The Use of Silence and Punctuation as Stylistic and Interpretative Devices in Carol Ann Duffy’s Selected Poems

Abstract

The role of silence in present-day poetry is a peculiar expressive mode, in which emotionalism, psychologicality, and socio-political criticism can be usefully spoken to. Punctuation, spacing, visual form and function in a feminist and cognitive-stylistic constructivism of silence is material construction in the poetry of Carol Ann Duffy. Utilizing a well-constructed silence as a form of communicative effort, Duffy creates a space of silence that discloses trauma, undermines patriarchal speech, asks questions of identity and invites the reader to actively interpret these questions. Drawing on feminist theory, stylistics and discourse analysis, this paper examines how Duffy develops a distinctive grammar of silence and punctuation function in a selection of Duffy’s poems and redefines the expressive possibilities of contemporary poetic language.