Issues in Literary Synaesthesia

Abstract

Synaesthesia as a Neuropsyehological and a Literary Phenomenon The term synaesthesia suggests joining of sensations derived from different sensory domains. One must distinguish between .joining of sense impressions derived from various sensory domains and .joining of terms derived from vocabularies of various sensory domains. The former concerns synaesthesia as a neuropsychological phenomenon, consisting in anomalous sensory perception: a stimulus in one sensory modality triggers an automatic, instantaneous, consistent response in another modality (e.g., sound evokes color) or in a different aspect of same modality (e.g., black text evokes color). The latter is verbal synaesthesia. Literary synaesthesia is exploitation of verbal synaesthesia for specific literary effects, of which I will discuss emotional and witty effects. One conspicuous contrast between genuine and literary synaesthesia is that former involves rigidly predictable combinations of sensory modes, whereas latter requires exceptionally great flexibility in generating and understanding unforeseen combinations and, by same token, abandoning established combinations. Literary synaesthesia is typically concerned with verbal constructs and not with dual perceptions. When we use a synaesthetic metaphor, it is its terms that are derived from two sensory domains; reality referred to may be elusive, undifferentiated, or ineffable, even but it need not necessarily belong to two different sensory domains. Neurological mechanisms underlying genuine synaesthesia may contribute to certain literary effects; but in some instances, as we shall see, they fail to account for them. In Romantic poetry and in nineteenth-century French Symbolism, Literary synaesthesia typically contributes to some undifferentiated emotional quality characteristic of certain altered states of consciousness--vague, dreamy, or uncanny hallucinatory moods (Stanford)--or a strange, magical experience or heightened mystery. In some varieties of mannerist poetry, as in some modernist and seventeenth-century metaphysical poetry, by contrast, synaesthesia typically makes for a witty quality. How can we account for this contrast? According to Coleridge, imagination involves the balance and reconciliation of or discordant (Biographia Literaria, ch. 4). I submit that when opposite or discordant are more emphasized in a poem, effect is witty; when their reconciliation, effect is emotional. The poet may manipulate attention, by rhetorical means, to discordant qualities or their reconciliation. Synaesthesia (as well as oxymoron) violently yokes together or discordant qualities, inducing tension. So, it may contribute to a witty context, metaphysical or modernist. There may be, however, elements in a context that mitigate perceived clash of opposites, one of them being heightened emotional energy; another, imagined spatial orientation. In such instances, synaesthesia (and oxymoron) reinforces rather than disrupts emotional qualities in poetry. (1) Sometimes two figures occur together, reinforcing each other's effect, as in these lines from Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn: Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to sensual ear, but, more endeared, Pipe to spirit ditties of no tone.... Here two figures are meant to convey or evoke an intense, supersensuous, thing-free quality perceived in silent drawings on urn. Four Kinds of Explanation To avoid confusion, one must be aware of what it is that one is explaining when explaining synaesthetic metaphors. I distinguished four kinds of explanation. The first is genetic explanation. In Rimbaud's Voyelles, for instance, what is it that made Rimbaud think of precisely these associations, for example, spelling book theory (that vowel-color associations in Rimbaud's poem reflect letter-color associations in his spelling book), and some versions of alchemy theory (that these associations are derived from alchemy). …