Syntactic Aspects of Poetry: A Pragmatic Perspective

Abstract

The language of poetry is different from the language of other literary genres. That is to say, the grammar of poetry is different. This refers to the fact that the rules of grammars will have to be modified so as to permit certain "liberties" or “licenses" on the one hand, and to account for the novel kinds of restrictions that are imposed on linguistic units in poetry both within and beyond the sentence, on the other. Such grammar would reveal, by a comparison with the grammar of the ordinary language, many differences between poetic language, the ordinary language and any literary genre. Therefore, literature particularly poetry cannot be examined apart from language. Accordingly, poetry cannot be grasped without a thorough knowledge of grammar.