Poetic function: What is it, Characteristics and Meaning

Poetic function

What is Poetic Function:

The poetic function of language, also known as the aesthetic function, occurs when discourse has an aesthetic purpose, so that the forms of enunciation acquire a high degree of importance. It is one of the functions of language identified by Roman Jackobson.

This means that the center of the poetic function is in the form of the message that, rather than depriving the content, gives it greater significance and forcefulness.

The various forms of literature are typical of the poetic function: the novel , the short story , poetry , fables , among many others. However, the poetic function is not only recognizable in written or consecrated literature at the academic level.

Popular forms of discourse, framed within certain aesthetic and cultural traditions, also express a poetic function. We can cite the case of popular sayings , the popular legends , the twister , the riddles and puns .

From this it follows that within the poetic function, the aesthetic also includes playful elements that promote the enjoyment of language.

In language with a poetic function, the greatest attention is paid to discursive forms, and different rhetorical or literary figures are applied with special emphasis and care . Among some of them we can mention:

• the metaphor ,
• the simile ,
• the hyperbole ,
• the metonymy ,
• the hyperbaton ,
• the ellipsis ,
• the description and
• The irony , among others.

Examples of poetic function

As an example of the poetic function in literature we can mention the following fragment of a poem by Pablo Neruda, included in his book 20 love poems and a desperate song (poem XV:

As for popular forms of speech, we can mention the following examples:

• "Gold seems / silver is not / he who does not know / a fool is" (popular riddle);
• "Buddy, buy me coconut! / Buddy, I don't buy coconut! / Because he who eats little coconut / buys little coconut" (tongue twister);
• "A swallow does not make a summer" (popular saying).
• "Works are loves, not good reasons" (popular saying).

• Update date: March 10, 2021.

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