Integrity of the author’s conscience as marker of foreground in lyrical discourse

Abstract

Lyrical poem is normally split in two parts, one of which presents some experience, and another comprises discovery of an important, usually general truth. It is the latter one which is foregrounded in lyrical discourse, while the former one serves to prepare the relevant discovery. The paper is concerned with one characteristic property of the foreground in lyrical poetry, which is high integrity of the author’s conscience. A quantitative test for such an integrity is proposed, and text counts are presented, which show how significantly foreground tends to differ from background in this respect. In conclusion, some promising perspectives of further research are outlined.