The cognitive potential of antithesis
‘To be, or not to be’ in Hamlet’s signature soliloquy
This paper investigates the working of antithesis in Shakespeare’s most famous soliloquy “To be, or not to be” and its three
Ukrainian translations. In cognitive poetics, antithesis is often viewed as a verbal variety of conceptual oxymoron. However, this
paper argues for distinguishing antithesis from conceptual oxymoron based on consideration of the different processes at work
behind their creation and reading. Significantly, in antithesis the emergent meaning retains the dichotomy of two input spaces
rather than creating a new one, as happens in conceptual oxymoron. In this context, we consider antithesis in English-Ukrainian
translations against the backdrop of Kaluża’s (1984) reflection on asymmetry and
irreversibility in antithesis. As will be seen, renditions into Ukrainian change the perception of the original antithesis
prompted by structural and semantic changes in the translations.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Conceptual oxymoron
- 3.How conceptual is antithesis?
- 4.Choice of materials and methods
- 5.Antitheses in Hamlet’s soliloquy “To be or not to be” and its Ukrainian renditions
- 6.Conclusions
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
References
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