Features of poetic prose in Migjeni

From: Albana Ndoja – Deda

If you read Miggen's prose and a simple reader does not have a hard time distinguishing that there is something special from the point of view of coherence and especially cohesion. In fact, this uniqueness and difference from the preceding tradition, or better to say from writers such as Noli, Poradeci, Kuteli, who were both his predecessors and contemporaries, have also been pointed out by researchers.[1] our acquaintances. Kadare puts it this way about "His separation (from the traditional AN) is in the logic of things, it is at the foundation of his art, in the whole structure and in every cell of this art. His literature was thus born as a special thing, a "different kind" thing[2]. ”.

For the sake of truth, this statement sums up all the levels of analysis that can be made to Migje's text, both in prose and in poetry.

It should be added here that anyway most of the researchers have seen its uniqueness mostly related to the specific theme of Migjen's texts, describing the latter in pathetic tones, which is also allowed by Migjen's text itself, which it is poignant and quite metaphorical[3].

However, researchers have never denied the parallelisms that can be drawn between this work and modern writers of the time, but being amazed by this work, they have preferred to keep it in the framework of an original laboratory (or at least the compositional similarities have not been deepened) .

Thus, although Kadare asserts in another part of his work that he (Miggeni) was a good connoisseur of contemporary European literature (not leaving out Russian writers), he still does not correctly specify the position of the latter (Miggeni) towards this literature, even excludes it in some cases[4] seeing it as a sui generis phenomenon[5].

From a cohesive point of view, Arshi Pipa characterizes Migjeni's metaphor as unusual, even avant-garde, we would paraphrase the allegorical structure that Pipa uses for it ("What distinguishes Migjen from any other Albanian writer is his taste for metaphor, which in his work is hyperbolic and eccentric. Metaphor is the foundation of poetic language, there is no literature without it. But metaphor in Albanian poetry is usually explanatory and illustrative, close to comparison. Albanians, who tend to be realistic and practical, lean towards a discursive style, without violent transitions or deep contrasts. On the contrary, Migjeni does not proceed step by step, but with giant steps and the metaphor serves as a springboard. It can be said that metaphor is his natural form of expression. ", taken from "The Myth of the West in Mighen's poetry") .

Ernest Koliqi, states that "the most original part of Migjen, which can give him a place in the welcoming Albanian literature, lies not so much in his vigorous poetry with a social background, but in some low (intimate) rhythms, which remind Corazzini, where he expresses anxiety for the slow melting of the vital lymph that, diluting the sensations, reveals the shining beauty, unseen before, of the world from which it is doomed to be soon cut off[6]. ". (We remember that Sergio Corazzini [6. 02. 1886-17. 06. 1907] was compared to writers such as Mallarme, who is known as one of the main representatives of symbolism and the avant-garde and for the new literary currents that followed him. ).

Kadareja also emphasizes that "He has been called the Albanian Rimbo several times, but it has never been clear what part premature death has in this comparison, and what part the gloom of his work has. . . . ”(I. Kadare, Ardhja e Migjen in Albanian literature, 1991, p. 111).

In this context of references, we can come to the conclusion that we are dealing with a completely separate text, both from the previous tradition, as well as the contemporary one of Migjen (with minor exceptions), this in relation to the theme, messages and the weight it gives this unusual metaphorical structure.

On the other hand, despite the parallels with other foreign writers who mostly belong to the European precursors or avant-gardes of the time, as well as the fact that he was very informed, not just from a literary point of view, we do not believe that they could not have given no kind of reflection that has been sublimated into the compositional aspect of his text.

Apart from the subject matter and the kind of tone that have often led critics to draw parallels with European authors, we think that there are features of the style of his work that should be seen in this context. Such is, according to us, the poetic character of prose his.

We will illustrate this belief of ours (and not only) with the analysis of one of Mighen's prose found in the volume "Novels of the northern city” and respectively:

Tell me

Tragedy or comedy

 The human race is a living guitar, on which a passionate hand receives the vibrations of the strings between the melodies.... tragic or comic?

The human race is a living guitar, through which Shejti and Katili achieved the expression of .... tragedy or comedy itself.

The human race is a living guitar where the god, among the long, successive melodies, found the magnificent expression of his own tragedy or comedy? perhaps[7]? ...

Numerous repetitions of noun heads such as: SEX(3) humanized (3) guitar (3) alive(3) tragedy(2) comedy (2). It must be said that in the first paragraph the last two words are taken from the last name of the same word-forming family (tragic, comic).

What the reader and the researcher distinguish is that these units (names) are not perceived in their cognitive apparatus as separate units, but as groups, syntagms (as they are actually reflected projected in the text).

Repetition in such extended structures constitutes the main cohesive skeleton used by the writer in these paragraphs, which is expanded with other units that respectively elaborate the metaphorical phrase “living guitar. ".

The expansion unit that is anyway part of the complement of the metaphorical head[8] "guitar" is the structure that distinguishes paragraphs from one another (on which a passionate hand obtains the vibrations of the strings between the melodies...tragic or comic?/ through which Shejti and Katili achieved the expression of their own ... tragedy or comedy. / where the god among the long, successive melodies found the majestic expression of ... its own tragedy or comedy?)

At the end, the three paragraphs end almost the same (in the third, a doubtful particle is added in the frame of the sentence, which is anyway part of the main construction mechanism of the entire text, which is contrast. We draw attention to the fact that we have paragraphs with figuration that are superimposed on each other, the metaphor expands with another metaphor. ).

Repetition does not only occur formally, since from a perceptual point of view the main semantic head of the entire sentence is the phrase "human gender", which is taken from the metaphor "live guitar" (one cannot help but distinguish the nuances of the periphrasis human gender-live guitar ). The latter is retrieved through the relative pronoun or adverb to expand it with the relative clause (the units that change the paragraphs). In this structure, the figurative layering is thickened, but in reference to the head from which "live guitar" depends (The latter as the constituent part of the traditional nominal predicate with periphrastic value of the semantic head "human gender").

Such a cohesive organization[9] directly affects the reading and verbal interpretation of the text by the reader of any kind (consciously and unconsciously), which imposes the diction towards a more elevated intonation, creating a similar rhythm in all three paragraphs.

The main phrases that are repeated in the same way are separated by time caesuras, which highlight the complementary part that expands the phrase "live guitar", which also makes up the different parts in the three paragraphs. These time stops (2 are more distinct: after “alive” and after three dots[10]) have almost the same time interval, creating the same rhythm in all three paragraphs (It is known that rhythm is a very important element of the organization of the structure of the poetic text. ).

But what is this text, which Migjeni calls a novella, i.e. a type of prose?

Here we enter the theoretical debate on the type of literary text (and not only). In fact, this type of debate, fueled by texts with similar data, has arisen over time in world theoretical studies. It is mostly related to the notion of "prosepoem" that theorists initially associate with Baudelaire (Charles Baudelaire) and his work "The spleen of Paris”, which he called “Petit poemsonprose[11]"(in Russia, Ivan Turgeniev is seen as a representative of this type of text with "Poems in prose").

Baudelaire's prose poems constituted an avant-garde trend for the time and were simultaneously seen as a confrontation between the traditional method of the time and the modern one.[12].

Defined by an oxymoron in the name of the term "prosepoem" (poems in prose), it was conceived as a lyrical text, but without the classical elements of the prosody of the poetic text.

According to researchers in the field, this type of text (prosepoem) creates opportunities to transition from poetry to prose[13] (and not only AN).

Researcher Donika Dabishevci-Fetullahu[14] rightly observed that the prose of Konica, Koliq, Camaj, Hanxhar are poetic prose (She also mentions Migjeni, but does not deal with him, at least in the doctoral thesis, which we have consulted. ). Clarifying this notion in the texts of the aforementioned writers, she also lists some of the features of poetic prose, not all of which are characteristic of every type of poetic prose.[15].

And on the other hand, some of them are also characteristic of ordinary prose, but without the density of use. It is precisely the latter (density in use) that usually codifies them as stilemes. Delville sees the concept prosepoem[16] as "poetry's ability to challenge the power of genre, as an authoritative gesture that transcends accepted rules and boundaries in order to direct us to anticipate these rules and boundaries[17]". And in fact the Symbolists are held to be staunch destroyers of the classical canons.

In this context, it should be said that one of the perceptual-cognitive characteristics of a poetic text is exactly that rhythms, which is created depending on the repetition in approximate temporal and positional deviations. When we say repetition, we keep in mind that a good part of the literary figures that are used in the poetic text (and not only) have exactly the repetition in different positions of the phonemes (which take on symbolic nuances depending on the designed unit and the structure, of which this is a part last), words that are also part of the entire structural organization of the text, of specific adverbs that, despite not being realized with the same words, are projected the same and create a poetic effect.

Thus, in the passage above, a rhythm is created in the reading, precisely from the same extended structures that are repeated in all three paragraphs, that have the same points of interruption and end almost the same at the end.

We bear in mind that they are three long sentences, which if they were physically spread over only one line, would not make a difference even from a visual point of view with the literal poem.

Migjeni also plays with the recipient's cognition, as it induces him and the perspective of the situation. The main metaphor with which he refers to "the human race "in the first three paragraphs he selected a musical instrument (guitar) that itself in perception stimulates the connection with melody as a common feature of poetry.

In the same way, it induces in the text the musical semantic field related to it (melody, hand, tremors, strings, Te Deum etc. ) which do not belong only to the concrete plane of execution, but are accompanied by sensory complements at the same time (HAND passionate, dora with passion to light you etc. , in the second the feeling is escalated, as the adjective is named and itself receives another sensory complement).

Below Migjeni also induces the melody with auditory imitations (sound limitations). Thus, the relationship "of the human race” with his fate associated with “Tragedy or comedy?” (tragic or comic), is realized apart from the almost minimalistic perspective with the phonic elements of the typical melody of the entire text, as a contrasting dichotomy, to give two extreme alternations of the situation and the experience (compare ting-tung-tang/ tang-tung-ting, the opposition of closed vowels to open ones is observed, which is related to joy in this context in the first sounding, while the opposite happens in the second[18]. ).

In the following, the inner melody of sensory movements is described as the circumstance of the process, even with the rhythmic alternations that lead the sensation of the recipient to a writhing nightmare of explosive feelings that stops, as the latter disrupt (Wound) their own source (guitar):

slow-slow, little-fast, fast-ma-fast, very-fast, the snapping nails hurt the guitar, but not the gender! the heart . [19]).

Of course, the alliterative "sh" is marked as a writhing, suffering, exhausting "sh".

It should be added in this context that the above sequence constitutes, as we said, the entire possible extent of gradation at first glance adverbial, but which is actually verbal (it is related to the verb "Lemon"). We say this because, fortunately, gradation as a figure is known in literature and here it is accepted for nouns and verbs, while traditional grammar (here in our country and not only) has not seen verbs and nouns, but adverbs and adjectives. Modern grammar primarily sees the semantic gradation of verbs and nouns, and adverbs and adjectives are reflective of the gradation of the latter.[20].

Scaling with poetic effect is quite commonly used in Migjeni as well. In continuation of the adverbial escalating repetitions above, we naturally find the most common ones for Migjen, verbs (Migjen uses a lot of verbs to say a lot laconically, since the verb is an information bomb even when it is not accompanied by complements in the surface structure. And this suits him for quite a short prose like his). the blood drips, drips…the wire snapped…the melody died—and the man!

Note the verbal scaling "drip-torn-died” which is related by the last metaphor (the melody died) with human experience and struggle. This is emphasized by the direct connection with the hyphen and the structure, which is preceded by an additional connector, which gives the semantics of the parallelism of the process and at the same time of its extinction (-and man). It is precisely the last sequence that interrupts the steady downward rhythm brutally, as is the state it conveys (death), a frightening and chilling perlocution.

The function of the ellipsis in this text is quite interesting. In the first three paragraphs it was part of the illocution of contrastive doubt, which is part of the organization of the whole text. Likewise, it is part of the rhythmic organization of the paragraph, for design reasons it occupies the same position in the first three paragraphs.

In the above section (blood drips, drips…the wire snapped…the melody died—and the man!) it is an indicator of a process that, despite being headed towards termination, has not ended. On a formal level, the interruption created by the triplets constitutes the dividing caesura with the same distance that again induces the poetic intonation. So in this part their rhythmic function is more distinct.

The poetic effect in "Tragedy or Comedy?" it is also realized in noun enumerations whose constituent units are selected to create internal rhyme:

"But now the human race is the stage where Good, Evil, God appear drama and love, desires and apathy, worships and curses... " (The internal rhyme is distinct. ).

Likewise, extended phrases in coordinating conjunctions with few conjunctions, organized both within the noun phrase and by the coordination of extended verbal heads are common in the text and give it a poetic diction. Always in the process of scaling that takes the experience to an extreme, usually pejorative:

".... you display the war drama, with artistic skill and theatrical grandeur they stick sharp knives, shoot poisoned arrows and steal boiling bullets and scream with shrill screams. ”.

However, the most common in this context is recapitulation in parallel structures not as extended as in the first three paragraphs. These can be noun phrases, verbs, etc. :

Everyone expects from man his laughter, and thus a universal laughter begins, a laughter begins that will shake the Cosmos with the planets and spheres in it...-while the heart of man will beat as his life depends on him. from him to laugh, it depends on the mercy of countless planets, it depends on the feeling of the spheres of insensibility, it depends on the absurdity that created it. "

The internal alliterations that come as a result of using words with the same word-forming theme, which are anyway semantically projected as contrasts (depends on the mercy of planets unsold, depends on the feel of the spheres insensitivity...).

In the macrostructure, in our opinion, the main phrase on which the piece is built, namely, creates a poetic effect contrast.

The latter is induced from the title: Tell me

Semantically, this word has doubt, indecision, but still predicts the existence of two sides.

Next title: Tragedy or Comedy?

Note that they are recaptures of each other in deep structure: I'm in a dilemma. = Is it a tragedy or a comedy?

Next in the text you will find: tragic or comic; Who?; Tingtungtang… tingtungting… ; creature of the back hand… creature of the first hand; Good and Bad. . ; drama and love, contempt and sympathy, desires and apathy, worships and curses; tragicomedy etc. etc.

All of these are designed into structures. Sometimes they are exclusive and eventually come and become complementary.

Contrasts has its own scaling up to paradox. Note the following structures:

A creature of the back hand he announced his visits to the corpse of the former man, while a crocodile tear shone in his eyes, where it was reflected the tragedy of the corpse.

It was the man's laugh before comic fatality.

We won the war, the tragedy it ends with a majestic Te Deum, with a full Te Deum Laudeamus Stinking honesty.

Laugh out loud, while your heart does livert!

Twice the synonym of paradox appears directly: absurdity, absurdity.

In the cognition of the recipient, such a compositional mechanism repeated so densely, even with escalation, creates the decoding predisposition of the recipient for the following text. This creates more opportunities for the latter to memorize the text more easily. Such a method also gives a specific rhythm to the text. The receiver has no difficulty in distinguishing this mechanism and profoundly experiencing its escalating effect, which emerges with a variety of units of different planes.

From the thematic point of view, it is a text based on a philosophical discussion: man and his fate, man between the tragic and the comic, the man with the tragic and the comic. A topic quite affected by writers, philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, etc. etc.

The selection of characters in the singular, unidentified (gender, being), most verbs in the present tense, only in the fourth paragraph, where we have a short narration (the scene of the death of the former man) the verbs change to the simple perfect, perhaps to give the perlocutionary effect of the real ending, all this specific to a philosophical treatise.

Plenty of nouns, adjectives derived from verbs and also many verbs in use. Such a thing makes the text denser in thought, image and at the same time gives it the opportunity to be laconic and poetic at the same time.

In conclusion, we can say that even the poetic perception in the structure that is induced in the sensation is distinct to the recipient of any kind of level.

What we want to emphasize in the end is the fact that Mighen's genius, which appears in the messages, in the themes and others, and in the poetic form of his text, easily recognizable and perceptible at different levels of analysis, are not a separate manifestation from the most avant-garde European tradition of the time.

____________

records

[1]We are talking about the treatments done in relation to Migje by I. Kadare, R. Idrizi, R. Hoxha, etc.

[2] I. Kadare, Ardhja e Mijen in Albanian literature, 1991, p. 31.

[3] We refer to A. Pippa, The myth of the west in the poetry of Migjen, p. 9 who sees the metaphorical structure as quite complicated in Migjen's poetry "What distinguishes Migjen from any other Albanian writer is his taste for metaphor, which in his work is hyperbolic and eccentric. Metaphor is the foundation of poetic language, there is no literature without it. But metaphor in Albanian poetry is usually explanatory and illustrative, close to comparison. Albanians, who tend to be realistic and practical, tend towards a discursive style, without violent transitions or deep contrasts. On the contrary, Migjeni does not proceed step by step, but with giant steps and the metaphor serves as a springboard. It can be said that metaphor is his natural form of expression".

[4] R. Hoxha, Korbi and Migjeni, 1997 summarizes the opinion of Kadare p. 59: "Migeni is not an Albanian Rimbo... and even less a Lermontov, or a Kleist of our mountains. He was simply Migjeni, uniquely qualified to be a great Albanian writer, one of the most troubled European writers of the 30s who lived and worked in a difficult time, the tragedy of which sealed his work. ".

[5]I. Kadare, Ardhja e Mijen in Albanian literature, 1991: "Due to the circumstances, he dreamed of this literature somewhat far away (Albanian literature AN). Now that he approaches its heavy gates, that he hears the rattling of their chains, he dimly feels that there is something out of date in this literature. He has read all kinds of books and authors from St. Augustine of Nietzsche, from Dostoevsky to Sinclair Lewis, from German expressionists to socialist writers, so it is natural to suspect that the machine of classical Albanian literature is not able to function well for the new era. . You feel that it needs repair, for innovation, this heavy machine that has gone through so many tragic trials and that can be damaged now precisely by its epistemology. " p. 25.

[6] According to Xemi Shehaj in: https://atunispoetry. com/2017/08/14/moderniteti-i-migjenit-permes-poetikave-avangardiste-nga-xheni-shehaj/

[7] The text is taken from: Migjeni, collected and edited by Skënder Luarasi, CETIS Tirana, 2002.

We must add that we find touches that are reflected in the analysis. We are also talking about certain sounds like the case of one/one which are important for the type of prose of Migjen as poetic prose. In Albanian literature, one should see all the texts published from 1972 onwards, after the Orthographic Congress.

[8] Often times in this paper we will avoid the use of traditional terminology related to figuration, given the problems that this treatment has shown.

[9] In this part, there are other elements that give the image of a poetic text, which we will recover in the following analysis.

[10] We do not think that they have the value of reticence in this context, but of contrastive doubt that constitutes the connecting node of the organization of coherence and cohesion of the entire text and that is repeated with different units of different linguistic levels.

[11] S. Monte, Prose Poetry as a Genre in French and American Literature, 2000.

1. Wanner, From Prose Poem to the Anti-story, 2017

2. Santili, The prose Poem in English Literature, 2002

3. Delville, The Prose Poem and the Ideology of Genre, 1998

[12]S. Monte, Prose poetry as a Genre in French and American Literature, 2000, p. 8.

[13]A. Wanner, From Prose Poem to the Anti-story, 2017, p. 6.

[14]D. Dabishevci-Fetullahu, Peculiarities of Albanian poetic prose, 2013.

[15]D. Dabishevci-Fetullahu, Peculiarities of Albanian poetic prose, 2013, p. 25: So, poetic prose is considered as an intermediate, transitional form between poetry and prose, which preserves the genre characteristics of both. From the first glance, it is noticeable that it has the appearance of prose, the sentences extended to the end of the line and line after line, while the discourse (language) aims at articulation in the picture. There is also the presence of rhythm in the sentence, of internal rhyme - with fusion in the form of assonances and consonances, which give it a special and unique musicality, resembling poetry; also, a dynamics of meanings and poetic nuances of the sentences, and a haunted fable narration, they offer with the poem. In common with poetry, there is also the pronounced emotionality, the disclosure of personal experience and the compressed thought, where the image takes on a significant value, giving meaning to other expressive elements of the text. The meter is not present in the poetic prose, but its main feature, the rhythm, is of great value. In the sentence, phonetic elements are often given that are often distributed in measurable time and of the same value, increasing the meaningful and sonorous power of the word. So the rhythm is not only formal - it is also ideological, as it has a special literary meaning. Also phonic repetitions in the form of alliteration, assonance, homophony, paranoma, etc. , create internal rhymes in poetic prose. The presence of an imaginable form of characters (as in dreams), a contracted dialogue and the dominant monologue - as a form of expression of thought, make poetic prose have features close to short prose. In poetic prose, it is usually narrated in the first person singular - I, from where the author's identification with the narrator often begins and ends through a very personal narration. This differs from prose (narration) where ereferentiality dominates and where there is distance from the position of the narrator and narrative evidence. Narrative memory in prose is related to an event, which is given as mythical ahistorical evidence, through a narrative voice which narrates in the perfect tense, while in poetic prose, evidence and emotional reflections are often given in the imperfect tense. This is because, from the position of the imperfect, it is narrated not for evidence of events, but for reflections and reminiscences of thoughts and different feelings, which seem to be repeated and we expect to be said again in the text.

[16] It should be added that the concept of prose poem continues to be seen in its narrow sense as a singularity of a specific text, despite the fact that generalizations have been made about it. Thus in Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, 2012 we find this definition for prose poem: PROSE POEM (poem in prose). A composition able to have any or all the features of the lyric, except that it is put on the page–though not conceived of–as prose. It differs from poetic prose in that it is short and compact, from free verse in that it has no line breaks, from a short prose passage in that it has, usually, more pronounced rhythms, sonorous effects, imagery, and density of expression. It may even contain inner rhyme and metrical runs. Its length, generally, is from half a page (one or two paragraphs) to three or four pages, ie, that of the average lyrical poem. If it is any longer, the tensions and impact are forfeited, and it becomes – more or less poetic – prose. The term "prose poem" has been applied irresponsibly to anything from the Bible to a novel by Faulkner, but should be used only to designate a highly conscious (sometimes even self-conscious) art form.

[17]M. Delville, The Prose Poem and the Ideology of Genre, 1998, fx

[18]We note that symbolists have played a lot with such effects by giving them a semantic symbolism that is induced by projecting them into a grouping related to the writer's message.

[19]In this case, poeticity is induced not only in form, but also in perception, as it describes the rhythm. In fact, we have seen such a thing in Poradeci, in the poem "Song of old age".

[20] A. Deda-D. Hasa, Issues of gradability in Albanian language traditional studies (coauthor), Journal, of Educational Studies and Social Research, MCSER Publishing, Rome, Italy, Vol. 4, No. 2, April, 2014.

___________

REFERENCES

Dabishevci-Fetullahu, D. (2013), Features of Albanian poetic prose.

Deda, A. -Hasa, D. (2014), Issues of gradability in Albanian language traditional studies (coauthor), Journal, of Educational Studies and Social Research, MCSER Publishing, Rome, Italy, Vol. 4, No. 2.

Delville, M. (1998), The Prose Poem and the Ideology of Genre.

Elsie, R. (2001), History of Albanian literature, Pejë, "Dukagjini" publishing house.

Kadare, I. (1991), Arrival of Migjen in Albanian literature.

Kallulli, A. (1974), Migjeni a revolutionary poet on the front of literature, Tirana, "Naim Frashëri".

Koliqi, E. (1940), Evoluzione storica della lirica albanese, Rome, Editoriali Urbinati.

Jorgoni, P. (1979), Migjen's poetry and reality, Tirana.

Pipa, A. (2006), The myth of the west in the poetry of Migjen, Tirana, "Princi".

Pipa, A. (1944), The Painful History of the Young Spirit, "Criticism".

Shehaj, Xh. (2017) in: https://atunispoetry. com/2017/08/14/moderniteti-i-migjenit-permes-poetikave-avangardiste-nga-xheni-shehaj/

Uçi, A. (2013), Migeneian aesthetics, the modern spirit in the Albanian countryside, Tirana, "Kristalina - KH".

Wanner, A. (2017), FromProsePoem to the Anti-story.