the family before the flood in line 6-7.

ii. Secondly he talks about the preparation for the wedding in lines 8-11.

iii. Thirdly he talks about their misery after the flood in lines 12-16.

Phonological Level:

1. The poem is written in free verse

2. We can see the use of alliteration in words like mud and hut in lines 5, 6.

CONCLUSIONS OF ANALYSIS

Stylistics basically is an aspect of literary studies that lay emphasis on the analysis of various

elements of style such as metaphor and diction etc. So in stylistics analysis we see the

prominent characteristics of a text which may distinguish a writer or a poet from other

conventional writers and their style. Stylistics analysis deals with the identification of certain

specific patterns in a speech or some piece of writings. It focuses on the meanings and quality

of a text. Stylistics analysis manipulates these main aspects

• Either the play or a poem is written in blank verse or in a regular form which means we

look at the graph logical features of a poem.

• We look at the phonological and lexical of play or a poem.

• We also check the syntactic and grammatical position of a poem. So we can say that

stylistics mainly concerned with the idea of “style”

• The analysis of a literary text which may also be called “stylistics analysis”

REFERENCES
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1. Leech, G. (1969),

A linguistic guide to English Poetry, London: Longman. 52

2. Profile of Daud Kamal

4. Bradford (1997) Stylistics Rutledge: New York.