Painting a World Before Language Using Language: A Cognitive Stylistic Analysis of Synaesthetic Metaphors in the Imagery of Keki Daruwalla’s “Before the Word”

This chapter explores the aesthetic effects of synaesthetic metaphors in Keki Daruwalla’s lesser-known poem “Before the Word” by employing a cognitive stylistic approach. In the poem, the Indian poet exploits verbal language using the phenomenon of linguistic synaesthesia to depict a world before the development of verbal language. By examining the aesthetic sensory appeal in the poem, using lexical-semantic-grammatical interaction and the nature of synaesthetic transfers, the chapter answers the research question of how a systematic stylistic exploration of the poem helps to produce a more rigorous account of aesthetic sensuousness attributed to Daruwalla. The article uses Stephan Ullman’s theory of the hierarchy of senses within the framework of Lakoff’s form is motion metaphor to investigate auditory imagery that manifests itself as synaesthetic metaphors. This is instrumental in producing the aesthetic effect in the poem. The significance of this chapter lies in its (a) ability to ascertain the auditory, visual and kinaesthetic dimension in the conceptualisation of literary experience of the poem, (b) attempt to apply stylistics to insights from previous linguistic studies of synaesthesia (c) potential to open avenues to investigate aesthetic sensuousness through a cognitive stylistic analysis of Indian poetry in English.