236 Advances in spoken discourse analysis
In other words, the complete reading, as an example of Stage 2 engagement,
projects a here-and-now context of interaction in every respect except that
hearer-sensitive tone choices are not made.
One further step can be taken by examining a possible reading of the opening
of Eliot’s ‘The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock’. It is a feature of the enigmatic
opening of this poem that it is not readily fitted into a conversational setting,
a fact which is more significant in view of its obvious conversational nature:
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;The poem seems to provide no reason for preferring, for instance, any one
of the possible readings of the first four words to the others:
//p LET us GO them //
//r+ Let us GO then //
//p let US go then //
//p LET us go THEN //..., etc.It is perhaps this deliberate indeterminacy that encourages readings like:
//o LET us GO then //o YOU and I //
//o WHEN the EVening //o is SPREAD OUT //o aGAINST the SKY //
//o LIKE a PAtient //o ETHerized //o upon a TAble //What we have here is a minimally engaged reading, in which prominences
are assigned more or less mechanically to content words, without regard for
any selective potential they may have. In this way, and by using only level
tones, the reader projects no recognizable context of interaction. If I am
correct in making this assertion, and if, as I believe to be the case, the
reading follows directly as a consequence of what the poet has written, then
we must assume that there is verse which operates in a different way from
interactive discourse.
I shall not pursue the last possibility further, but merely summarize by
saying that there seems to be some verse which encourages readings which
partake of the features of fully interactive discourse, some which have the
reduced discourse implications I have associated with Stage 2 on the scale of
engagement, and some which are minimally engaged. In passing, we should
note that, although the reader may have a fair measure of discretion in choosing
the mode, there is reason to believe that changes of mode within a poem are
sometimes indicated: that this is one among the many variables that the poet
is able, through the reader, to manipulate. This is something else that I shall
leave unexplored. To conclude, I shall try to relate the various types of reading
I have mentioned to a way of approaching metrical analysis.