Образный потенциал лексических стилистических приёмов в творчестве Оскара Уайльда

Работа выполнена на английском языке. ...

Introduction
Chapter 1. The studies in individual style
1.1. Individual style and it’s compounds
1.2. The characteristics of the creative prose
1.3. The lexical expressive means and stylistic devices
Conclusion to Chapter One
Chapter 2. Lexical devices as essential part of individual style of Oscar Wilde's works
2.1. The characteristics of Oscar Wilde's creativity
2.2. Stylistic peculiarities of Oscar Wilde works
2.3. Lexical stylistic devices in Oscar Wilde’s works
Conclusion to Chapter Two
Conclusion
Bibliography
The list of examples

Actuality of research. Our intention in this degree Paper is to provide some explanation for the stylistic potential of lexical devices. The emphasis will be on the definitions given by different scholars, on the origin, structure and stylistic functions of them.
In this Paper we will base ourselves upon the definitions given by different scholars, and as a conclusion we will give our own definition of lexical devices used by Oscar Wilde in his creativity.
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish playwright, poet and author of numerous short stories and one novel. Known for his biting wit, he became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era in London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day.
Oscar Wilde's power to arouse fantasies in others - and to fulfill them - is seemingly inexhaustible. Everyone has an opinion about Oscar Wilde: his life, style and literature – and all these opinions are very different and contradictory. It is also true ..............

abnormal
 
Normal
 
insincerity
 
Sincerity
 
style/artifice
 
Authenticity
 
facetious
 
Serious
 
narcissism
 
Maturity
 
outward respectability
 
inner morality
 
culture
 
Nature
 
In Wilde's paradoxes, the left term turns up as the superior term, while an essentialist approach to life prefers the right notions.
Irony, in which the contextual evaluative meaning of a word is directly opposite to its dictionary meaning, does not exist outside the context.
e.g. «My father told me to go to bed an hour ago. I don’t see why I shouldn’t give you the same advice. I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself» 78.
The word “advice” is suggested for acceptance if it is good and for rejection if it is not good, but not for passing on it. In fact, Lord Goring, the speaker of this phrase, is a serious person, who knows that a good advice may be very useful.
e.g. «A man who moralizes is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralizes is invariably plain»79.
Pun (paronomasia, a play on words) is the next stylistic device used by Oscar Wilde in his plays. We can find pun even in the titles of Oscar Wilde’s plays, e.g. «The Importance of Being Earnest». But to understand this pun we must read the whole play, because the name of the hero and the adjective meaning «seriously-minded» both exist in our mind.
Pun is based on the effect of deceived expectation, because unpredictability in it is expressed either in the appearance of the elements of the text unusual for the reader or in the unexpected reaction of the addressee of the dialogue.
For Oscar Wilde pun is one of the most effective means used for creating wit, brilliancy and colourfulness of his dialogues for criticism of bourgeois morality. At the same time the puns serve for showing the author’s ideas and thoughts.
e.g. «Lord Darlington: Ah, nowadays we are all of us so hard up, that the only pleasant things to pay are compliments. They are the only things we can pay»80 .
These examples show that the play on words has a great influence on the reader. The speech of the hero becomes more vivid and interesting.
Most of Wilde’s puns are based on polysemy.
e.g. «Lady H.: she lets her clever tongue run away with her.
Lady C.: is that the only Mrs. Allonby allows to run away with her?»
In this example the pun is realized in the remark of the second person. The first meaning of the expression “to run away with” – is “not to be aware of what you are speaking”, and the second meaning is “to make off taking something with you”. The first meaning is figurative and the second is direct.
As a rule, when two meanings of the word are played upon, one of them is direct; the other is figurative, which can be illustrated by some of the above mentioned examples. So, we can see that irony and pun also play the very important role in Wilde’s plays. The effect of these stylistic devices is based on the author’s attitude to the English bourgeois society.
Thus irony and pun help Oscar Wilde to show that majority of his heroes are the typical representatives of the bourgeois society: thoughtless, frivolous, greedy, envious, mercenary people. A play upon contrasts and contradictions lies at the basis of author’s sarcastic method in portraying his characters. The dynamic quality of Wilde’s plays is increased by the frequent ironical sentences and puns. These stylistic devices convey the vivid sense of reality in the picture of the 19-th century English upper-class society.
Simile is one more stylistic device very often used by Wilde in his plays. It is the intensification of someone feature of the concept in question is realized in a device.
e.g. «But she is really like a Tanagra statuette, and would be rather annoyed if she were told so»81.
“She” and “statuette” belong to heterogeneous classes of objects and Wilde has found that the beauty of Mabel Chiltern may be compared with the beauty of the ancient Tanagra statuette. Of the two concepts brought together in the Simile – one characterized (Mabel Chiltern), and the other characterizing (Statuette) – the feature intensified will be more inherent in the latter than in the former. Moreover, the object characterized, is seen in quite a new and unexpected light, because the author as it were, imposes this feature on it.
e.g. «Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a ruin; but twenty years of marriage make her something like a public building» 82.
So, simile is another stylistic device frequently used by Oscar Wilde in his plays. It shows the individual viewpoint of the author on different objects, actions, and phenomena. The literary similes in his plays gain especially wonderful character as they make the text more expressive and more interesting.
«Upon my word, Basil, I didn’t know you were so vain; and I really can’t see any resemblance between you, with your rugged strong face and your coal-black hair, and this young Adonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves. Why, my dear Basil, he is a Narcissus, and you  well, of course you have an intellectual expression and all that»83.
«There were in it metaphors as monstrous as orchids and as subtle in colour. The life of the senses was described in the terms of mystical philosophy» 84.
The properties of an object may be viewed from different angles. Accordingly, similes may be based on the effective lexical means  adjective-attributes, adverbs-modifiers, verb-predicates, superlative degree etc.
e.g. «Bring me the two most precious things in the city»85.
e.g. «And certainly, whenever the wind blew, the Reed made the most graceful curtseys»86.
«The style in which it was written was that curious jeweled style, vivid and obscure at once, full of argot and of archaisms, of technical expressions and of elaborate paraphrases, that characterizes the work of some of the finest artists of the French school of Symbolists»87.
Epithet is also a frequently used stylistic device by Oscar Wilde. Epithet on the whole shows purely individual emotional attitude of the speaker towards the object spoken of, it describes the object as it appears to the speaker. Its basic features are its emotiveness and subjectivity: the characteristic attached to the object to qualify it is always chosen by the speaker himself.
e.g. «But I tell you that the only bitter words that ever came from those sweet lips of hers were on your account, and I hate to see you next her»88.
Epithet has remained over the centuries the most widely used stylistic device, it offers the ample opportunities of qualifying every object from the author’s partial and subjective viewpoint, which is indispensable in creative prose. In his plays Oscar Wilde used very colorful epithets, which sometimes help him to show the difference between pretence and reality.
Wilde’s epithets give a brilliant colour and wonderful witticism to his works. With the help of epithets Wilde’s heroes are more interesting, their speech is more emotive; they involve the reader in their reality, in their life.
His epithets are based on different sources, such as nature, art, history, literature, mythology, everyday life, man, etc. They reflect Wilde’s opinions and viewpoints about different things. They give emphasis and rhythm to the text.
e.g. «Those straw-colored women have dreadful tempers»89.
e.g. «There were moments, indeed, at night, when, lying sleepless in his own delicately scented chamber, or in the sordid room of the little ill-famed tavern near the docks which, under an assumed name and in disguise, it was his habit to frequent, he would think of the ruin he had brought upon his soul with a pity that was all the more poignant because it was purely selfish»90.
e.g. «Actual life was chaos, but there was something terribly logical in the imagination. It was the imagination that set remorse to dog the feet of sin. It was the imagination that made each crime bear its misshapen brood. In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor the good rewarded»91.
e.g. «The Prince and Princess sat at the top of the Great Hall and drank out of a cup of clear crystal. Only true lovers could drink out of this cup, for if false lips touched it, it grew grey and dull and cloudy. - It's quite clear that they love each other, - said the little Page, - as clear as crystal! - and the King doubled his salary a second time»92.
The examples above shows that Oscar Wilde may be really called a master of colorful and vivid epithets.
In Oscar Wilde’s creativity we can also find such stylistic device as hyperbole (overstatement) which is used for intensifying one certain property of the object.
e.g. «I have never loved anyone in the world but you»93.
In order to depict the degree of the love of his character Wilde resorts to the use of these hyperboles. So one of the most important function of hyperbole is the emotional expressiveness.
In other hyperboles Oscar Wilde uses the exaggeration of the quantitative aspect. e.g. «I have met hundreds of good women» 94.
They make their way not on the direct meaning, but on the great emotional influence. But literary hyperbole is not the simple speech figure.
They may be also called the means of artistic characterization. It is one of the most important means of building up the plot of the text, the imagery and expressiveness.
e.g. «I am glad there is some one in the world who is quite happy, - muttered a disappointed man as he gazed at the wonderful statue»95.
«You said that you would dance with me if I brought you a red rose, - cried the Student. - Here is the reddest rose in all the world. You will wear it to-night next your heart, and as we dance together it will tell you how I love you»96.
It is the transmission of the author’s thought. In order to create his hyperboles Oscar Wilde uses such words as “some one in the world”, “hundreds”, “thousands”, “all the time”, “nothing in the world”, etc. Wilde’s hyperboles bring the brightness, expressiveness and the emotional color of the language.
Metaphor is one of the most frequently used stylistic devices by Oscar Wilde. The metaphors reveal the attitude of the writer to the object, action or concept and express his views. They may also reflect the literary school which he belongs and the epoch in which he lives. Oscar Wilde’s fine metaphors play an important role in portraying his heroes, their feelings and thoughts.
e.g. «Ideals are dangerous things. Realities are better. They wound, but they are better»97.
A metaphor can exist only within a context.
e.g. «Lord Illingworth: That silly Puritan girl making a scene merely because I wanted to kiss her. What harm is there in a kiss?
Mrs. Arbuthnot: A kiss may ruin a human life. I know that too well».
The metaphorical effect of this sentence is based on the personal feelings of Mrs. Arbuthnot. Her sad experience of life sounds in this phrase. When she was young, she had a great love. But her passion had left her and “her life was ruined.” That is why this metaphor has a true effective power when it is pronounced by Mrs. Arbuthnot.
Wilde’s genuine metaphors develop the reader’s imagination. At the same time the author reflects his own point of view.
e.g. «Divorces are made in Heaven».
e.g. «Youth is the Lord of Life».
e.g. «There is no Mystery so great as Misery»98.
The charm of Oscar Wilde’s style is due to the mixture of poetic metaphors and real images.
e.g. «Like the painting of a sorrow, A face without a heart»99 .
e.g. «If a man treats life artistically, his brain is his heart, - he answered, sinking into an arm-chair».
The author does not convince the reader to make the resulting points, but he makes him indirectly judge the heroes and clear the situation.
The meanings of Oscar Wilde’s metaphors are understandable for any reader, of any age and any interests. They produce a dynamic character of the plot and show that Wilde is a man of genius of vivid fantastic images.
e.g. «She (the Reed) has no conversation, - he (the Swallow) said, - and I am afraid that she is a coquette, for she is always flirting with the wind»100.
e.g. «Once a beautiful flower put its head out from the grass, but when it saw the notice-board it was so sorry for the children that it slipped back into the ground again, and went off to sleep»101.
e.g. «So the Hail came. Every day for three hours he rattled on the roof of the castle till he broke most of the slates, and then he ran round and round the garden as fast as he could go. He was dressed in grey, and his breath was like ice»102.
e.g. «I hate people who cry over spilt milk»103.
e.g. «The Prince and Princess were leading the dance. They danced so beautifully that the tall white lilies peeped in at the window and watched them, and the great red poppies nodded their heads and beat time»104.
e.g. «She said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses... But there is no red rose in my garden, so I shall sit lonely, and she will pass me by. She will have no heed of me, and my heart will break»105.
e.g. «She sang first of the birth of love in the heart of a boy and a girl»106.
e.g. «...She (the Nightingale) sang of the Love that is perfected by Death, of the Love that dies not in the tomb»107.
Sometimes the metaphors express the pnenomenon of human spiritual life:
e.g. «My own garden is my own garden,- said the Giant, - Any one can understand that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself. So he built a high wall all round it, and put up a notice-board: «TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED». He was a very selfish Giant. The poor children had now nowhere to play»108.
This is a spread metaphoric image of human loneliness in the world.
Oscar Wilde does not pay much attention to metonymy. But his metonymies have a great stylistic potential. They reach the emotional reliability, which creates the effect of reader’s presence in the literary world.
e.g. «She was stern to me, but she taught me what the world is forgetting, the difference that there is between what is right and what is wrong»109.
e.g. «Do you think seriously that women who have committed what the world calls a fault should never be forgiven?»
In these examples we can see the same metonymy that is used by the same word “world”. Here the author means the people who love in the world. Here we also can see that container is used instead of the thing contained: “world” instead of “people”.
Among lexical expressive means Oscar Wilde very often used lexical repetition when the speaker is under the stress of strong emotion and shows the state of mind of the speaker:
e.g. «I love you – love you as I have never loved any living thing. From the moment I met you I loved you, loved you blindly, adoringly, madly!».
So lexical repetition is a powerful means of emphasis, it adds rhythm and balance to the utterance. Oscar Wilde’s repetitions help us to be closer to the hero, to understand his feelings.
e.g. «All the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men».
e.g. «Dear little Swallow, - said the Prince, - you tell me of marvelous things, but more marvelous than anything is the suffering of men and of women»110.
They also can be considered as a powerful mean of emphasis and coloring of individual author’s style as they add rhythm and balance to the text.
Antithesis is always sense-motivated; and it depends on the context. Reading Oscar Wilde’s plays we can see that the author doesn’t pay much attention to inversion, but nevertheless there are some examples of it:
e.g. « How hard good women are! How weak bad men are!»111
e.g. «Curious thing, plain women are always jealous of their husbands, beautiful women never are!»
e.g. «In the daytime I played with my companions in the garden, and in the evening I led the dance in the Great Hall... So I lived, and so I died»112.
Here we can see the semantic contrast, which is formed with the help of objectively contrasting pairs “hard – weak”, “good – bad”, “women – men”, “plain – beautiful”, “always – never”, “lived – died”.
Allusions. Allusion usually creates the certain connotations in the reader’s mind, animating the text with vivid familiar images.
e.g. «Bring me the two most precious things in the city, - said God to one of His Angels; and the Angel brought Him the leaden heart and the dead bird. - You have rightly chosen, - said God, - for in my garden of Paradise this little bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of gold the Happy Prince shall praise me»113.
The Bible images, the conceptions of Christianity are presented in several allusions114. But there are also other famous allusions of civilization significance in Wilde’s works:
The Republic.
Glaucon and Adeimantus present the myth of Gyges' ring, by which Gyges made himself invisible. They ask Socrates, if one came into possession of such a ring, why should he act justly? Socrates replies that even if no one can see one's physical appearance, the soul is disfigured by the evils one commits. This disfigured (the antithesis of beautiful) and corrupt soul is imbalanced and disordered, and in itself undesirable regardless of other advantages of acting unjustly. Dorian Gray's portrait is the means by which other individuals, such as Dorian's friend Basil, may see Dorian's distorted soul.
Tannhäuser.
At one point, Dorian Gray attends a performance of Richard Wagner's opera, Tannhäuser, and is explicitly said to personally identify with the work. Indeed, the opera bears some striking resemblances with the novel, and, in short, tells the story of a medieval (and historically real) singer, whose art is so beautiful that he causes Venus, the goddess of love herself, to fall in love with him, and to offer him eternal life with her in the Venusberg. Tannhäuser becomes dissatisfied with his life there, however, and elects to return to the harsh world of reality, where, after taking part in a song-contest, he is sternly censured for his sensuality, and eventually dies in his search for repentance and the love of a good woman.
Faust.
Wilde is reputed to have stated that «in every first novel the hero is the author as Christ or Faust»115. As in Faust, a temptation is placed before the lead character Dorian, the potential for ageless beauty; Dorian indulges in this temptation. In both stories, the lead character entices a beautiful woman to love them and kills not only her, but also that woman's brother, who seeks revenge.
Wilde went on to say that the notion behind The Picture of Dorian Gray is «old in the history of literature» but was something to which he had «given a new form»116 . Unlike Faust, there is no point at which Dorian makes a deal with the devil. However, Lord Henry's cynical outlook on life and hedonistic nature seems to be in keeping with the idea of the devil's role, that of the temptation of the pure and innocent, qualities which Dorian exemplifies at the beginning of the book. Although Lord Henry takes an interest in Dorian, it does not seem that he is aware of the effect of his actions. However, Lord Henry advises Dorian that «the only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing»; in this sense, Lord Henry can be seen to represent the Devil, «leading Dorian into an unholy pact by manipulating his innocence and insecurity»117.
Shakespeare.
In his preface, Wilde writes about Caliban, a character from Shakespeare's play The Tempest. When Dorian is telling Lord Henry Wotton about his new 'love', Sibyl Vane, «he refers to all of the Shakespearean plays she has been in, referring to her as the heroine of each play. At a later time, he speaks of his life by quoting Hamlet, who has similarly driven his girlfriend to suicide and her brother to swear revenge»118.
Joris-Karl Huysmans.