Language and Literary Structure

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This theoretical study of linguistic structure in literature focuses on verse and narrative from a linguistic perspective. Nigel Fabb provides a simple and realistic linguistic explanation of poetic form in English from 1500-1900, drawing on the English and American verse and oral narrative tradition, as well as contemporary criticism. He offers a new linguistic approach to how metre and rhythm work in poetry, based on pragmatic theory. He provides a pragmatic explanation of formal ambiguity and indeterminacy and their aesthetic effects.