Obsession with language and act of communication in William Sydney Graham`s Poetry

Abstract

The present thesis is aimed at analysing representation of language as facilitator and obstructor of communication in selected works of the Scottish poet W.S. Graham (1918-1986). Graham`s work has been mostly associated with Dylan Thomas and neo-romantics,and although praised by T.S. Eliot it remained largely unrecognised during his lifetime. It isonly within the recent decade and with the support of Nobel-winning British dramatist Harold Pinter that his work has become more recognised. The thesis consists of an introduction, a literature review, an empirical part, and a conclusion. The literature review gives an overview of the main themes and related critical perspectives in W.S. Graham`s works as discussed by scholars. The literature review provides a basis for the following empirical part. The empirical part of the thesis deals with creating the space for the communication act and language as mediator in three poems by W. S. Graham through close reading. The poems selected for the analysis are „The Constructed Space” (1958), “The Beast in the Space” (1970), and “What is the Language Using Us For?” (1974). The poems have been selected based on their representation of the development of Graham`s ideas on language throughout the years. The conclusion summarizes the main findings of the thesis.