문학작품에 나타난 도치문의 담화·인지적 접근 -‘Paradise Lost’을 중심으로-

Abstract

This article investigates, on the basis of corpus data, English inversion structures of John Milton's 'Paradise Lost' and identifies the functions of inversions within the discourse-cognitive framework in the light of the arguments that some critics regard Milton's language as defective and other critics suggest his inversions are complete, proper and adequate. To verify this result, this study also examines a total number of tokens of inversions, which are classified according to preposed elements of the sentence, and attempts to study the function of each inversion. Pieces of evidence that supports these findings are: First, the most frequent types are spatio-temporal inversions and the highest frequency appears in Book Ⅵ. Second, negative inversions serve as functions of modality continuity as one of the textual strategies. Third, spacial inversions work as a discourse marker of time continuity and subjectivity. It is ridiculous to point out Milton's inversions as destructive of the English language. On the contrary, the inversions in Milton's poetry not only serve as an important stylistic device but also enhance the sublime and exquisite feelings the author tries to promote.