Emotion and Closure in the Sound Expressiveness of Quatrains from Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Abstract

This article follows two branches of Tsur's cognitive poetic theory to their logical conclusion and applies them to Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam where they are fully validated. The first branch emphasizes the expressiveness of speech sounds (phonemes) and the second branch the importance of the Gestalt principle of closure to poetry. Rubaiyat were phonetically transcribed and their phonemes were then categorized in terms of emotional character. The closural device of a return to baseline described the preferential use of active phonemes in the rubaiyat while the closural allusion of definitive termination described the preferential use of pleasant phonemes. Clynes' concept of the essentic form for grief was used to explain the rise and fall of preferential activation in the first three lines of each quatrain. The emotional picture drawn of the rubaiyat on the basis of these procedures was one of fatalism or emotional resignation. General patterns and individual examples are discussed.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Arnot

(1901). General introduction. In Khayyam

Allen

E. H.

Whinfield

E. H.

Nicholas

L. J. B.

& Arnot

(Eds.), The sufistic quatrains of Omar Khayyam. London: M. Walter Dunne.

Clynes

, & Nettleheim

(1982). The living quality of music: Neurobiologic basis of communicative feeling. In Clynes

(Ed.), Music, mind, and brain. New York: Plenum Press.

Clynes

(1980). The communication of emotion: Theory of sentics. In Plutchik

& Kellerman

(Eds.), Emotion: Theory, research and experience. Vol. I.—Theories of emotion (pp. 271–301). New York: Academic Press.

Fonagy

(1983/1991). La vive voix: Essais de psycho-phonetique. Paris: Payot. Heron-Allen

(1901). An analysis of Edward Fitzgerald's translation of the quatrains of Omar Khayyam (fifth edition). In Khayyam

Allen

E. H.

Whinfield

E. H.

Nicholas

L. J. B.

& Arnot

(Eds.), The sufistic quatrains of Omar Khayyam. London: M. Walter Dunne.

Jakobson

, & Waugh

(1979). The sound shape of language. Brighton: Harvester Press.

Martin

R. B.

(1983). The most translatingest man. American Scholar, 52, 540–546.

Tsur

(1992). What makes sound patterns expressive. Durham: Duke University Press.

Tsur

(1997). Picture poems: Some cognitive and aesthetic principles. PSYART, article number 970601.

Weber

Carl J.

, Editor (1959). Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat: Centennial Edition. Waterville, ME: Colby College Press.

10.

Whissell

(2000). Phonoemotional profiling: A description of the emotional flavour of English texts on the basis of the phonemes employed in them. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 91, 617–648.

11.

Whissell

(1999). Phonosymbolism and the emotional nature of sounds: Evidence of the preferential use of particular phonemes in texts of differing emotional tone. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 89, 19–48.

12.

Whissell

(1998). A parsimonious technique for the analysis of word-use patterns in English texts and transcripts. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 86, 595–613.