jakobson - on the verbal art of william blake

7/28/2019 Jakobson - On the Verbal Art of William Blake

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On the Verbal Art of William Blake and Other Poet-PaintersAuthor(s): Roman JakobsonReviewed work(s):Source: Linguistic Inquiry, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Jan., 1970), pp. 3-23Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4177527 .

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Roman akobson On the VerbalArto f W i l l i a m B l a k ea n d O t h e r Poet-Painters

To MeyerSchapiroI One of the Songs of Experience

Not a line is drawnwithout ntention ..as Poetryadmitsnot a Letterthat isInsignificant o Paintingadmitsnot aGrainof Sand or a Blade of GrassInsignificantmuchless an InsignificantBlur or Mark.W. Blake,"A Vision of the LastJudgment."

INFANT SORROW,My mother roand!my ather wept.2Into hedangerous orldI leapt:3Helpless,naked, iping loud:4Likeafiend hid in a cloud.5Strugglingn my athers hands:6Striving gainstmy swadlingbands:7Bound ndweary thought est8To sulkuponmymothers reast.

The spelling and punctuation of these lines strictly follow the text which was engravedby William Blake (see illustration I) in his Songs of Experience(I794) and which isentirely uniform both in all the early copies owned by the Houghton and WidenerMemorial Libraries of Harvard University and in the facsimile edition of the Songsof Innocence nd of Experiencepublished by Trianon Press in London and Beccles (s.a.).

The two quatrains of the poem are divided into four clear-cut couplets. In par-ticular, the two lines of each couplet are bound by a rime, and the odd couplets of thepoem differ from the even ones in the structure of their rimes. Both riming words ofany odd couplet belong to the same morphological category, end with the identicalconsonantal inflectional suffix, and are devoid of agreement in their prevocalicphonemes: lwep-t: 2leap-t, 5hand-s:6band-s. The similar formal makeup of the twoodd rimes underscores the divergent semantic orientation of the two quatrains, viz.the conceptual contrast between the inaugural preterits and the inanimates looming

Copyright? 1970 by RomanJakobson.


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4 ROMAN JAKOBSONover the second quatrain which are, notabene, he sole plurals of the poem. The gram-matical rime is combined with a deep parallelism of the riming lines. The thirdcouplet consists of two strictly symmetrical clauses: 5Strugglingn my athers hands:6Striving gainstmy swadlingbands. n the first couplet two coordinate clauses of theinitial line, the only parallel hemistichs within the poem-,My motherroand!myfather

......,

.. ... ..Y

* ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.. ...X. . __

.....S . ...E -....* tb zt2+A~~~~~~~~~~~~~~X.n

. WilliamBlakeSongs of Experiencewept-find their responsein the third coordinate clause: 21 leapt.In contradistinctionto the odd couplets, the even nines confrontgrammaticallydissimilarwords; namely,in both casesan adjectivaladjunct nines with an inanimate noun. The entirephoneticmakeup of the former word appears to be included in the second member of theriming pair: 3loud: cloud,7best:breast.Thus, the even nines, nongrammatical by themselves,are patently grammaticalin theirjuxtaposition. In particular, they assert the kinshipof two terminal images-


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T HE VERBAL ARTr OF POET-PAINTERS

4a cloudas a metaphor of placenta and 8breast-two successive links between the infantand his mother.

The eight lines of the poem build an array of close and telling grammatical cor-respondences. The four couplets of the octastich are divided into two pairs in threedifferent ways similar to the three types of rimes within a quatrain. Both successivepairs of couplets-two anteriorcouplets (I-IH) of the first quatrain (lines I-4) andtwo posteriorcouplets (III-IV) of the second quatrain (lines 5-8) are comparable tothe two "paired" (or "plain") rimes aabb within a quatrain. The relation between thetwo odd couplets (I, III: lines 1-2 and 5-6) and the two evencouplets (II, IV: lines3-4 and 7-8) is analogous to the "alternate" rimes abab. Finally, the contrapositionof the outercouplets (I, IV: lines I-2, 7-8) and the innercouplets (II, III: lines 3-6) istantamount to the "embracing" rimes abba. These three types of grammatical cor-respondences are distinctly interconnected in "Infant Sorrow". An isomerism, i.e.,an equal number of equivalent components, underlies the correlation of the coupletsand presents two significant varieties. A global symmetry equating both couplets ofone class with both couplets of the opposite class, namely I + II = III + IV orI + III = II + IV or I + IV = II + III, differs from a sectionalsymmetry whichbuilds an equation between the couplets within each of the two opposite classes,namely I = III and II = IV or I = IV and II = III.

Here in each instance of global symmetry between the anterior and posteriorcouplets, one of the two further correspondences-outer/inner or odd/even-is alsoglobal and supports the equilibrium of the quatrains: it assigns the same total numberof similar grammatical units to the two pairs of opposites (i.e., to the entire pairs of oddand even or of outer and inner couplets), whereas the other displays a sectional sym-metry and assigns a like number of similar grammatical entities to both couplets ofone and the same pair.

In addition to the leading constructive role assumed by the entire couplets, theautonomous part played by the single lines within the quatrain must also be taken intoaccount. Thus, the two outer, marginal lines of each quatrain and also of the wholeoctastich appear to present particular correspondences.

Blake's reminder that both Invention and Identity "are Objects of Intuition"provides a paramount clue to the poetic netwvork of his words. Each of the twoquatrains contains five nouns and five verbal forms. These five nouns are distributedin an equal manner among the four lines of each quatrain:

i. mother,ather = 2 = fathers hands 5.2. world = I =bands 6.3. = = 7.4. fiend, cloud = 2 - mothersbreast 8.

In the disposition of nouns all three compositional correlations of the couplets proveto be involved.


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6 ROMAN JAKOBSON1 3 3 III.II.2 2 IV.

The global symmetry between the anterior and posteriorcouplets (I + II = III +IV = 5) is accompanied by a similar global symmetrybetween the outer and innercouplets (I + IV = II + III = 5) and by a sectional symmetry of the odd and evencouplets (I = III = 3; II = IV = 2). This sectional symmetry is not confined tothe entire couplets but applies also to their constituent lines: there are (i) two nounsin the first and one in the second line of the odd couplets, (2) no nouns in the firstand two in the second line of the even couplets. In this way the homogeneity of theodd couplets and that of their even oppositesas well as the contrast of these two classesare outlined. In contradistinction to all other lines of the poem, the marginal lines ofboth quatrains differ from all other lines of the octastich: each of the four marginallines contains one pair of nouns: 1mother,ather; 4fiend,cloud; 5fathers ands,8mothersbreast.The ten nouns of the poem are divided evenly into five animates and five in-animates. The five animates are confined to the four marginal lines of the two qua-trains. The distributionof animates and inanimates among the two anteriorcoupletsof the firstquatrain and the two posteriorcouplets of the second quatrain and, more-over, among the outer and inner couplets, follows the principle of antisymmetry:

Anteriorcouplets: 3 animates, 2 inanimatesOuter couplets: 3 ,, 2Posterior couplets: 2 ,, 3Inner couplets: 2 ,, 3A manifestly spatial treatment opposes inanimates to animates. The inanimatesare constantly bound with locative prepositions,whereas,of the fiveanimates, four areused without any preposition, and one with an equational preposition (4Likeafiend).Two epithets emerge in the poem. Both are attached to the second line of thequatrains and pertain to similar syntactic constructions: 2lnto the dangerous orldIleapt;6Strivinggainstmyswadlingbands. ointly with all other prepositiveattributes-possessive ormsof nouns and pronouns, definite and indefinitearticles-these epithets

performa conspicuouslysymmetricaldesign in the poem. Such attributesoccur twicein each line of both quatrainswith the exception of their penultimate line: LMy,my;2thedangerous;L; 4a,a; 5myathers;6my swadling; #; 8mymothers.ix of theseattributesbelong to the first, and six to the second quatrain; correspondingly,an equal numberpertain to the outer and inner couplets of the poem. The odd couplets oppose four(2 + 2) prepositive attributes to two (# + 2) in the even couplets.As compared with the ten nouns, the ten verbal formspresent significantsimilari-ties and divergences in their distributionamong the four couplets:

. 3 2 III.11.2 3 IV.


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THE VERBAL ART OF POET-PAINTERS

We are faced with the same global symmetrybetween the anteriorand posteriorcouplets (I + II = III + IV = 5), but the treatment of the correlationsouter/innerand odd/even is diametricallyopposite in the nominal and verbal sets.The dispositionof verbal forms exhibits a global symmetry between the odd and even couplets(I + III = II + IV = 5), and a sectionalsymmetry of the outer and inner couplets(I = IV= 3; II = III = 2). This symmetry applies both to the couplets and totheir lines. The first line of the outer couplets contains two verbal forms (1groand,wept; 7bound,hought),he second line contains one (21eapt; to sulk); and each line ofthe inner couplets contains one verbal form (3piping, 4hid;5struggling,striving).There is a sensible difference between a global symmetry of outer/inner andodd/even constituents: the former suggests a closed configuration, and the latter, anopen-end chain. Blake's poem associates the former with nouns and the latter withverbs, and one ought to recall Edward Sapir's semantic definition of nouns as "exis-tents" and of verbs as "occurrents."The passive participle appears once in each even couplet (4hid, 7bound).Notransitivesoccur among the active verbal forms. In the active voice the firstquatraincounts three finite and one nonfinite form, while the second quatrain displays theantisymmetricalrelation of one finite and three nonfinite forms. All four finites arepreterits. A sharp contrast arisesbetween the inner couplets, with their three gerundsas the sole verbal forms, and the outer couplets, which possess no gerunds but havefive verbsproper (fourfinites and one infinitive). In both quatrains the inner couplet issubordinateto the contiguous line of theouter couplet: lines (3, 4) to the second lineof the octastich, and lines (5, 6) to the second line from its end.Prepositions parallel the verbs in the global symmetry of their distribution.Among the six prepositions in the poem, three belong to the anterior couplets (2into,4like, in) and three to the posterior couplets (5in, 6against,upon)and, correspondingly,three to the odd and three to the even couplets, whereas any outer couplet uses oneprepositionand any inner couplet, two.The impressivegrammatical balance between the correlative parts of the poemframes and sets off the dramatic development. The only four independent clauseswith the only four finite predicates and the only four grammatical subjects-two ofthem pronominal and two, nominal-are all confined to the outer couplets. Whilethe pronominal clause with the first person subject occurs in both quatrains-in thenext to the first and next to the last line of the octastich (2I leapt;71 thought)-the twonominal subjects detach the first line from the rest of the poem, and Blake concludesthis line with a period. Infant, he title hero, and the two other dramatis personae arepresentedwith reference to the addresserof the message: I, mymother,my ather. Bothnouns along with their determinersreappear in the second quatrain, however, withsignificant syntactic and semantic shifts. Grammatical subjectsare transformed ntopossessiveattributes of indirect objects, which are governed by subordinate verbalforms. The two matching parts of the inaugural octosyllable become disjointed. The


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8 ROMAN JAKOBSONinitial line of the second quatrain concludes with the same paternal evocation as thecorresponding ine of the firstquatrain: lmy atherwept;2myathershands.The originalvision of the weeping parent yields to the twofold image of strifeagainst fathershandsand swadlingbands,the hostile forces which befall the infant at his leap into thedangerous orld.The opening words of the poem-,My mother-reappearonce more at its end-8my mothers-and, jointly with the subject I of the second and seventh lines, theydisplay mirror symmetry. The first of these two pronouns is followed by the pair ofsemipredicates 3Helpless,naked,while the second I is preceded by a syntacticallyanalogous pair: 7Bound ndweary.The placement and chiastic structureof this pairretain the principle of mirrorsymmetry.The participleBound upersedes he antonymnaked,and the primordial helplessnessturns into exhaustion. The loud piping of theinfant, which supplanted the deep moan of the mother, yields to an urge for silence:71thought est8To sulkuponmymothersreast.The exodusfrom the motherportends thereturn to her, a new maternal screen for shelter and protection (4hid n-8 To sulkupon).The author'sdraftsof a longer poem (see Erdman I965, 719-72 I) were reducedto its first eight lines for his Songsof Experience. he inquiry into the verbal texture ofthese two quatrains corroborates and strengthens the intuitive grasp expressedastutely by J. Bronowski (I965, i 6 ): "The whole progression ies coiled in the firsthelplessness."A scrutinyof the chiselled octastichwith itsfar-flunggrammaticalframe-work may illustrate and specifyanotherpertinent conclusion of the same monograph:"Blake'swas an imagination of pictures, astonishing in its geometrical insight" (p.139). In this connection it seems to me suitable to restate the "remarkableanalogybetween the role of grammar in poetry and painter's composition based on a latentor patent geometrical order or on a revulsion against geometrical arrangements"(cf. Jakobson, I968, 605). In particular, the headwords, the principal clauses andthe prominentmotifswhich fill the diverging outercoupletsstand out againstaccessoryand subordinate contents of the contiguous inner couplets, quite similar to the con-verging lines of a background in a pictorial perspective.The firm and plastic relational geometricity of Blake's verbal art assures astartling dynamism in the development of the tragic theme. The coupled antisym-metrical operations outlined above and the categorial contrast of the two parallelgrammatical rimes underscore the tension between the nativity and the ensuingworldly experience. In linguistic terms, the tension is between the initial supremacyof animate subjects with finite verbs of action and the subsequent prevalence of con-crete, material inanimates used as indirect objects of gerunds, mere verbals derivedfrom verbsof action and subordinateto the only finite7thought,n its narrowedmeaningof a wish conceived.The peculiar feature of Blake's punctuation is his use of colons. The colons of


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"Infant Sorrow" signal the division of the inner couplets into their constituent linesand dissociate the inner couplets from the outer ones. Each of the inner lines con-taining a gerundial constructionends in a colon and is separated by a colon from theantecedent clause of the same sentence.The growing motif of weary resignation finds its gripping embodiment also inthe rhythmical course of the poem. Its initial octosyllable is the most symmetricalofthe eight lines. It consistsof two tetrasyllabic coordinate clauses with an expressivepause between them, rendered in Blake's text by means of an exclamation point. Anoptional secondary pause emerges between the subject and predicate of both juxta-posed clauses. The consequent of these contrastive pauses precedes the final syllableof the line: 1Mymotherroand!my ather wept.In the next line, which concludes thefirst odd couplet, the internal syntactic pause arises before the second to the lastsyllable (6 + 2), and with each line the interval between the final and the internalpause becomes one syllable longer, until the last line of the second odd couplet fixesthe internal pause after the second syllable of the line: 2 + 6. Thus, the widest swingwhich the verse takes (21nto hedangerous orld I leapt)changes gradually into theshortest, bated, constrainedspan: (6Striving againstmyswadlingbands).Each quatrain includes two iambic octosyllables and two trochaicheptasyllables.One observesthe iambic designin the two marginallines of the octastich,both of themwith the evocation my mother,nd in the final line of both odd couplets, each of themcharacterizedby an oppositive impetus-in the firstcase towards,and in the second,away from the "dangerous" environment.The similarlength of these two correlativelines lends a particular cogency to the double contrast of their rhythmical phrasingand semantic orientation. The thought of salvation upon my mothersbreast as aretort to the image of hateful swadlingbandsreinforces the association between thetwo even lines of the second quatrain by their rhythmical identity: 6Striving againstmy swadlingbandsand 8To sulk uponmymothers reast.The intermediate line whichopens the last even couplet shares, as mentioned above, several structural featureswith the initial line of the first even couplet and duplicates its trochaic measurewitha medial pause (4 + 3).In the iambic lines the main or only pause always falls before an upbeat. In thetrochaic lines the pause occurs before the downbeat or, exceptionally, before an up-beat fulfilled by a stressedsyllable (4Likeafiend hid in a cloud).The distribution ofpausesin Blake'soctastichmay illustrateits stunningsymmetry. In our table numeralsfollowed by a dot show the order of the eight lines; the subsequent vertical indicatesthe beginning, and the oblong vertical at the right of the table, the end of the line.The syllablesof the line fromits end towardits beginning are designated by the upperhorizontal row of numerals.The verticalbetween the two limits of each line renders tsinner pause, while the secondary, optional inner pause is represented by a dottedvertical. A slant marksthe increasingly regressivetendency displayed by the disposi-tion of the interlinear and then, in the last couplet, prelinear pauses.


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10 ROMAN JAKOBSON

As the poet himself asserts n the Foreword to "Jerusalem", ndeed he has attained"a variety in every line, both of cadences & number of syllables"within its segments.The initial heptasyllabic line of each even couplet is linked with the octosyllabicend of the foregoing odd couplet by means of an alliteration of the two final words(2Leapt-3LOud, 5Bands-7Best), and by a paronomastic affinity between the final andinitial word of both successive lines (2LEAPI-3hELPleSS, 6BaNDS-7BOUND). Within acouplet the lines are parisyllabic in the first quatrain, imparisyllabic in the second.Two words alliterate in the former case, three in the latter: 1wept-2world, 3Loud-4Like; 7Bound-Best-8Breast. In the first, parallelistic couplet of the second quatrain,the alliteration develops into a paronomastic blend of two subsequent words in theantecedent member of a triplechain: 5STRUggLING-6STRiVING-SwadLING. The similar-ity of clusterscounterbalancesthe dissimilardistribution of downbeats and upbeats

SYLLABLES8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2.3.

LINES X END OF LINES5.6.7.

VI8.in both confronted gerunds,one of which begins a trochaic (5Strugglingn) and theother an iambic line (6Stiving against).At the limit of both quatrains the parisyllabic contiguous lines of two innercouplets, one even and the next odd, display a manifold propinquity in their soundtexture: FieND-HiD IN-5IN my FatherSHaNDS. No sooner has the fourth line, the onlysimile of the poem, introduced a mythicized hero, than the adverse image of thefather'sfettering hands, in a kind of filmic "dissolve",appearsslightly under the first"shot", whereupon the salient metamorphosiscomes into being: the would-be super-natural hero (4Like afiend hid in a cloud) is victimized (5Struggling n my athers hands).The eight lines of "Infant Sorrow" are remarkablyrich in what Gerald ManleyHopkins infers by "figures of grammar" and "figures of sound", and it is to theireloquent symmetry and palpable interplay imbued with diaphanous symbolismthatthis succinct, ingenuousstoryowes most of its mythological power and suggestiveness.The Douanier Rousseau has been compared with Blake and said to be close to


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him (see Frye i9652, IO5). An octastich of the French painter will be our nexttopic.

II Henri Rousseau's Poetic Appendix to his Last PaintingJ'ai conserve ma naivete'. .Je ne pourrai maintenantchangerma mani6requej'ai acquisparun travailopiniatre.Henri Rousseau o Andre Dupont, April Ist, I9IO.Shortlybeforethe artist'sdeath (September2, I9IO), he exhibited one single painting,TheDream,at the SalondesIndependantsMarch i 8-May I of the same year) and wroteto Guillaume Apollinaire: "J'ai envoye mon grand tableau, tout le monde le trouvebien, je pense que tu vas deployer ton talent litteraireet que tu me vengerasde toutesles insultes t affronts ecus" March I, I9IO: seeApollinaire9I3, 56).Apollinaire'scommemorative paper "Le douanier" recounts that Rousseau had never forgottenhis early, Polish love, Yadwigha (= Jadwiga), "qui lui inspira le Reve, son chef-ddeuvre" which at present belongs to the Museum of Modern Art, and among afew instances of the painter's poetic activities ("gentils morceaux de poesie") his"Inscription pour Le Reve" supplements Apollinaire's essay (ibidem, i I, 65):

1radwighaansunbeau eve2S'etantndormieoucement3Entendaites sonsd'unemusette4Dontjouaitncharmeurien ensant.5Pendant ue a lunereflite6Sur esfleuves, es arbres erdoyants,7Lesauves serpents retent'oreille8Auxairsgais del'instrument.A nearly literal English translationmay be added:Yadwigha n a beautifuldreamHavingfallenasleeppeacefullyWashearing he soundsof a reedUpon which a well-meaning harmerwasplaying.While the moon casts a reflectionOf the greening rees on the rivers,The savageserpentsend their earTo the gay tunes of the instrument.

This octastich was allegedly attached to the exhibited picture. In the Catalogue e la26emeExpositionf the SociltedesArtistes nd6pendantsParis I9IO, 294) the reference toHenri Rousseau's "4468 Le Reve" s accompanied by the same verses, printed, how-ever,with grosserrorsand distortions,e.g., Yadurgha,o that Apollinaire'sversion stillappears to be the only reliable one.The four even, "masculine" lines of the poem end in one and the same nasalvowel, whereas the four odd, "feminine" lines end in a closed syllable with a shortor long variety of [E]as its nucleus. Among the approximate rimesdisplayed by these


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II HenriRousseau,The Dream, i910 (Collection,The Museumof ModernArt,New rork)


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two sets of lines, those which tie together the two inner couplets (lines 3-4 with 5-6)and, in turn, the rimes of the two outer couplets (I-2 with 7-8) exhibit a supple-mentary similarity between the riming words in comparison with the rimes withinthe quatrains: in the outer couplets the complete identity of syllabic vowels is rein-forced by a supportingprevocalicconsonant (RE've-oREille; 2doUceMENT-8instruMENT)and in the inner couplets a similar vocalic identity is seconded by the postvocalicconsonant of the feminine nines (3musETTE-5reftiTE)or by the salient grammaticalsameness of the words sharing the masculine rime (4pensant-6verdoyants,he only twoparticipial forms in the poem).As the rimes underscore it, the octastich presents a clear-cut division into theouter (I, IV) and inner couplets (II, III). Each of these two pairsof coupletscontainsan equal number of six nouns with the same bifurcation nto four masculinesand twofeminines. The initial as well as the final line within each of these two pairsof coupletscontains two nouns: one feminine and one masculine in the initial line (lradwigha,rive; 3sons,musette), wo masculines in the final (8airs, nstrument;fieuves, rbres).Theglobal symmetry displayed by the nouns of the outer and inner couplets finds nosupport in the distribution between odd and even or anterior and posterior coup-lets, but both inner couplets comprise one and the same number of three nouns inmirror symmetry (II: 3sons, musette,4charmeur;II: 51une, fieuves, rbres),and, con-sequently, the relation between nouns of the even and odd couplets-seven to five-is precisely the same as the relation between nouns of the posterior and anteriorcouplets.Each of the two quatrainscomprisesone sentence with two subjectsand two finitepredicates. Every couplet of the octastich contains one subject, while in the distribu-tion of the finites-three to one-the even couplets have the same relation to the oddones as the inner to the outer couplets.The subjectsof the outer couplets pertain to the two main clauses of the poem,whereas both subjectsof the inner couplets form a part of subordinate clauses. Themain subjects begin the line (1-radwigha ans un beau reve; 7Les auves serpents)ncontradistinctionto the noninitial position of the subordinatesubjects (4Dont jouaituncharmeur;Pendant que la lune).The feminine subjectsemerge in the odd coupletsof the octastich, and the masculinesubjects n its even couplets.Thus, in each quatrainthe firstsubject is feminine and the second, masculine: 1radwigha-4charmeur; 51une-7serpents. onsequently, both anterior couplets (the first quatrain of the poem) withthe feminine gender of their main subject radwighaand the masculine of their sub-ordinate subject charmeurre diametrically opposed to the posteriorcouplets (secondquatrain), where the main subject serpentss masculine and the subordinate subjectlune s feminine. The personal (human) gender distinguishesthe grammaticalsubjectsof the anterior couplets (1radwigha,4charmeur)rom the nonpersonal subjects of theposterior couplets (51une, 7serpents).These data may be summarized in a table with italic inscriptionsindicating the


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14 ROMAN JAKOBSON

placement of the foursubjects n the compositionof the octastich and with romantypedenoting their grammatical properties:anterior posterior

e4 personal non-personal Ninner CHARMEUR LUNEsubordinateouter YADWIGHA S RPENTSmain/\

This distributionof the four grammatical subjectsproves to correspondto the relativedisposition of their pictorial referents on Rousseau'scanvas (see illustrationII) :*

upper background

lower foreground

The pictorial figures of the foreground areas are rendered in the poem by themain subjects' placement in the diverging, outer couplets, whereas the backgroundfigures which have been moved upwards and shortened in the painting producesubordinate subjects assigned to the converging, inner couplets of the octastich.Tristan Tzara's suggestive essay, published as a preface to the exhibition of HenriRousseau's paintings in the Sidney Janis Gallery (New York I95i), discusses"TheRole of Time and Space in his Work"and points out the relevance and peculiarityof"perspective as Rousseau conceived it" and, in particular, a significant trait of hisgreat compositions:a seriesof movementssplit up "into individual elements, veritableslices of Time bound together by a sort of arithmetical operation."* Thanks are due to The Museum of Modem Art in New York City for the excellent reproduction of

The Dream and for their kind permission to use it as an illustration in this paper, and to the Associate Curatorof The Museum, Betsy Jones, for her invaluable information.


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While the charmer and the full moon face the spectator, the profile figures ofYadwigha and the snake are turned towards each other; the snake's windings parallelthe curve of the woman's hip and leg, and the vertical green ferns jut out under bothof these curves and point to Yadwigha's hip and to the upper curve of the reptile. Infact, this bright and slim snake emerges against the background of another, thicker,black, and hardly discernible serpent; the latter mirrors the skin of the charmer whilethe former corresponds to the color of a stripe in his variegated belt. The blue andviolet flowers rise above Yadwigha and the two snakes. In the poem two parallelconstructions connect the heroine with the reptiles: 3Entendaitles sons d'une musetteand 7prftent'oreille8Auxairsgais de l'instrument.

Some challenging questions of grammatical gender arise in this connection. Tothe two feminine subjects of the poem the painting responds with two salient featurescharacteristic of Yadwigha and the moon, their diverse paleness in comparison withthe deeper colors of the environment and especially of the charmer and reptiles, andthe similar roundness of the full moon and of the female's breast in comparison withthe pointed body of the bright snake and the charmer's reed. The "sexuisemblance"of the feminine and masculine genders experienced by any member of the Frenchspeech community was scrutinized lucidly and exhaustively by J. Damourette and E.Pichon in the first volume of their historic accomplishment, Des mots a la Pensee-Essai de Grammairee la LangueFranfaise Paris 19I I-I927), Chap. IV:

Tous les substantifsnominaux fransais sont masculins ou feminins: c'est la un faitincontestable et inconteste. L' imagination nationale a ete jusqu'a ne plus concevoir desubstances nominales que contenant en elles-memes une analogie avec l'un des deuxsexes; de sorte que la sexuisemblance arrive a etre un mode de classification generalede ces substances (?302) .. . Elle a dans le parler, donc dans la pensee, de chaqueFranqais un r6le de tout instant (?306) ... Cette repartition n'a evidemment pas uncaractere purement intellectuel. Elle a quelque chose d'affectif... La sexuisemblanceest tellement nettement une comparison avec le sexe que les vocables fransais femininsen arrivent a ne pouvoir au figure etre compares qu't des femmes (?307) ... Le repar-titoire de sexuisemblance est le mode d'expression de la personnification des choses(?309).It is noteworthy that the four feminines of Rousseau's poem are tied to its four

odd lines. They inaugurate the line when functioning as grammatical subjects in theodd couplets, and they terminate the line when they act as modifiers in the evencouplets.

The mandatory association of the feminine gender with odd, viz. "feminine",lines asks for an interpretation. The tendency to differentiate feminine and masculineforms by the closed and open end of the word (cf. Damourette & Pichon ?272)creates an association between the final syllable of the line, closed or open, and thegender, feminine or masculine. Also the term "feminine rimes", popular even inFrench elementary textbooks, may have favored the distribution of feminine nounsamong those lines.


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i6 ROMAN JAKOBSONIn Rousseau's verses the distributionof genders is submitted to a dissimilativeprinciple. The closest object of the verb belongs to the gender opposite to that of thesubjectof the given clause, and if there is a furthergoverned modifier,be it adverbal

or adnominal, it retains the gender of the subject; in this way the role of genders inthe poem becomes particularlyaccentuated: 1radwigha f.) .. . 3entendaitessons(m.)d'unemusettef.); 4Dont[referringto musettef.)] jouait un charmeuri.); 51a une(f.)reJte 6... les arbresm.); 7Lesfauveserpentsm.) prAtent'oreille f.) 8Auxairsgais (m.).The foregroundof Rousseau'spainting and poem belongs to Yadwigha and thesnakes;one is promptedto recallEve,his somewhat earlierpicture,with its stupendousduet of two profiles, the naked woman and the serpenit see Vallier I962, illustrationI32). This hierarchy of the dramatis personae was overlooked, however, by critics.Thus Apollinaire's eulogy of March i8, I9IO (I960, 76): "De ce tableause degagede la beaute"'-saw the nude woman on a sofa, tropical vegetation around her withmonkeysand birdsof paradise,a lion, a lioness,and a fluting Negro-"personnage demystere". But the snakesand the moon remained unmentioned. Jean Bouret (I96I,5o) also confines his discussionof the compositionalorder in TheDream o the fluteplayer, the tiger(?), the bird, and the reclining woman. These observersstop at theleft, larger section of the painting without shifting to the minor right part, the topicof the second quatrain. The initial stage of inspection of the picture is, naturally, itsleft side: "cette femme endormie sur ce canape" who dreams that she has beentransported "dans cette foret, entendant les sons de l'instrument du charmeur",according to the painter's explanation of his own picture (Apollinaire I9I3, 57).From Yadwigha and the mysteriouscharmer the focus shiftsto the secondfold of thediptych, separatedfrom the firstone by a blue flower on a long stem, which parallelsa similar plant on the left side of the heroine. The narrative order and successivecognition and synthesis of the canvas Dream(cf. A. Luria, HigherCorticalFunctionsin Man and Their Disturbancesn Local BrainLesions,Moscow i962) find their tersecorrespondencein the transition from the first quatrain with its two parallel im-perfects-or present preterits, in L. Tesniere's terminology- (3entendAIT-4jOUAIT)to the two riming presents of the second quatrain (5refiiTE-7prETEnt) and in thesubstitution of mere definite articles (51aune,6lesfteuves,esarbres, les erpents,'oreille,8auxairs, l'instrument)o the indefinite articles, which, with the sole exception of 3lessons,dominate the preceding quatrain (1unreve,3unemusette, uncharmeur).In Rousseau's poetic as well as pictorial composition the dramatic action isborne by the four subjects of the poem and their visual referents on the canvas. Asoutlined above, all of them are interconnected by three binary contrasts, glaringlyexpressedby the poet-painter and transforming his unusual quartet into six oppositepairswhich determineand diversifythe verbal and graphic plot. In the "Inscription"each of the four subjects s endowed with a furthercategorial feature which contrastsit with the three other correspondents:radwighas the only propername in the poem;un charmeur,ts sole personal appellative; les serpents,ts only animate plural; and la


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lune s the one inanimate among the four subjects.This diversity is accompanied by adifference of articles-the zero article which signals the proper name, the indefiniteun, followed by the plural les and the feminine la of the definite article.A multifarious nterplay of concurrentsimilarities and divergencesunderliesandvivifies the written and painted Dreamn all its facets: the silence of the moonlit nightinterrupted by the tunes of a swarthy charmer; the enchantment of moonshine andmusical charms; the female's moonlight dream; two auditorsof the magic tunes, thewoman and the serpent, both alien and alluring to each other; the serpent as thelegendary tempter of the woman and the inveterate target of the snake charmerand,on the other hand, the maximal contrast and mysterious affinity between the pallidYadwigha on her old-fashioned sofa and the well-meaning tropical flutist amid hisvirgin forest; and, after all this, in the eyes of the inhabitant of 2 bis, ruePerrel, heequally exotic and attractive tinge of the African magician and the Polish enchantresswith her intricate name.As to the lion escorted by a lioness and omitted in the poem, in the picture itbelongs to the fluteplayer's triangle and, as Bouret (loc. cit.) has observed, builds its"apex" pointing downwards. This front face seems to be a double of the superposedcharmer and in a similar way the bright half-faced bird over Yadwigha looks likeher double. Yet in the iconographic comparison of Rousseau'scanvas and poem ourattention has been focused upon their common denominator, easilyextractabledespitetheir differentprops, such as the riversreflecting the trees in the verse or the zoologicalabundance in the painting.LikeBlake's"Infant Sorrow", Rousseau'soctastich, in order to insure the cohesionof its expressly differentiated couplets, connects them with tough phonological bondsbetween the even and the subsequent odd lines: /2setd tddarmidusmdt 3dtede;/ 4pa5a5pddd/.Moreover, the last two couplets are tied by a palpable sound texture:6les FLeuves-7Les Fauves (with two corresponding rounded vowels); 6SUR . . lesaRBRes-7seRPentsR6tent where the phoneme /R/ alternates with hissingcontinuantsand labial stops).In my natural conclusion I am following Vratislav Effenberger(I963) when thisCzech expert on Henri Rousseau's work defines it as "a sign of rising symbiosis be-tween painting and poetry." A similar appraisal of Paul Klee by Carola Gledion-Welcker (I946)-in this artist "ist der Dichter mit dem Maler eng verkniipft"-im-pels us to go on to Klee's poetic remains.


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I8 ROMAN JAKOBSONIII Paul Klee's Octastich

Sprache ohne Vernunft ... Hat die Inspiration Augenoder schlafwandelt sie?Das Kunstwerk als Akt. Eine Teilung der Zehen indreiTeile: I + 3 + I.From Klee's diaries of I9OI (Nos. 183, 3IO).

The painter's poem of I903 about beasts, gods, and men, written down, according tothe author's custom, without any vertical arrangement of verses, displays nonethelessa clear-cut rhythmical division into eight lines of two hemistichs; the second hemistichin the first and third lines carries three, and each of the other hemistichs bears twostrong word stresses. Actually, the author himself separates the verses of this poemby spacing the intervals between them, expecially when these verses are not dividedfrom one another by a punctuation mark (see the autograph reproduced by thepainter's son, Felix Klee 1960, 56):

lZwei Bergegibt es / auf denen s hell ist undkldr,2denBe'rgderTiere/ unddenBe'rgderGotter.3Dazwischen ber zegt dasddmmerige dl derMenschen.4Wenn inereinmal nachoben ieht,5erfdssthndhnend einegnstillbare ihnsucht,6'hn,der weiss,/ dasse' nichtweass7nachhnendienichtwissen, dass stenichtwissen8zndnach hnen, die wzssen asssie wissen.A literal translation:

,There are two mountains on which it is bright and clear,2the mountain of beasts and the mountain of gods.3But in between there lies the dusky valley of men.4When once someone looks upwards,5an unquenchable longing seizes him forebodingly,6him who knows that he doesn't know7 after them who don't know that they don't know8and after them who know that they know.Klee's punctuation in his autograph of this poem reveals a significant differencebetween the rhythmical phrasing of syntactic constructions in the two final lines:7nach hnen die nicht wissen, dass sie nicht wissen and, on the other hand, 8undnachihnen,die wissen dass sie wissen. The comma indicates the different place of the boundarybetween the hemistichs in these two lines. Thus, the reading gndnachthnen,/ die wzssendasssie wissenwith an emphatic stress on the antithetical conjunction appears to be theonly correct one.The transcription of this poem in F. Klee's edition (I957, No. 539 and I960, 56)unfortunately reshapes the artist's punctuation according to the orthographic norm.Of these two publications the former prints the octastich like prose, while in the

latter it is artificially broken into twelve lines; namely, some of the hemistichs are


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treated as separate lines, and, moreover, the inaugural proclitic of the second hemi-stich is assigned to the end of the firsthemistich, e.g.Dazwischenber iegtdasddmmerigealderMenschen.With the exception of the second, solemn amphibrachic hemistich of the firstline-auf dinenes hill ist undkldr-the verses of the poem display a duple, predomin-antly iambic rhythm. The first hemistich, dipodic in six and tripodic in two lines,looses the initial upbeat in two instances: 6ihn,derweiss;8zind ach hnen.The secondhemistich of two, three, or four duple feet begins with an upbeat after a masculinecaesura (lines 3 and 6) while after a feminine caesura it begins either with a downbeat,thus preservingthe metrical uniformityof the entire line (2denBe'rgderTliere unddenBergderGotter; erfdssthndhnend eineznstillbareihnsucht),r it begins with an upbeat,and thus achieves its own autonomous iambic pattern ( Wenn liner einmal nachdben ieht; cf. lines 7 and 8).Three genitive plurals, the only animate nouns of the poem-2der Tiere,derGotter,3derMenschen-point to its triadic heroes. The ternary principle, partly con-nected with this thematic trichotomy and partly autonomous, runs throughout theentire octastich. The poem encompassesthree sentences (I-2; 3; 4-8) which, in turn,

comprise three independent clauses with three finites: lgibt, 3liegt, 5erfasst,all threeof which are placed before the subject in contradistinctionto the predicates of thedependent clauses. The accusative plural 1Berges followed by the double apposition2Berg . . Berg, and the relative pronoun 1denen y the cognate articles 2den.. den.Three neuters with three finite predicates-1gibt es, es hell ist, 3liegt das-begin thepoem. The domiciles of the threefold heroes-2Berg der Tiere, Berg derGotter,and3Tal derMenschen-areassociatedwith three adjectives: 1hell,klar,3ddmmerige,nd thecontrasting images which end the first two sentences are underlined by paronomasticcontrivances: 2Bergder Gotter erg-erg); 3dammerige...der Menschen dem.r-derm).The third sentence, too, is permeated by ternary repetitions:4einer, inmal,5eine; nach,7nacl, 8nach;6ihn,derweiss,dasser nicht weiss-7ihnendie nicht wissen,dass sie nichtwissen-E8ihnen,ie wissen dass sie wissen-with the triple negative nichtthoughtfullydistributedin the sixth and seventh lines. The thrice occurring conjunction 1, 2, 8undis connected with a correspondencebetween the first and last sentences: the accusative1Berge, ollowed by an apposition of the two pleonastic accusatives interlinked byund,is paralleled by the accusative 5ihnand its pleonastic apposition 6iknwith twosubsequentdatives 7nach hnen . . 8undnachihnen.A purely metaphorical, spatial designof biblical stamp underlies the whole poem:(seep. 20). The valley is theonlyabodeof the unsolvableantinomy between the two con-traries,the awarenessof one's own unawareness,which perhaps alludes to its likewiseantinomic reversal, the tragic unawareness of one's own awareness.The thematic tripartitionof the octastichsuperposesa symmetrical pattern upon


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20 ROMAN JAKOBSON

its syntactic division into three uneven sentencesof two, one, and five lines. The firstthree lines of the poem depict the permanent quasi-materialstatus of its heroes; theouter, initial couplet (lines i and 2) is devoted to beasts and gods, while the thirdline deals with men. Correspondingly,the last three lines of the poem characterizethe permanent mental status of its heroes, and the outer, final couplet (lines 7-8)contemplates the beasts and gods, whereas the third line from the end (6) is consa-crated to men. The central of the three sections (lines4-5) may be defined as dynamicand is concerned with active processeswhich occur-once again with permanence-in "the dusky valley of men." Each of these three sections is signaled by a stressedmonosyllable at the end of its initial line (1klar,4sieht,and 6weiss),whereas the otherfive lines of the poem are closed with a paroxytone.bright clear

mountain mountainnegation affirmationof ofnegation affirmation

duskyvalleyaffirmation

ofnegationSince the two-line central section (4, 5) jointly with the two adjacent lines (3 and6) focus on men, all four inner lines may be treated in a certain regard as a wholeopposed to the towering theme of the two outer couplets. The borderlines (3 and 6)are evoked by a stressedmonosyllable at the end of their firsthemistich (two parallelverbal forms 3liegt,6weiss),while the two pairs of lines surrounding each of theseborderlinesdisplay a feminine caesura.In their grammaticalshape (3 and 6) occupy an obviously transitionalposition;each of them is basically akin to the contiguous outer couplet, but at the same timethey share certain formal features with the two central lines.This central distich, the most dramatic part of the poem, is endowed with verbsof process (4nach ben ieht,5ergreift),n contradistinctionto the verbs of state in (I-3)and to the verbaciendin (6-8). The abstractnoun 5Selnsuchtiffersfrom the six con-crete substantivesof the three preceding lines and from the total absence of nouns inthe next three lines. The components of Sehnsucht re related, one with the verbsehnen, nd the other, through folk etymology, with the verb suchen.The entire linedisplays an ostensiblyverbal leaning, and besides the transitiveverb ergreiftwith thedirect object iAn, t contains a gerund ahnend nd a deverbative adjective unstillbare.


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The temporal adverbial clause (1Wenn . .), as compared with the relative clauses inthe other two sections, underlies the primacy of the verb in the central lines. Theverb-oriented hexapodic line which concludes the central distich 5edfdsst hnd/nend/ eine znstillbare e'hnsucht-contrastsn particular with the terminal, purely nominalpentapody of the initial distich-2den Be'rgderTiere unddenBergderGotter-the onlytwo integrally iambic lines with feminine endings of both hemistichs. The indefinitetriplet 4einer--einmal-5eineontrasts with two chains of "determinates": 1denen-2den-der-den-der-3dazwischen-das-derincluding the alliterative ddmmerige)n the first sec-tion and 6der-dars-7die-dass-8cdie-dassn the final tercet. The vocalic onset of the thricerepeated ein- is reinforced by the similar initials of the surrounding words-4einereinmal .. oben.. 5erfassthn ahnend ineunstillbare . . -while the final words of thisdistich produce a triple alliteration of hissing continuants: 4sieht-Sehnsucht.With the antecedent transitional line the central distich shares the only nominalsubjects and the only epithets in the octastich; by the way, these two tetrasyllabicattributes in the unique tetrapodic hemistichs-3dAmmerigend 4unstillbare-arethelengthiestvocables of the entire text. These sole nouns in the nominative case togetherwith their adjective modifiersreferindirectly to men and are contraposedto the threenominal accusativesof the initial distich,which pointsto beasts and gods. Furthermore,the gender opposesthe obscure3Tal, the only neuter noun of the poem, and especiallyits only feminine, the affective 5Sehnsucht,o the five masculine nouns of the initialdistich, as if this difference were to confirm the peerlessnessof human whereaboutsand troubles. In general, oppositions of contraries and of contradictoriesare muchmore typical of Klee's grammatical texture than the numerical correspondencesbetween its different sections.With the subsequenttransitionalline the central distich sharesthe only singularforms of masculine pronouns (4einer;5ihn; 6ihn, der, er) and the absence of plurals,against the numerousnominal, pronominal, and verbal plurals of the other lines.This singular loneliness, graphically delineated in the acme of Klee's poem,finds a kindred preamble in the immediately preceding lines of his diary (No. 538):"..0 . ganz auf sich selberabstellen, sich auf grosste Einsamkeitvorbereiten. Abneigunggegen die Fortpflanzung (ethische tYberempfindlichkeit)."The three final, strictlyrelational and cogitative lines manifesting three varietiesof a double hypotaxis and consisting of nine pronouns, six forms of the verb "toknow", three timeswith and threetimeswithout the negative nicht, nd of six conjunc-tions and prepositions, put an end to the metaphorical network of the two priorsections with their conventionally figurative inanimates and verbs. The reader iscalled upon to proceed from spatial visions to stringent spiritual abstractions.In agreement with the longing of the terminal distich for the inhabitants of themountains, auf denen s hell ist undklar, or perhaps in agreement rather with the ter-minal strivingfor the heights of abstractmeditation, seven full stressesof the two finallines fall on the acute and diffuse vowel /il-7nach lhnendie nichtwissen,dasssz'enicht


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22 ROMAN JAKOBSON

wissen8End ach hnen,die wissendasssie wzssen.Also in the three lines of the initial sec-tion, it is /i/ that carries the last stress of the first hemistich. Among the thirty-fourstrong stressesof the octastich, twenty-three fall on front (viz. acute) vowels, and, inparticular, thirteen fall on /i/. The four diphthongs /ai/ with their acute terminationin turn reinforce the "bright" tinge of Klee's poem, which manifestly avoids backrounded vowels under stress and tolerates merely two /u/ and one /o/.An astounding union of radiant transparence and masterful simplicity withmultiform intricacy enables Klee the painiterand the poet to deploy a harmoniousdispositionof unusuallyvaried devices either on a strip of canvas or in a few lines ofa notebook. The appended scheme may summarize those concurrent, binary andternaryarrangementsof subject matter and grammaticalexpedients which lent depthand monumentality to the artist's verbal mniniature nd which appear to exemplifyKlee's dialectic of artistic markednesswith his acute sense for correlationsof dynamicand static, of bright and deep, of intensive and extensive, of grammatical and geo-metrical concepts, and, finally, of rule and overruling, all of which he intimated inhis diary of I908 (No. 832):

Handlungsei ausserordentlich nd nicht Regel. Handlung st aoristisch,muss sichabhebenvon Zustandlichem.Will ich hell handeln,so muss der ZustanddunkelzuGrund liegen. Will ich tief handeln, setzt das helle Zustiinde voraus. Die Wirkung derHandlung erh6ht sich bei starkerIntensitat und kleiner Ausdehnung, aber auf geringerzustiindlicher Intensitat und grosser zustandlicher Ausdehnung ... Auf mitteltonigerZustaindlichkeitaber ist doppelte Handlung m6glich, nach hell und nach tief hingesichtete.

1St Beasts i. Initial Isentence and 2. distich Externalizedgods2nd 3. statussentence Imagery3rd 4. Central II

sentence: distichMen E 5.men in .o 0 Motionrelation tobeasts andgods 6. InternalBeasts 7- statusand Terminalgods distich8. Abstraction


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ReferencesApollinaire, Guillaume (1913) Editor of Les Soireesde Paris, III, No. 20, Jan. 15, 1913(actually1914) Paris.Apollinaire, Guillaume (I960) Chroniques'art, Paris.Bouret, Jean (I96I) HenriRousseau,Neuchatel.Bronowski, J. (i 965) WilliamBlakeand theAge of Revolution,New York.Effenberger, Vratislav (I963) HenriRousseau,Prague.Erdman, D. V. (I965) Editor of The Poetryand Proseof WilliamBlake, New York.Frye, Northrop (i9652) FearfulSymmetry: Studyof WilliamBlake,Boston.Gledion-Welcker, Carola (1946) Anthologie erAbseitigen,Bern.Jakobson, Roman (I968) "Poetry of Grammar and Grammar of Poetry," Lingua, 2I.Klee, Felix (I957) Editor of TagebiicheronPaul Klee i898-i9i8, Cologne.Klee, Felix (I960) Editor of GedichteonPaul Klee, Zurich.Vallier, Dora (i962) HenriRousseau,New York.

Boylston all301HarvardUniversityCambridge,Mass. 02138

jakobson - on the verbal art of william blake

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