il libro

 The study of silence in pragmatics is a relatively recent phenomenon. It started to gain scholarly attention in the 1970s, but only in the 1990s the contributions to this topic began to multiply. The purpose of this volume is to analyse the use of language in Alice Thompson Meynell’s poetry by applying the tools offered primarily by pragmatics, in order to achieve a hypothesis of interpretation of her recurrence to silence. Alice Thompson Meynell (1847-1922), though very well-known in the London cultural and literary world of her lifetime, went through a long period of oblivion, which was interrupted by the operation of re-discovery of Victorian women poets initiated by Women’s Studies in the 1970s. The first section is focused on Meynell as a public and literary figure, her relationship with the poetic tradition, and on how her literary production was received both in her lifetime and after her death. To this aim, all the most relevant contributions are taken into account, from those written by friends and acquaintances to the most recent ones. The second section is devoted to theory and analysis. After synthesising the foundations of pragmatics and offering an overview of the main contributions to the study of silence, an attempt is made to create a taxonomy of Meynell’s use of silence by analysing a choice of her poems. The analysis is conducted by making reference to Jaworski’s interpretation of RT as applied to silence and to Khatchadourian’s concept of “silent doing” – and of the five related stages in silent communication.

l’autrice

Giuliana Gardellini is Tenure-Track assistant professor in English Language, Linguistics and Translation at the University of Urbino. She received her M.A. from the University of Bologna (Foreign Languages and Literatures – English and French) in 1994 and her Ph.D. from the University of Venice (English Studies) in 1999. She currently teaches English to undergraduate students in Education Sciences and Primary Teacher Education. For many years, she taught Anglo-American Literature (Canadian and U.S.) both at the University of Bologna and at the University of Urbino. She is the author of essays in English Literature (Alice Thompson Meynell, Jane Austen), Canadian Literature (Susanna Moodie, Rohinton Mistry, Alistair MacLeod, Pasquale Verdicchio, John Newlove, Margaret Atwood, Gwendolyn MacEwen) and U.S. Literature (Arthur Miller). Her current research explores pragmatic approaches to silence in poetry.

rassegna stampa

 In Meynell’s poetics, the recurrence to silence is foregrounded in writing itself, taking on a multiplicity of possible valencies, from the near impossibility to express exceedingly complex and intimate emotions to the difficulty to find an appropriate style “after the event” of Great Literature, and the consequent fear not to be able to compete with the great poets of the past. Also, silence is an act through which the poet hints at the origin of any literary and linguistic expression and reflects a meta-poetic concern by openly discussing the process implied in writing poetry.

Giuliana Gardellini