Acknowledgments

This book has resulted from many years of cooperation with and encouragement from teachers, colleagues, and students at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and at Loyola University of Chicago. Naming names is a dangerous business; nevertheless the debts I owe to certain individuals demand explicit acknowledgment. I must trust that those whom I may inadvertently omit will attribute the error to my infamously faulty memory rather than to any underestimation of their kindness.

It was in Donald C. Freeman’s graduate seminar at the University of Massachusetts that I first understood where my linguistic and literary studies might intersect. Since then, I have been steadily encouraged by him, first as a teacher and then as a colleague, to refine and improve my theory of poetic syntax. To him and to his wife, Margaret, go thanks for friendship, trust, and intermittent hospitality. S. Jay Keyser taught me a great deal about composing an argument, especially that the way one says something may be at least as important as what one says. He also had innumerable bright ideas about how to say things better. Much of whatever expository strength resides in this study should be attributed to his tutelage, and to the more detailed advice of his colleague in journal editing, E. L. Epstein. Since our days in graduate school, Steven Lapointe and Muffy Siegel have always been more than willing to read carefully and to comment thoughtfully. It has been their continued interest that has repeatedly renewed my own conviction that theoretical linguists might benefit as much from my work as would students of literature. Steven in particular has read much of my material in early draft form with an eagle eye and has never failed to pinpoint its shortcomings without in any way discouraging me. I have similarly benefited from the tough-minded and uncompromising criticism of Richard Cureton, whose dissertation I warmly recommend as probably the best work in syntactic stylistics of recent years.

I am happy to acknowledge certain specific acts of generosity in connection with the preparation of this text itself. Jim Gee was kind enough to send me a copy of a textbook manuscript he has been working on. The staff of the Data Center on the Lake Shore Campus of Loyola University of Chicago played the role of midwife to the typescript of this volume, replacing as a group the typist I was grateful not to need. David Gabrovich in particular accepted with great equanimity the early bunglings and later frustrations of a computer neophyte.

Members of my family have helped me in ways too numerous to detail in full. My parents not only accepted my decision to pursue graduate studies in linguistics in the United States at a time when that may have seemed a risky career choice, but have since offered tireless encouragement with the book itself. Both read early drafts of the text with gratifying (if predictable) enthusiasm and offered many suggestions along the way. My parents-in-law, too, have tolerated a family in exile with great generosity. The hospitality of both families during the summer of 1983 made possible a thorough and leisurely revision of the final typescript.

Even they, however, did not have to live with this book, or with me, during the long years of its gestation. The dedication of this volume is a rather weak attempt to reflect the gratitude I feel toward those who did: my wife, Shena, and daughters, Jenny and Katie, who will be as grateful, I am sure, to see this study in print as they have been patient in awaiting its completion.

If I am less fearful of omitting acknowledgment of my financial indebtednesses, this in no way diminishes the sincerity of my thanks to those who have supported my work. The University of Massachusetts awarded a Graduate Dissertation Fellowship to smooth my way while I completed work on the first draft of some of the material this book contains. Loyola University of Chicago later funded two Summer Research Grants and a one-semester leave of absence to facilitate my work at particularly crucial stages. In addition, I had the good fortune to attend classes with E. D. Hirsch and to participate in the other activities of the 1981 School of Criticism and Theory through a Postdoctoral Studentship awarded by its trustees. It is certainly to be hoped that similar opportunities for young faculty will continue to be available despite the general loss in recent years of public faith in the value of higher education in the humanities.

Finally, it falls to me to acknowledge that parts of this work have appeared in rather different versions in journal articles over the years. The discussion of Shelley’s style in “Adonais” that appears here in chapters 2 and 4 originally formed the core of an article in PTL. The discussion of Wordsworth’s The Ruined Cottage, now in chapter 3, and a number of the theoretical passages central to my model for research in poetic syntax appeared first in two separate papers published in Language and Style. I am extremely grateful to the editors of these journals both for their helpful comments on the prepublication texts and for their permission to rework the material here.

Despite all these kindnesses, this work could still not have seen the light of day without the assistance of Loyola’s Media Services team, who beautified the figures, and of Catherine Jarrott, who held my hand during proof-reading and indexing. What errors remain, I shall be happy to own.