The Depth beyond the Lines: Key Linguistic Features of Three Polish Poems

Abstract

In the current study, I introduce a combination of a qualitative-quantitative approach to discover the content of three Polish poems. The lexical content was annotated on lexical, textual, affective, and stylistic dimensions and then analysed using correlation and exploratory factor analyses. The correlation analysis plausibly reflects how prosodic accentuation and attention guidance operate, with the main accent (stress) in the middle of a verse and with line-final words being often shorter, preenjambed, and accumulating near the line break. Poems induce not an emotional but rather an intellectual and introspective engagement, being charged with frequent but more abstract and less vivid lexemes. The variables included in the exploratory factor analysis were clustered into four factors: abstract-significance continuum, affective control, lexical domain, and linear organisation. Together, they form a hierarchy of dimensions where imageability, concreteness, arousal, and significance play a superior role in poetic architectonics. Finally, the quantitative analysis enabled establishing affective differences between poems, with A. Zagajewski’s poems being least dominant and structurally open, while Szymborska’s and Herbert’s poems use a dominant lexicon to frame interpretational pathways and emotionally anchor the reader.