P. is a stylistic term referring to a relative paucity of linking terms between juxtaposed clauses or sentences, often giving the effect of piling up, swiftness, and sometimes compression. A paratactic style is one in which a lang.’s ordinary resources for joining propositions are deliberately underused; propositions are set one after another (Gr. para + tassein ) without the expected particles, adverbs, or conjunctions. The effectiveness of p. varies relative to a lang.’s structure, since langs. differ widely in their means of joining clauses. Within a single lang., genres also vary in degree of p.: in cl. Chinese, verse is more paratactic than prose, and traditional verse ( shi ) is more paratactic than other verse genres such as fu and ci. It seems likely that verse is more paratactic than prose simply because verse has other structural determiners to rely on. Rynell argues that oral poetry esp. favors p. Short-lined verse tends to be more paratactic than verse in long lines, a difference that may account in part for the slightly rushed feeling of Eng. tetrameters over pentameters, and for the languor of hexameters.
P. can be humorous: “Pride, Malice, Folly against Dryden rose, In various shapes of Parsons, Critics, Beaus” (Pope, Essay on Criticism ); the faults and enemies can be taken in single pairs, Pride and Parsons, etc., or in the two groups; an effect the use of and might blur. Syllogistic or pseudo-syllogistic compression also issues in p.: “A hatefull cure with hate to heale: / A blooddy helpe with blood to save: A foolish thing with fooles to deale: / Let him be bob’d that bobs wil have” (Sidney, “From the Old Arcadia 25”). The effect can also be one of courtly formality: “In silver robes the moone, the sunne in gold, / Like young eyespeaking lovers in a dance, / With majestie by turns retire, advance” (Wm. Drummond, “Teares on the Death of Moeliades”).
P. is a major stylistic resource in the poetry of the Old Germanic langs., in which it works alongside both wordcompounding (effectively, p. on the lexical level) and the larger dynamics of syntactic parallelism (q.v.) and scene juxtapositions. Its units are frequently nominal (and adjectival) appositions of the type technically called “variations.” Beowulf takes such p. to an extreme; the conjunction ond occurs only about once in every 10 lines, but even then joins single words rather than clauses. Robinson argues that the p. is the basis for the poet’s “controlled equivocations,” balancing the admiration and regret that Saxon Christians felt for their pagan ancestors.
Most European trs. of biblical Heb. prose are paratactic in reproducing Heb.’s extensive use of the simple conjunction we, “and.” The Heb. is not itself paratactic; rather, the stylistic imitation of it in langs. with more complex systems of linkage leads to p. Such a style is often judged “vigorous” or “pure” on the basis of the p., but such judgments actually arise from other bases. The Vulgate tr. of Jerome is notable for preserving the Heb. shape, with two important consequences for later Lat. (Auerbach). The paratactic style provides Augustine with a resource that enables him to stand apart from the baroque usage of most late antique Lat. writers. Too, the biblical text furnishes a texture against which an argument or ethical appeal can be set: the paratactic exemplar shines in a plainer context. Thus p. plays a complex role in the devel. of the mixed Christian Lat. style of the Middle Ages. Adorno attributes the p. in Hölderlin’s verse in part to the influence of Pindar.
There is no proper antonym of p. (see Rynell). The term h. refers to subordination; as a stylistic term, hypotactic describes a style in which extensive subordination takes place, thereby allotting a major role to logical or temporal sequencing; both uses are evident in, for example, the prose of Thucydides.
User Comments Add a comment…