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Discourse and Inference
In Chapter 11 (and in Web Activity 11.4) you learned how text can come to life with the appropriate background knowledge. Often a title is enough to activate a body of knowledge or remembered experiences in a way that helps the reader fill in gaps left by the text, or reorganize the text in an interesting way. It is especially easy to find examples of poetry or flash fiction that do this, as these genres value highly compressed language. Below are a few examples. Read through each piece, first without the title, and then again once you have uncovered the title. Notice how your experience changes once you have been guided by the title.
Once you have sampled these, try to find examples of other literary texts in which titles do similar work.
A.
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
Click here to see the title.
B.
The naked seats hearken strangely
Alarming and quiet, as though there were some danger.
Only some are covered with a person.
A green girl often looks into a book.
And someone else finds a handkerchief.
And the boots are disgustingly encrusted.
A sound comes from an old man’s open mouth.
A young boy looks at a young girl.
A boy plays with the button on his trousers.
On a podium an agile body rocks
To the rhythm of its serious instrument.
On a collar lies a shiny head.
Screeches. And tears.
Click here to see the title.
C
Pythoness body—arching
Over the night like an ecstasy—
I feel your coils tightening…
And the world’s lessening breath.
Click here to see the title.