For the earth endureth forever.

The sentence contains a biblical allusion. It is a modification of a line from Ecclesiastes (a book of the Old Testament traditionally attributed to king Solomon): " One generation passeth away, another generation cometh, but the earth abideth for ever." The allusion enhances the symbolic meaning of the image of the earth as of everlasting life. The use of the verb endure instead of the obsolete abide makes the image more vivid, whereas the retainment of the archaic and poetic form -th for -s adds to the solemnity and forcefulness of expression.

F A sample of a belles-lettres text analysis

I. The text under analysis is a piece of belles-lettres writing by one of the greatest American writers E. Hemingway under the title “On the American Dead in Spain”. It presents a certain interest in terms of its genre, as though written in a prosaic form, it can be treated as a lyrical writing, a blank verse, owing to its compressed form, strongly marked repetitive rhythms resulting from the use of deliberately reiterated key-words, which acquires the character of a refrain, the abundance of expressive means and stylistic devices. All this makes it possible to consider this writing to be an epitaph, rhythmically arranged as a dead march, epitomizing and commemorating the American soldiers who died defending the cause of the Spanish Revolution during the Civil War in Spain.

II. Analyzing the text in terms of the category of informativity we must say that like in any belles-lettres writing, both types of information can be elicited from it, namely, the factual and the conceptual ones.

The main concern of the text in question is the depiction of the exploit of the American volunteers from the international brigade, namely, from the Lincoln Battalion, who gave their lives for the ideas of the Spanish Republic in the struggle against the Spanish fascism under General Franco in 1939 during the Civil War in Spain.

The factual information of the text under consideration can be segmented into five logically complete parts.

In the 1^st logical part consisting of the 1^st and 2^nd physical paragraphs the author metaphorically depicts the place where the American soldiers who gave their lives for the cause of the Spanish Revolution are buried. This logical part also comprises the retrospective information concerning the place where the severe battles took place, namely, the heights of the Jarama river and the time for which the battle lasted, namely, four and a half months. The author provides some poetic details referring to the events that took place along the heights the Jarama river: the winter landscape, the cut branches of the trees, the headboards on the graves of the deceased. Ernest Hemingway compares the death of the American soldiers with a long winter sleep.

The 2^nd logical part embracing the 3^rd and the 4^th physical paragraphs concerns itself with the picturesque and highly-poetic depiction of the eternal life of the Spanish Earth which comes to life every spring together with the memory of the American heroes who had become part of it. It’s done through the metaphoric image of the annual resurrection of nature.

The 3^rd logical part holding together the 5^th and the 6^th physical paragraphs develops the idea of the immortality of the American volunteers and conveys the author’s conviction that the memory of these soldiers will live forever in the hearts and minds of the good simple honest people of Spain. The author also praises the freedom-like character of the Spanish people who will never live in slavery.

The 4^th logical part including the 7^th and the 8^th physical paragraphs deals with the skillful denunciation of the destructive, brutal force of fascism. Hemingway also exposes those countries who aided Spanish fascists by supplying them with arms and weapons. The concluding logical part comprising the 9^th and the 10^th physical paragraphs presents the author’s solemn assertion that the Spanish Earth can never be conquered and will outlive all systems of tyranny and the American soldiers who entered this earth honourably have already achieved immortality.

III. The above factual information is not confined to the above said. Its volume is enlarged by a number of facts relevant in terms of the category of presupposition which require a certain amount of background knowledge on the part of the reader. Thus, mentioning the small headboards on the graves of the deceased the author expects the reader to be aware of the fact that the battles that took place in Spain during the Civil War between Republicans and Francists were so severe and cruel that there was no time to install gravestones.

Another fact relevant in terms of the category of presupposition is the Lincoln Battalion which is mentioned in the second paragraph. The reader is expected to know that it formed a part of the international brigades organized by the volunteers from 54 countries who rushed to Spain after pro-fascist generals betrayed the Republic leaving it without its regular army. The Lincoln Battalion consisted of American volunteers who secretly left for Spain since the USA declared neutrality. One more important fact is that the neutrality of the USA and some other countries strengthened the fascist force.

Another fact essential in terms of the category of presupposition is found in the 7^th paragraph and requires from the reader the knowledge that the Spanish fascists acted in the alliance with the already established fascist dictatorships of Hitler in Germany and Mussolini in Italy, who supplied the Spanish nationalists with arms and weapons.

Apart from the above mentioned information of general socio-historic significance, there are some philological facts. Thus, the reader is expected to have some knowledge of the Bible to identify and comprehend the allusion used in the 9^th paragraph “For the earth endureth forever” which is a modification of a line from Ecclesiastes, a book of the Old Testament traditionally attributed to King Solomon: “One generation passeth away, another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever”. The use of the verb “endure” instead of the obsolete “abide” makes the image more vivid, whereas the retainment of the archaic and poetic form –th for –s adds to the solemnity and forcefulness of expression.

IV. Before we start analyzing the text in terms of the category of implication we should formulate the conceptual information which I see as follows. In a form of an epitaph the author immortalizes the exploit of the American volunteers who died for the freedom of the Spanish people during the Civil War in Spain. Besides, Hemingway stigmatizes fascism as one of the most cruel manifestations of tyranny. The author also glorifies the invincible spirit of the Spanish people who will never live in slavery.

The above mentioned conceptual information can be split up into 3 conceptual cores.

The first conceptual core to distinguish is the eternal life of the Spanish earth which awakens every spring from its long winter sleep. To convey this idea the author makes use of the SD of personification in a number of cases where the earth, trees and rain are endowed with such human features as the ability to come, to sleep, to come alive, to come to life, etc.

To develop the idea of the eternal life of the Spanish earth the author resorts to the SD of parallel syntactic parallelism based on the similar pattern “N+Verb (in the Future Indefinite)” in a number of consecutive sentences in the second logical part.

The same idea is extended by the use of the SD of alliteration consisting in the repetition of the sonorant sounds [m], [l], [n] which resemble spring sounds.

The idea of the everlasting life of the Spanish earth that will outlive all the systems of tyranny is expressed through the SD of Biblical allusion “for the earth endureth forever” which is a modification of a line from Ecclesiastes, a book of the Old Testament attributed to King Solomon: “the earth abideth for ever”.

The second conceptual core concerns itself with the idea that those who perished for the just cause of liberty are immortal as they became a part of the Spanish earth and the earth endureth forever. To substantiate the idea of the heroic exploit of the American volunteers, the author employs the SD of a trite metaphor “the dead sleep cold” and “live in hearts and minds”, which serve as certain expressive intensifiers of the idea.

The use of the SD of oxymoron “the dead will live” and “the dead will feel” plays a great role in expressing the idea of the immortality of those who entered the earth honourably.

To enhance the idea of the everlasting life of the American heroes, the author resorts to the use of the SD of periphrasis “to be a part of the earth” and “to enter the earth”, which is based on the metaphoric roundabout form of denoting the idea of death.

The 3^rd conceptual core comprises the images which are concerned with denunciation of tyranny, in general, and fascism, in particular.

Depicting the atmosphere / image of the cold sleep of the American soldiers in the Spanish earth the author makes use of the phonetic SD of alliteration which consists in the repetition of the consonants [s] and [z] at the beginning of the neighbouring words (in a very close succession). These sounds symbolize the sinister silence on the place of the battle: “snow blows, snow drifts”.

Developing the idea of the destructiveness of war the author resorts to the SD of expressive-evaluative epithet “thin” in reference to the noun “branches” stressing that not only human beings but objects of nature also suffer from war.

To embody the idea of the destructive force of fascism the author makes use of the skillfully managed SD of dead metaphor “to blast one’s way” which functions as an intensifier and is based on the analogy between removing some obstacles on one’s way and the devastation that the war brings about.

To convey the idea of the cruelty and brutality of the fascist regime the author resorts to the SD of synechdoche “weight of metal” which stands for “arms and weapons”. It’s based on a specific kind of metonymic relationship the whole “metal” is used for a part “weapons”.

In the seventh paragraph a SD of parallelism is observed, which is based on the similarity of sentence pattern of the adjacent phrases or sentences, namely S + Modal Verbal Predicate (may + infinitive): e.g. “the fascists may spread, …” It is done for a rhetorical reason. This parallel construction is accompanied by the change of the modal verb in the negative form in the same pattern. Hemingway changes the verb “may” into “cannot” to make his rejection of fascism all the sharper.

Making use of the words “traitors” and “cowards” the author alludes to the countries which supplied the Spanish profascist generals with arms and to the countries which declared neutrality and in this way strengthened the fascist force.

We can also trace the use of the SD of climax in the 7^th paragraph which is based on the recurrence of the syntactic pattern “they+comp. nomin. pred.” and in each recurrent sequence the lexical unit is emotionally stronger. This SD contributes to the idea that tyranny is doomed to failure, it can’t last forever.

V. Now let’s have a closer look at those means of the lexical cohesion which contribute to the logical-semantic wholeness of the text. It is generally recognized that among various means of text cohesion lexical means of cohesion play the crucial role because, first and foremost, they make for the logico-semantic globality of the text.

One of the means through which the lexical cohesion finds its expression is the recurrence of the key-words. In the present text the following key-words support the logico-conceptual integrity of the text: “the dead”, “the Earth”, “to live”.

Since the epitaph under discussion is written in memory of the American soldiers who died during the Civil War in Spain, it is only natural that this part of the information of the text is expressed by the recurrent use of the substantivized adjective “the dead”, repeated 16 times.

But on the other hand, Hemingway claims that the American soldiers who died in the Civil War in Spain have already achieved immortality as they became a part of the Spanish earth which is eternal. This accounts for the recurrence of the key-words “the earth” (13 times) and “to live”. Though the key-word “to live” is not very frequently repeated in the present text its cohesive capacity is enhanced by the contextual synonyms: to come to life; to come alive; to outlive; to achieve immortality; to endure. Alongside this, a number of antonyms to the key-word “to live” are observed. The use of lexemes with opposite meanings also reinforces the logico-semantic unity of the text: to die; to enter the earth; to sleep cold; to be a part of the earth.

The key-word “the dead” is supported by a number of contextual synonyms which makes for the integrity of the text: “those who have entered the earth honourably”; “those who died in Spain”; “a part of the earth of Spain”; the Lincoln Battalion”.

The key-words enter a number of word-combinations which cover the text with a kind of a thematic network:

“the dead”:

- “the first American dead”; “our dead”; “these dead”;

“the earth”:

- the earth sleeps; the earth of Spain; the earth endureth; the earth lives; to enter the earth; to work the earth; to make the earth kind again; to feel the earth beginning to live;

“to live”:

- to live again; to live in the Spanish earth; to live forever; to live as long as the earth lives; the earth lives; our dead live.

The use of words pertaining to one and the same lexico-semantic group is another means of lexical cohesion which contributes to the logico-semantic unity of the text.

Since we can distinguish the conceptual cores of “life” and “death” in the present text it is only natural that these two notions will unite words into two different LSG (lexico-semantic groups) with the common underlying notions:

the notion of death:

- Nouns: the dead, snow, winter, mounds, headboards, tanks, war, slavery, tyranny, fascists, traitors, cowards, metal.

- Verbs: to sleep, to cut, to die, to blast, to fight, to destroy.

- Adjectives: cold, thin, black.

the notion of life:

- Nouns: spring, earth, rain, life, (green) leaves, blossoms, immortality, hearts, (soft) wind, apple-trees.

- Verbs: to live, to outlive, to endure, to believe, to remember, to feel, to begin.

- Adjectives: kind, soft, alive, free, good, honest.

- Adverbs: honourably, forever, again.

Another means of the lexical cohesion is the use of words and word-combinations referring to the same thematic group with the underlying notion of life and death.

The thematic group with the underlying notion of death includes the word-combinations: to sleep cold, snow blows, snow drifts, sifts, to blast one’s way with weight of metal, to hold people in slavery, system of tyranny, to return to slavery.

The thematic group with the underlying notion of life comprises the word-combinations: to make the earth kind again, to blow soft, to come to life, small green leaves, to come alive again, our dead live in the hearts and the minds of the Spanish workers, to rise against tyranny, to outlive all systems of tyranny, to achieve immortality, to endure forever.

The associative-semantic use of the word “the dead” which first serves to denote “the killed in Spain, the perished, the fallen”, then gradually obtains new meanings: “all honest, brave people; those who had risen against slavery”. And finally, at the end of the text it comes to denote “the heroes; ones living forever; people who became immortal”. Thus, the initial meaning of the word “the dead” changes completely to the end of the text. In other words, the word “dead” undergoes the so-called semantic shift. It also makes for the integrity of the text.

The use of words having the same root morpheme formed by different word-building means also contributes to the lexical cohesion of the text: e.g. to die – dead – death; to love – love; to live – outlive – life.

Unit 1