HERBERT PAUL GRICE -- Poetic implicature

Speranza

This paper attempts to draw on Grice’s cooperative principles as a stylistic device to demonstrate the thematic meaning and the aesthetic effects emerged in the conversational implicatures in Bishop’s poetry, particularly North Haven and Insomnia. Applying linguistic theory as a tool to investigate poetry, this paper suggests an innovative approach: a pragmastylistic approach to illustrate literary works. Revealing the relation between Bishop's violation of cooperative principles including quantity maxim, quality maxim, relation maxim, and manner maxim in specific lines of poetry, and the creation of conversational implicatures, it clarifies the author's connotation underlying the superficial expressions and enables readers to understand the theme in a profound way. By means of developing a particular approach of availing of linguistic principles to demonstrate poetic language, this paper sets up a general scheme to interpret poetry in a stylistic perspective, and sheds light on a multidisciplinary path to explore other literary texts.