Epistemic rhetoric of interrogatives in poetic discourse

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Epistemic rhetoric of interrogatives in poetic discourse

Natalia Pavlivna Neborsina

Doctor of science, assistant professor,

Professor of English Philology Department, Institute of Philology

Taras Shevchenko National University, Ukraine



Summary

The present article is the attempt to analyse interrogatives in poetic discourse through the prism of epistemic rhetoric. The research focus refers to the features that make interrogative an epistemologically identifiable object. In order to provide the ground for conducting this study a conceptual framework has been built which includes the following parameters: 1) epistemic markers of concrete experience; 2) the direction of schematization; 3) epistemic justification of the immediate experience of tropes and figures of speech, and the perceptual world; 4) the direction of conceptual schematization of iconicity. The analysis unfolds into two sections. The first section provides the ontological view of interrogatives while the second one moves into the socio-cultural analysis.

Key words: poetic discourse, poetic interrogative, epistemic rhetoric, epistemic marker, conceptual schematization.



To ask the hard question is simple Asking at meeting

With the simple glance of acquaintance To what these go

And how these do:

To ask the hard question is simple, the simple act of the confused will.

From The Question by W.H. Auden

Introduction

The process of reading, as is well known, is affected by the perceptual principles. In Bakhtin's view, "...we constantly put forward the referential and expressive - that is, intentional - factors as the force that strati fies and differentiates the common literary language, and not the linguistic markers ... markers that are ... signs left behind on the path of the real living project of an intention. <...> These external markers, linguistically observable and fixable, cannot in themselves be understood or studied without understanding the specific conceptualization they have been given by an intention" [Bakhtin 1981:292].

One of the linguistically observable and fixable markers is an interrogative sentence. In linguistic studies the interrogative sentence is represented by four types --the verbal or Yes--No questions, wh questions, the tag questions, and the alternative questions. In the studies of the social organization of conversation the turn-by--turn focus comes to the fore. Traditionally rhetorical questions are treated as stylistic devices and are classified according to the purposes, as e.g. in [Abioye, 2009]. poetic discourse rhetoric

The importance of the interrogative in shaping literary and critical discourses is acknowledged by M. W. Bannerman in her doctoral thesis by poquoting, in particilar, H.R. Jauss: "As Jauss observes, this concept of the lyric question opens up certain interpretive avenues by dissolving "the implicit answer suggested and affectively enhanced by its rhetorical counterpart, and in the state of suspense thus created, opens an unexpected horizon of possible meaning that the reader must then concretize through his inquiring aesthetic observations. This description of the aesthetic question has the hermeneutic advantage of being available for use with all grammaticle and rhetorical models of the question, models that, in fact, are constantly employed by the lyric" [Bannerman1997:2].

The study of Modernist poetic questions undertaken by Bannerman resulted in the following conclusions. "The first result is the confirmation of its central assumption: that the interrogative is a revealing and utilitarion lens through whivh to read poetry. Poetic questions differ radically from author to author; from one poem to another within a single author's work; even from stanza to stanza within a single poem. The second observation is that poetic questions are frequently framed in terms of an important image. The third aspect of poetic questions is that they are asked by a number of different voices. As for the prospects for further research within the framework of literary hermeneutics, three areas are singled out -comparative, historical, and tropeic" [Bannerman 1997:265-269].

The aim of this study is to conduct the analysis of poetic interrogatives using the research design informed by epistemic rhetoric.



Theory and Method

Cognitive grammar seeks an accurate characterization of the structure and organization of linguistic knowledge as an integral part of human cognition. The proper domain of linguistic description, as concrived in cognitive grammar, is conventionable linguistic knowledge. It is assumed that this knowledge takes the form of conventional "units". Among the units that embody linguistic knowledge are "schemas" and "content unit". A schema embodies the generalization which speakers extract from an array of concrete inits. A schematic unit defines a category, representing (at a higher level of abstraction) the content shared by its various instantiations. Conceptual structure is the ongoing flow of cognition: any thought or concept, whether linguistic or nonlinguistic. Semantic structure is specifically linguistic - the form which thoughts must assume for purposes of ready linguistic symbolization [Langacker, 2002:1 02-105, 108].

Here is Robert Hanna's response to the concept problem: "for me, concepts are (1) abstract structured semantic items with cross-possible-worlds extentions, and also (2) psychological item in the triple sense that they are (a) tokened in some particular conscious mental states, (b) express subjective modes of presentation in affect or emotion, perception, judgement, thought, and intentional action. That is, for me concepts are intentionally-structured mental representation types" [Hanna 2005:252].

Following Peirce's iconicity, H. Ruthrof considers language as the third space in which iconicity and abstraction take part in schematization, and redefines the linguistic concept as the regulatory side of the motivated signified, in the sense that the concept rules iconic mental materials in terms of directionality, kind, quality, quantity, and the degree of schematization [Ruthrof 2011:124] Ruthrof's assumption that the iconicity of the perceptual world must be closely related to linguistic schematization, since language as the dominant sign system in the communication of reality, might be regarded as methodologically relevant for linguistic hermeneutics.

Thus, following H. Ruthrof, poetic interrogative is defined as the iconic sign which is characterized by the relation of affinity between the general idea of question and its mental modification in real speech which is regulated by the 'aboutness' of language. With regard to the present research, it is suggested that in poetic discourse interrogative construction functions as a Figure with a meaningful energy which is modified by the poet's sensibility, and as such is regarded as an aesthetic sign with an epistemic perspective.

The thesis that rhetoric is epistemic was introduced by Robert L. Scott (1967). [McClanahan, 1996] claims that epistemic rhetoric embodies the dialectical nature of the continual human search for truth and knowledge which includes the search for definitions and in view of the problem offers the following definition: "Epistemic rhetoric is a rhetoric that assumes and teaches that language is the basis for all human understanding of knowledge, whether foundational or anti-foundational, and that effective use and understanding of language leads to the creation or discovery of knowledge, either from or for the self, or from or for the society. Effective use and understanding of epistemic rhetoric would emphasize the dialectical, as well as the formalistic, nature of language and knowledge in relation to the self, society, and what is perceived in reality" [McClanahan, 1996:11 ].

At the same time McClanahan admits that although his definition of epistemic rhetoric is not definitive, still it reflects the legacy of both foundational and anti- foundational beliefs. A foundational definition of epistemic rhetoric may have been dominant in Classical times, but in contemporary times, the dominant usage of epistemic rhetoric reflects an anti-foundational epistemology, which according to J. Petraglia, is completely construed with social constructionism [op. cit]

To clarify the notion that rhetoric is epistemic, W. Harpine starts by analysing definitions of rhetoric: 1) rhetoric is persuasion (the ancient Greeks); 2) rhetoric is all persuasive (Kenneth Burke); 3) rhetoric is the study of what is persuasive (Campbell); 4) rhetoric is the possibility of brining reason together with passion so that in action humans may civilize themselves (Scott); 5) rhetoric is description of reality through language (Cherwitz and Hikins).

Harpine makes the observation that "the broader the definition of rhetoric, the less interesting the claim that rhetoric is epistemic becomes" [Harpine, 2004: 7-10; 18-19.]

According to Barry Brummet (1979), the proposition that "rhetoric is epistemic" asserts a relationship between knowledge and discourse, between how people know and how they communicate. The proposition also asserts a relationship between reality and discourse. Brummet's essay suggests three possible meanings of "rhetoric is epistemic" - methodological, sociological, and ontological.

1. "Rhetoric is a means to the discovery of truth, a conduit to knowledge. The word discovery is key here; rhetoric discovers a world waiting to be found. Methodological meaning of epistemic rhetoric has two implications for rhetoric as a theoretical discipline. 1) Rhetoric as a discipline has no real subject matter of its own, it is only concerned with making clear the subject matter of other disciplines. 2) Rhetoric as a discipline has not changed much since classical times, at least in a formal sense.

2. Rhetoric not only discovers but creates reality and knowledge about reality in the social sphere of ethics, politics, morals, religion, etc. The key to sociological meaning of epistemic rhetoric is bifurcation of reality into material and social realms. The reality of ethical, social, political questions is not merely discovered, it is created in rhetoric. Rhetoric leads to knowledge of social questions because it creates what there is to know in the social realm.

3. Rhetoric is epistemic in an ontological sense. Rhetoric creates all of what there is to know. Discourse creates realities rather than truths about realities. A key concept to understand the ontological view is meaning. For humans reality is always apprehended through the constructs of meaning. Meaning is a dimension of reality, for meanings are created and urged upon others rhetorically. The ontological view implies that rhetoric as a discipline has a co-equal status with any other discipline in that it studies dimensions of experience"[Brummett 1979].

Almost a decade later, Barry Brummett admitted that "the idea of epistemic rhetoric has faded as a scholarly inspiration because its defenders failed to link theoretical principles to actual criticism or analysis of "real life" (however that may be defined) communication. Because there were so few applications of theory to practice, or perhaps because the applications were not compelling enough in and of themselves as reasons to investigate epistemological and rhetorical issues further, epistemic rhetoric lived and is now dying as a predominantly theoretical problematic" [Brummet 1990:69].

In this research the attempt is made to follow the guidelines of epistemic rhetoric formulated by B. Brummett.

As Ch.Caudwell suggests, "the conscious field consists of real objects and subjective attitudes towards them. <...> if poetry orders all these subjective attitudes in the most general way, it arrives at the ego, a single symbol which puts all subjective reality in its grasp" [Caudwell 1964:148].

For the interpretative articulation of understanding as the construction of meaning, Heidegger in Time and Being uses the term "fore-structure of understanding": fore-having, fore-sight, and fore-conception.

The fore-having has to do with the holistic context within which the activities unfold. It is a "circumspective" (i.e. non-reflective) interpretation.

The fore-sight is the particular interest from the perspective of which we interpret.

The fore-conception is the particular language and concepts by which our interpretation is framed and expressed [Rousse, 2021].

Ginev claims that "by devising the integral circle of the interpretative constitution of meaning, one will be able to specify epistemological constraints on the ontic (empirical) level of interpretation.

<...> Thanks to complementarity between contextualizing interpretation and objectifying predication the contextually operative "hermeneutic as" in the research process forestructures the structure of objectification by means of which something acquires the status of an epistemologically identifiable object" [Ginev 2013:232-234].

Thus, the question arises: What are the requirements for the interrogative to be epistemologically identifiable object?

The conceptual framework for the analysis of poetic interrogatives consists of the following stages.

1. The identification of epistemic marker, i.e. the content unit in the interrogative. Let us take as the example the beginning of D.H. Lawrence's poem The Man In The Street:

I met him in the street

I said: How do you do? --

He said: And who are you when we meet? --

The epistemic marker in the first interrogative is you, while in the second, it is who. You and who are content units and as such are epistemic markers.

2. The identification of the direction of schematization, i.e. the intentionality of the interrogative. For example.

If Maudie doesn't love us then why should we be good? D.H. Lawrence

Here the direction of schematization is wonder.

3. The identification of immediate experience. It includes a) the use of tropes and figures of speech; b) the icons of perceptual world--- temporal, spatial, visual, aural, emotional, etc.

4. The identification of the direction of conceptual schematization of iconicity,

i. e. how is the content unit of the interrogative conceptually represented in the text?

In order to provide a representative illustration of the conceptual meaning of interrogatives in poetic discourse the data is presented in two sections - ontological and socio-cultural.



Discussion

Ontological view of interrogatives.

(1) I have no name

I am but two days old. -

What shall I call thee?

I happy am

Joy is my name, -

Sweet joy befall thee!

InfantJoy by William Blake

The epistemic marker is call. The direction of schematization is identification. The immediate experience is inversion. The intensification of inversion directs the conceptual iconicity of name - Joy.

(2) I am Nobody! Who are you?

Are you -- Nobody too?

Then there's a pair of us!

Don't tell! they'd advertise - you know!

I am Nobody! Who are you? (260) by Emily Dickinson

The epistemic markers are you and Nobody. The direction of schematization is identification. It indicates the sensibility that shifts toward a more impersonal as compared to (1). In fact, the difference between (1) and (2) is that in (1) the self is essential, a"self-making-in-a-situation", while in (2) the self is non-existential.

(3) What is love?

One name for it is knowledge.

From "Audubon: A Vision" [Love And Knowledge] by R. P. Warren

The question "What is ...?" presupposes a particular way of thinking that points one in the direction of essence [Smith 2012:397]. The poet's central vision is 'the osmosis of being' -- an awakening to the truth, the painful process of achieving wisdom.

The epistemic marker is love. The direction of schematization is identification. For conceptual iconicity let us turn to Marshal Walker's comment: "The vision offered is of a world of tension in which "human filtn" is complemented by "human hope", a beastiality by beauty, the anguish of self-uncertainty by the triumph of selfrealization, all through the redeeming power of imagination by which love is knowledge"[Walker 1989:158].

(4) What use are books to me

When in you it is possible to read

The Gospel of my life on earth And still beyond, of things to come?

I want to proclaim the religion

I have devised for your perfect humility

And the strange church I am building

With you as the altar.

Ascetic and maternal, you endure:

Kin to oxen, to Saints, to condemned men, With your mute patience, forming The only true likeness of myself.

My Shoes by Charles Simic

Here the epistemic marker is you. The direction of schematization is wonder about the purpose of reading books. The immediate experience is the reading 'born in mind'; the use of metaphor: "in you ... to read/the Gospel of my life". "The direction of schematic conceptual iconicity is the emotional state regulated by attributive word combinations: "perfect humility", "strange church", and "mute patience".

(5) What more is there to love than I have loved?

And if there be nothing more, O bright, O bright, The chick, the chidder-barn and grassy chives

And great moon, cricked-impresario,

And, hoy, the impopulous purple-plated past, Hoy, Hoy, the blue bulls kneeling down to rest.

From Montrachet-Le-Jardin by Wallace Stevens

Here the epistemic marker is the emotional state - love. The direction of schematization is wonder about the objects of enjoyment. The immediate experience is the figure of speech - enumeration: "chick', 'chidder-barn', 'grassy chives', 'great moon', 'crickert-impressario', and 'blue bulls'. The items of the list are iconic conceptual schematization of I have loved.

Usually Stevens's list brings about the confusion. Here is Leggett's commentary on it: "The bulk of the poem is given the recovery of des ire; here Stevens's buried analogy of the world as obscure text or aphonic song provides access to "something" that must be without a name"[Leggett 2017].

(6) Alone with his heart at last, does the fortunate traveller find

In the vague touch of a breeze, the fickle flash of a wave,

Proofs that somewhere exists, really, the Good Place,

Convincing as those that children find in stones and holes?

From A Voyage by W.H. Auden

Here the epistemic marker is fortunate traveller. The direction of schematization is discovery. The immediate experience is the figure of speech -- suspence, produced by two object clauses introduced by the preposition in. The iconic conceptual schematization is the Good Place.

(7) One circumlocution as used as any

Depends, it seems, upon the joke of rhyme

For the pure joy; else why should so many

Poems which make us cry direct us to

Ourselves at our least apt, least kind, least true,

Where a blank I loves blankly a blank You?

From One Circumlocution by W.H. Auden

Here the epistemic marker is Poems. The direction of schematization is doubting the purpose of writing poems. The immediate experience is the figure of speech -- anaphoric repetition of least and blank which seems representationally significant in so far as it transforms identification into universal concepts. The direction of conceptual schematization of Poems is sensuous: "the pure joy", "make us cry", "direct us to/Ourselves".

(8) When shall I see the half-moon sink again

Behind the black sycamore at the end of the garden?

When will the scent of the dim white phlox

Creep up the wall to me, and in at my open window?

From End Of Another Home Holiday by D.H. Lawrence

Here the epistemic marker is time. The direction of schematization is homesickness. The immediate experience is the figure of speech - syntactic parallelism which makes the direction of schematization of iconicity - visual ("the half-moom sink"), and olfactory ("the scent of the dim white phlox") - representationaly significant.

(9) You that love England, who have an ear for her music,

The slow movement of clouds in benediction,

Clear arias of light thrilling over her uplands,

Over the chores of summer sustained peacefully;

Ceaseless the leaves' counterpoint in a west wind lively,!

Blossom and river rippling loveliest allegro,

And the storms of wood strings brass at year's finale:

Listen. Can you not hear the entrance of a new theme?

From You That Love England by Cecil Day Lewis

The epistemic marker is direct address - "You that love...", "Can you not ...? The direction of iconicity is aural. The immediate experience is the list of musical terms - movement, arias, chores, counterpoint, allegro, strings, brass. They are worked into the texture of nature and are conceptually schematized. The direction of schematization is wonder at not being able to discriminate the sounds of music.

(10) Will no one tell me what she sings?

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow

For old, unhappy, far-off things,

And battles long ago.

From The Solitary Reaper by William Wordsworth

Here the epistemic marker is action ("sings"). The direction of schematization is wonder : the poet tries to 'enter into emotional communion with the reader by retiring into himself' to bring about conceptual iconicity expressive of sorrow: "old, unhappy, far-off things,/And battles long ago."

2. Socio-cultural view of interrogatives

(11) Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness!

Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape

Of deities or mortals, or of both,

In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

What men or gods are these? What maidens loath?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

From Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats

Here the epistemic marker is legend. The direction of schematization is asking for the description of a grecian urn. The direction of conceptual iconicity embraces different aspects of the perceptual world: visual ("thy shape"), spacial (the dales), emotional -- negative ("loath"), aural ("pipes and timbrels"), kinetic ("mad pursuit", "struggle to escape"), and emotional ("wild ecstasy"). Thus interrogatives emblematically represent the truth of human life in the lyric world of early Greece.

(12) Is it Ulysses that approaches from the east,

The interminable adventurer? The trees are mended.

That winter is washed away. Someone is moving

On the horizon and lifting himself up above it.

A form of fire approaches the cretonnes of Penelope,

Whose mere savage presence awakens the world in which she dwells.

She wanted nothing he could not bring her coming alone. She wanted no fetchings. His arms would be her necklace And her belt, the final fortune of their desire.

But was it Ulysses? Or was it only the warmth of the sun On the pillow? The thought kept beating in her like her heart.

The two kept beating together. It was only day.

From The World of Meditation by Wallace Stevens

Here there are two interrogatives. The epistemic marker is Ulysses. The direction of the first interrogative is wonder about the approach of Ulysses. The immediate experience of the perceptual world is kinetic ("Someone is moving/On the horison"). The direction of schematization in the second interrogative is Penelope's doubt about Ulysses arrival. The immediate experience of the perceptual world is thermal ("the warmth of the sun/On her pillow"). The direction of schematization of conceptual iconicity: a form of fire, his arms, her necklace, and her belt.

(13) What's that we see from far? the spring of day Bloomed from the east? or fair enjewlled May

Blown out of April? or some new Star filled with glory to our view, Reaching at heaven

To add a nobler planet to the seven?

Say! Or do we not descry

Some goddess in a cloud of tiffany

To move, or rather the Emergent Venus from the sea?

From A Nuptial Song by Robert Herrick

Here multiple interrogatives togethrer with the irregularity of lines create the atmosphete of great dynamism, and draw attention to the objects of perception. The epistemic marker is see. Visual conceptual iconicity: "the spring of day", "fair

enjewlled May", "some new star", "some goddess", "emergent Venus". The direction of schematization is wonder at being abie to discern thr object from far.

(14) Dear Cloe, how blubbered is that pretty face?

Thy cheek all on fire, and thy hair all uncurl'd!

Pr'ythee quit this caprice; and (as old Falstaf says) Let us e'en talk a little like folks of this world.

How canst thou presume, thou hath leave to destroy The beauties, which Venus but lent to thy keeping? Those looks were designed to inspire love and joy: More ord'nary eyes may serve people for weeping.

To be vexed at a trifle or two that I writ, Your judgement at once and my passion you wrong: You take that for fact which will scarce be found wit:

Od's life! must one swear to the truth of a song?

What I speak, my fair Cloe, and what I write, shows The difference there is betwixt nature and art;

I court others in verse, but I love thee in prose; And they have my whimsies, but thou hast my heart.

"A Better Answer" To Cloejealous by Thomas Prior

The epistemic position is marked by direct address: "Dear Cloe". The direction of schematization is great wonder at Cloe's condition. The attention is drawn to her "blubbered face", "cheek all on fire" and "hair all uncurled". In the second couplet the direction of schematization is shifting toward reproach which is emphasized by the enjambing break - "to destroy / The Beauties".

The thematic development unfolds the motif of Cloe's jealousy: she takes poetic diction for granted: the woman is displeased by what her lover has written. The lyrical "I" expresses concern as to the truth and art -- the rhyme "I writ" -- "scarce be found wit" is appropriate to the subject matter together with the interrogative "must one swear to the truth of a song". The concern is being dwelt upon in the next couplet. In it the immediate experience is antithesis : "speak" and "write". The elements of antithesis are not only opposed to each other but also schematically conceptualized: write__art__verse__whimsies; speak__nature__prose__heart, leaving no ground for Cloe's jealousy.

(15) How shall we please this Age? If in a Song

We put above six Lines, they count it long;

If we contract it to an Epigram,

As deep the dwarfish Poetry they damn;

If we write Plays, few see above the Act,

And those lewd Masks, or noise Fops distract;

Let us write Satyr then, and at our ease

Vex th' ill- natur'd Fools we cannot please.

To Nysus by Sir Charles Sedley

Here the epistemic marker is [to] please, to entertain the public. The direction of schematization is wonder. The immediate experience is enumeration of different ways to entertain the public song, epigram, poetry, plays, satyr -- these appear as culturally significant conceptualized icons.

(16) Now that the world is all in amaze,

Drumes and Trumpets rending heav'ns,

Wounds a bleeding, Mortals dying,

Widdows and Orphans piteously crying;

Armies marching, Towns in a blaze,

Kingdomes and States at sixes and sevens:

What should an honest Fellow do,

Whose courage and fortunes run equally low?

Let him live, say I, till his glass be run,

As easily as he may;

Let the wine, and the sand of his glass flow together,

For Life's but a winter's day;

Alas from Sun to Sun,

The time's very short, very dirty the weather,

And we silently creep away.

Let him nothing do, he could wish undone;

And keep himself safe from the noise of a Gun.

The Unconcerned by Thomas Flatman

The poem clearly falls into two parts. The interrogative serves as the demarcation line. In the first part, the poet draws the picture with attributes and scenes of war. The approach here is deliberately visual. The prominence is due to parataxis and capitalization. The perceptual world is represented by the temporal marker "Now"; visual and aural - "Towns in a blaze", "Drumes and Trumpets rending heav'ns"; kinetic " Armies marching"; emotional -- "Widdows and Orphans piteously crying".

The epistemic marker is an honest Fellow - a collective image of an ordinary man in the time of violent social change. The direction of schematization is brooding over the participation of the Fellow in social upheaval. The immediate experience is the figure of speech - anaphoric repetition of "Let ... " with the appeals for survival. The direction of conceptual schematization of iconicity is the instruction in not to be trapped by the threatening world: "keep himself safe from the noise of a Gun".

(17) Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he

That every man in arms should wish to be?

-- It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought: Whose high endeavours are an inward light That makes the path before him always bright. Who, with a natural instinct to discern What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn; Abides by this resolve, and stops not there, But makes his morsl being his prime care; Who, doomed to go in company with Pain, And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train!

Turns his necessarily to glorious gain;

In face of there doth exercise a power

Which is our human nature' highest dower;

From Character of the Happy Warrior by William Wordsworth Here epistemic marker is the happy Warrior. It is reformulated in the secod interrogative: he/That every man in arms. The direction of schematization is identification. The immediate experience is the figure of speech - syntactic parallelism based on anaphora, namely, attributive relative non-restrictive clauses introduced by relative pronouns who and whose. Besides, each attributive clause is, in fact, a period which is in accord with meditative reading. The direction of conceptual schematization of iconicity: "the generous Spirit", "the tasks of real life", "high endeavours", "an inward light", "the path ... bright", "diligent to learn".These icons, that possess positive inherent connotations, stand in opposition to Pain, Fear, and Bloodshed presented in the last attributive clause.

(18) It is not an image. It is a feeling.

There is no image of the hero. There is a feeling as definition. How could there be an image, an outline, A design, a marble soiled by pigeons?

The hero is a feeling, a man seen

As if the eye was an emotion,

As if in seeing we saw our feeling

In the object seen and saved that mystic

Against the sight, the penetrating,

Pure eye. Instead of allegory,

We have and are the man, capable

Of his brave quickenings, the human

Accelerations that seem inhuman.

From Examination ot the Hero in a Time of War by Wallace Stevens

The epistemic marker is no image (of the hero). The direction of schematization is doubt. The immediate experience is the figure of speech - antithesis - the opposition between matter and spirit: image and feeling. The conceptual schematization of "image" is visual: "an outline", "a design", "a marble soiled by pigeon", "the sight". The direction of conceptual schematization of "feeling" is emotional: "a man seen as emotion", "we saw our feeling", "the man, capable/Of his brave quickenings, the human/Accelerations that seem inhuman".

(19) To what intent or purpose was Man made,

Who is by Birth to misery betray'd?

Man in his tedious course of life runs through

More Plagues than all the Land of Egypt knew:

Doctors, Divines, grave Disputations, Puns,

Ill looking Citizens and scurvy Duns;

Insipid Squires, fat Bishops, Deans and Chapters, Enthusiasts, Prophecies, new Rants and Raptures;

Pox, Gout, Catarrhs, old Sores, Cramps, Rheums and Aches;

Half witted Lords, double chinn'd Bawds with Patches;

Illiterate Courtiers, Chancery Suits for Life,

A teasing Whore, and a more tedeous Wife;

Raw Inn of Court men, empty Fops, Buffoons, Bullies robust, round Aldermen, and Clowns;

Gown-men which argue, and discuss, and prate,

And vent dull Notions of a future State,

Sure of another World, yet do not know

Whether they shall be sav'd, or damn'd, or how.

'Twere better then that Man had never been, Than thus to be perplex'd: God save the Queen.

As concerning Man by Alexander Radcliffe

The epistemic marker is Man. The direction of schematization is wonder at Man's purpose. The immediate experience is the figure of speech -- enumeration. The direction of schematization of iconicity: the poet presents a witty portrayal of the society of his time. First he takes a look from inside, as it were, beginning with Doctors ... Ill looking Citizens; along with Insipid Squires Enthusiasts; typical deseases: Pox, Gout... Rheums and Aches acquire social status; unfavourable characteristics are given: Half witted Lords... Illiterate Courtiers; descending along the social ladder the poet mentions, among other positions, Clowns and Gown-men.

(20) Is there no change of death in paradise? Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs Hang always heavy in that perfect sky, Unchanhing, yet so like our perishing earth, With rivers like our own that seek for seas They never find, the same receding shores That never touch with inarticulate pang. Why set the pear upon those river-banks? Or spice the shores with odors of the plum? Alas, that they should wear our colors there, The silken weavings of our afternoons, And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!

From Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens

The atmosphere of interrogativeness permeates the whole text in the poet's attempt to conceptualize the notion of paradise which serves as the epistemic marker. The immediate experience of 'no change of death' is expressed by the following objects: ripe fruit, the boughs...heavy, perfect sky, rivers like our own, the same receding shores. The other two interrogatives demonstrate the absurdity to whimsically speculate upon the nature of paradise: "t he pear - "river banks", "the shores" - "odors of the plum". At the end, taking breath - Alas - the poet ironically admits that all the rest - colors and music -- is just the same, giving priority to visual and aural iconic mental materials.

(21) Who ponders National events shall find An awful balancing of loss and gain, Joy based on sorrow, good with ill combined, And proud deliverance issuing out of pain And direful throes; as if the All-ruling Mind, With whose perfection it consists to ordain Volcanic burst, earth quake, and hurricane, Dealt in like sort with feeble human kind By laws immutable. But woe for him Who thus deceived shall lend an eager hand To social havoc. Is not Conscience ours,

And Truth, whose eye guilt only can make dim; And Will, whose office, by divine command, Is to control and check disordered Powers?

From In Allusion to Various Recent Histories & Notices of the French Revolution by William Wordsworth

The poem under analysis is an apt illustration to Ch.Caudwell's sententia Poetry is compelled to make some statement about reality. The poet makes several statements, being under the impression of the French Revolution, before he rounds off with interrogative sentences. Are they epistemically identifiable?

The epistemic marker is National events. The immediate experience is the figure of speech - antithesis: "loss" - "gain", "Joy" - "sorrow", "good" - "ill";

"Conscience", "Truth", "Will" - "disordered Powers". The direction of schematization is surprise at "feeble human kind". The direction of conceptual

schematization of iconicity: "All-ruling Mind", "discorded powers", "Conscience", "Truth", "Will".

(22) Why have money?

why have a financial system to strangle us all on its octopus arms?

why have industry?

why have the industrial system?

why have machines, that we only have to serve?

...

True, we've got all these things

Industrial and financial systems, machines and soviets, working classes.

But why go on having them, if they belittle us?

Why should we be belittled any longer?

WHY --? by D. H. Lawrence

Here the epistemic marker is have. The immediate experience is possesion which is reinforced by syntactic parallelism based on anaphora. Conceptual schematization of iconicity: money, financial system, industry, industrial system, machines. The direction of schematization is doubt, asking with what purpose?

(23) Is the time come for humans now to begin to disappear, leaving it to the vast revolutions of creative chaos to bring forth creatures that are an improvement on humans, as the horse was an improvement on the ichthyosaurus?

From To Let Go or to Hold on --? by D. H. Lawrence

Here the epistemic marker is to disappear. The immediate experience of perceptual world is temporal - 'the time come'; 'now'. It stands for intelligibility that prevailed in the beginning of the twentieth century and which is also relevant for contemporary world. The immediate experience of simile should also be mentioned as the apt illustration of historical transmogrification of flesh and blood.

The direction of conceptual schematization of iconicity - 'vast revolutions of creative chaos' and 'an improvement on humans'. The direction of schematization is wonder.

(24) Shall I tell you again the new word, the new world of the unborn day? It is Resurrection.

The resurrection of the flesh.

For our flesh is dead

only egoistically we assert ourselves.

From The New Word by D.H. Lawrence

Here the epistemic marker is the new word.

The direction of schematization is asking for permission.

The immediate experience is a figure of speech -- anadiplosis: the new word -the new world; Resurrection -- The resurrection. It brings about the direction of schematization which is nomination. The direction of conceptual schematization of iconicity is The resurrection of the flesh.

(25) How are we to inhabit

This space from which the forth wall is invariably missing, As on a stage-set or dollhouse, except by staying as we are, In lost profile, facing the stars, with dozens if as yet Unrealized projects, and a strict sense Of time running out, of evening presenting The tractfully folded-over bill? And we fit Rather too easily into it, become transparant, Almost ghosts.

From Pyrography by John Ashbery

The epistemic marker is to inhabit space. The direction of schematization is in what way. The immediate experience of the perceptual world: visual ("facing the stars", "become transparent"); temporal ("time running out", "evening presenting"). The direction of conceptual schematization of iconicity: "a stage-set", "dollhouse", "ghost".



Conclusion

In this article my aim was to consider poetic interrogative as a cognitive instrument of conceptualization of the poem's content, be it the whole poem or its fragment. The conceptual frame, provided by the ideas of epistemic rhetoric, has helped reveal a number of concepts pertaining to the individual perception of the world, covering different historical periods.

One area of further research concerns the position of the interrogative in the text of the poem. Preliminary analysis shows that the initial position of interrogative in the text produces a much stronger concept as compared to its final position. It should be mentioned in this connection that Yes/No interrogatives have the least power of conceptualization.

Another research focus could be to work out the direction of schematization in detail taking into consideration different views on intentionality.

It would be especially interesting to observe how interrogatives reflect the change of the content of consciousness throughout the ages.



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