Carmen-Ecaterina Aştirbei -
Poetry as "Distance". On the "Negativity" of Poetic Discourse
(pag. 9-16)
Our study is conceived as an analysis of the intentionality of poetic discourse. The first hypothesis postulates the gratuitous nature of this type of discourse which would be deprived of sense and constructed as the result of accident, of lack of logic. Thus, in this case the poetic discourse would be independent from its receivers. On the other hand, Jakobson and the Russian formalists considered that the poetic discourse is an organized structure of the verbal material, meant for a specific public and which has as a unique purpose its own functioning. Poetical writing is characterized by semantic multiplicity, which is different from the common discursive logic; as a result, this discourse demands from the reader a careful decoding. Another theory which has become, in our opinion, a sort of linguistic cliché, is the definition of poetry as a gap, transgression or systematic violation of the linguistic rules. Because of this refuse of norms and of the use of tropes, the definition of the poetic discourse rather implies negative categories. However, our analysis will prove that the apparent “negativity” of poetry can be, at the same time, productive, for example if it contributes to create and emphasize the poetic style, the originality or the aesthetic value of a literary work. Our conclusion is that the poetic discourse does not have a deconstructive aim in itself, but it is meant to fascinate the audience and to bring about a certain poetic state, a state of grace which will help the reader to decode the poem.