Lexical Choice

The lexical choice (sometimes referred to as diction) is the decisions about language that a
poet has made when writing his or her poem.
To study a writers diction is to study his choice of words, and in studying his choice of
words you need to consider two questions:
1) Why has the writer chosen these words on this occasion?
2) What is the effect of these words, either separately or how they work together?
These questions are closely interrelated. Often a writer chooses certain words with the
intention of getting the reader to respond in a particular way.
The choices that are made will inevitably be influenced by the complex relationship between
the reader and the poet. They will depend on the level of formality or informality of the
poem, the poet's intentions and the effect that the piece is intended to have on the reader.
Abstract or concrete nouns can be chosen depending on the subject matter of the poem, and
modifiers can be used to add detail to descriptions of people or places, to create atmosphere,
arouse emotions or express opinions and judgements. Verbs will be selected to express
actions of various kinds, as well as adding to the message that the poet wishes to convey to
the reader.
Of the various aspects considered in lexical choice, probably the most important is a word's
connotations, or the associations suggested by a word. This is quite separate from its
denotation, or dictionary definition. Words can carry with them many connotations that
might bring suggested meanings quite different from the dictionary definition of the word.
Connotations are acquired by words depending on how they have been used in the past.
There are occasions when writers choose words which have the clearest meaning or
denotation, without complicating connotations. It all depends on the effects that the writer
wishes to achieve - words are chosen to suit the audience and purpose. Sometimes a writer or
poet might choose words that are particularly colloquial or particularly formal, according to
context. Sometimes archaisms are used to give a sense of the past or add a sense of dignity
and solemnity to the language, or dialect words may be used to create a certain social or
regional atmosphere.
Poets can make their lexis very modern by using neologisms (invented words), which can
add a sense of individuality to the poem. Sometimes a word may be chosen because it is
incongruous and doesn't fit in with the other lexis. It may jar or shock the reader, or defy the
reader's expectations.

Adlestrop

Yes, I remember Adlestrop The name, because one afternoon

Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly: It was late June.
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop - only the name

And willows willow-herb, and grass,

And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lovely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Edward Thomas

Why do you think Thomas has decided to begin the poem with the word 'Yes'? What
effect does this have on the poem?
Does the nature of the lexis (vocabulary) change as the poem develops? If so, why do
you think this is?
What unusual words have you noted in the poem? What effect do these have on the
poem?
What overall effect is produced by Thomas's lexical choices?

Comment on Wilfred Owens choice of diction in the poem Futility and the effect this
creates.

Move him into the sun Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.
Think how it wakes the seeds, Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,
Full-nerved - still warm - too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?

Look at these two examples and comment on the writers use of language:

There was a steaming mist in all the hollows, and it had roamed in its forlornness up the hill,
like an evil spirit, seeking rest and finding none. A clammy and intensely cold mist, it made
its slow way through the air in ripples that visibly followed and overspread one another, as
the waves of an unwholesome sea might do. It was dense enough to shut out everything from
the light of the coach-lamps but these its own workings, and a few yards of road; and the reek
of the labouring horses steamed into it, as if they had made it all.

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Gods Grandeur

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears mans smudge and shares mans smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings

10

Gerard Manley Hopkins

The poem describes the insect life of two worlds: one, in the air above the lily leaves on the
ponds surface; the other on the bed of the pond. What contrasts are there in the insect life
of these two worlds? What techniques does the poet use to express his attitude towards
nature?

A green level of lily leaves

Roofs the pond's chamber and paves
The flies' furious arena: study

These, the two minds of this lady.

First observe the air's dragonfly
That eats meat, that bullets by
Or stands in space to take aim;
Others as dangerous comb the hum
Under the trees. There are battle-shouts
And death-cries everywhere hereabouts
But inaudible, so the eyes praise
To see the colours of these flies
Rainbow their arcs, spark, or settle
Cooling like beads of molten metal
Through the spectrum. Think what worse
Is the pond-bed's matter of course;
Prehistoric bedragoned times
Crawl that darkness with Latin names,
Have evolved no improvements there,
Jaws for heads, the set stare,
Ignorant of age as of hourNow paint the long-necked lily-flower
Which, deep in both worlds, can be still
As a painting, trembling hardly at all
Though the dragonfly alight,
Whatever horror nudge her root
Ted Hughes