STILL SMALL VOICES IN MODERN ENGLISH FICTION: ANALYSIS OF INDISCREET TIMBRES

Abstract

Fiction is simultaneously the most fascinating and challenging object of timbre analysis. This article aims at an analysis of how polyphony, narrative shifts, semantic and syntactic parallelism and other means of the language create a unique aesthetics of each individual piece of artistic writing and generate a recognizable timbre or the voice of the author, where he or she does not want to be too explicit. E.M. Forster, for instance, in his “A Room with a View” sets the scene in Florence where the two ladies seem to be displeased about the room they have in a Pension. But the dialogue is delicately interspersed with lexical elements used in describing a theatrical performance. When the reader succeeds in observing this fact, he begins to hear new timbres in the voices of the heroes and starts noticing the elements that were formerly beyond his or her attention, occupying the side line going parallel to the main narrative. The experience of ‘hearing’ this theatrical timbre in the reader’s mind and perceiving the interplay of timbres related to scene-making discloses a new plane of cognition that is over and above a plain chain of events. Thus, the mental hearing of the text by the reader appears to be a totally new experience, when discovered, making the book the object of unfathomable attraction for the reader and a mental hold that makes a piece of writing totally unforgettable.