Literary Analysis with WordPerfect 5.0 Macros

University of Utah

As someone especially interested in isolating and expressing literary structure in terms of visual design and configurations, I find the new macro capability of WordPerfect 5.0 very promising. In a now antique article in the CALICO Journal, September 1984, I expressed an opinion on the usefulness of searching out verbal patterns in literary texts, especially verse, and of developing ways to make the «presence of the pattern, its shape... much easier to apprehend intellectually and experientially», and of the importance of devising ways to «translate this information into a medium, say a graphics display, immediately accessible and recognizable to any one interested in literary structure, whether researcher, teacher, or student» (15). My faith in the value of such activity is still strong. Fortunately the means for such examinations are now available to almost everyone who has access to a personal computer.

I have long believed computers can be used in very simple ways to examine literary texts very profitably. To do this nowadays requires no more than a basic familiarity with word processing and conventional literary intuitions and instincts. Literary researchers with unusual computer skills will continue to under take complex projects requiring substantial technical knowledge and collegial cooperation, but those of us with modest interest or skills in computing may find a useful tool simple search techniques like these provided by the set of sample programs demonstrated here. These macros provide a means for casual examination-limited and selective-of rhyme schemes, word patterning, tentative context analyses, and even imagistic characteristics. Similar macros can be written to isolate sound patterns, and abstract other rhetorical features. Our students who may no have been exposed to computing can quickly adapt to these simple techniques for looking at a text and making simple isolations with their own or laboratory word processors Using the macros described here requires no knowledge of computing, merely some experience with word processing. They can also be the beginning of an understanding of the relatively new field of computer based stylistic analysis.

In the introduction to our section in our last September's issue (1989), I suggested that we might have some such WordPerfect 5.0 analytical aids. The use of WordPerfect 4.2 macros in some similar textual manipulations has been demonstrated by Dr. Estelle Irizarry in earlier articles, especially her «Clone poems...» (in the same September 1989 issue mentioned above). With the appearance of WordPerfect 5.0 (and subsequent versions), it is now possible not only to extend the variety of string isolations but to present printed, readable versions of the specific macros that you can then duplicate by copying them into your macro editor. This editor makes the descriptions easier, and it is also much more powerful than the 4.2 facility. Put simply, it has become a surprisingly versatile programming capability.

In order to demonstrate some of its potential for developing ways to expand the use of the word processor as a tool for illuminating literary texts, I have chosen to duplicate some of the types of string isolations and other procedures that I devised a number of years ago on a Univac mainframe computer, manipulations that now can be carried out today much more easily and quickly on your own desktop computer at home. The concepts and macros are simple ones, yet they may prove useful to you. Their simplicity is actually their great est merit, since relatively little expertise in e computers is needed to utilize them¹⁷⁰. Casual or «fishing» searches that they encourage often turn up patterns not specifically anticipated and lead to discoveries we did not expect.

Since literary scholars are still generally more receptive to visual information than to numerical data, graphs or pattern blocks tend to be more meaningful and consequently more

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useful. The visual presentation seems to make the discernment of pattern easier and even appears to stimulate a more active and inquisitive response to the information provided. Causal experimentation with the reactions of observers to these displays of visual patterns, as opposed to numerical statements, clearly seem to support this view.

The analysis of a text's diction and structure that can be made by graphically modifying the appearance of the text with the highlighting of selected elements can have two basic functions.

A. The first is to help us see more clearly the components of a text's composition and thereby aid us in coming to an understanding of its aesthetic and thematic meaning. This use of string isolation and restructuring of the text's visual impression serves several purposes. The most obvious is that it enables us to explore very easily any structural or linguistic feature that we might suspect has literary merit. And even more important, the process of such exploration regularly turns up unsuspected stylistic features of often great significance. It is this latter «unanticipated» result that is often the most exciting benefit, because the discoveries frequently lead us to conclusions and knowledge that would not likely have otherwise come to us. A case in point is the sonnet «En perseguirme mundo» used here as a sample text. I have read and taught this poem many times and I have used it in the past as a text for printed computer analysis; yet only when working with it on my color screen in testing these WordPerfect 5.0 macros did I notice for the first time that it contained an example of Sor Juana's use of «s» as an identical rhyming partner of «z», a characteristic of hers noted by Méndez Plancarte and one that I had verified elsewhere myself in her work¹⁷¹. Such rhyming was considered improper in her time (it was avoided even as late as the modernista movement; Darío was especially careful to avoid it, for example), and it is considered to have been Sor Juana's intentional expression of Americanist pride and even defiance. It is all the more interesting here in a classical sonnet defending her right to use her woman's mind and intellect in a man's world of highly formalized standards.

B. The other major value of the isolation of textual elements is a redirecting of its exploratory use for interpretive and structural discoveries. After having made many spontaneous and tentative textual alterations, you will almost inevitably come to select a few that, with additional refinement and experimentation, turn out to be ideal for instruction and the graphic or visual transmission of the stylistic information. Figuras de pensamiento or literary conceits can be grasped almost immediately by even beginning students of literature when they are presented with such visual intensity and clarity. Features such as inversion, cross-over, and similar figures used extensively in Golden Age prose and verse bring surprise to even experienced readers when they appear in highlighted color in a vanguard poem of a Vallejo or Neruda. Syntactic and thematic parallelisms are equally surprising as they project themselves from colored isolations on the monitor screen or as boldfaced underlined text or enlarged or unusual fonts on a printed page.

(It is important to emphasize here that the effectiveness of these macros is greatest when they are used on a color monitor or in projected color images. The isolations and reformatting of the text will be less clear on a monochrome monitor, though somewhat more emphatic on a printout, but if it is at all possible, I recommend that you try them with color. The color is more useful for textual exploration and much more persuasive than printouts when used for instruction or demonstrations).

Experience has shown me that concepts of literary structure which for years had proven difficult to transmit to my students are now regularly grasped in a few hours of visual instruction on a computer monitor coupled with handouts of printed versions for them to refer to later. Before it was possible for me to use the computer to produce such graphic aids, I used to spend weeks, even months producing graphic analyses of a very limited number of lines of verse (e. g., hand-colored typewritten isolations of José Martí's first «Verso sencillo», transferred to 8^1/2 x 11" transparencies, each separate isolation then photographed in overlays to produce over two hundred 35mm slides, «An Illustrated Discussion of Sound Patterning in Spanish Verse», University of Miami, November 1978).

A few comments on how to format the text that you wish to examine will be helpful and insure that the sample macros we will be looking

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at will work properly and display the information abstracted in a suitable form. By and large, your texts do not have to be altered in order to use these macros. Some will work with no problems on any text, as long as it conforms to certain conditions. The passage or poem you are examining:

1. must begin on the top line of your screen; there must not be a blank line before the text begins, and

2. there must be no blank lines in the body of the text; some macros that are based on altering the placement of textual materials will not proceed properly when they encounter a line with no text on it;

3. there must be no trailing spaces at the end of the fine; the last character of each line must be followed immediately by a «hard return» ([HRt]), that is, a fixed carriage return;

4. there must be a blank space at the beginning of each line if you wish to search with a leading blank before the word on the left margin of the text.

It is convenient at times, especially with verse, to have fine numbers, and you may want to devise a way to make them a permanent part of one version of your text, as in the Dylan Thomas poem used here (see Figure 9) . Another simpler method you may use is the «line numberings» facility of WordPerfect itself, (Shift-F8, 1,5, yes). The shortcoming of this method is that the numbers do not be come a part of the displayed text but are visible only in a hardcopy printout or on the «view text» screen accessed with the «print» (Shift F7) menu. If you do not want the internal numbering to become a permanent part of your text, simply delete the «fine number on» ([Ln Num: On]) code at the top of the text manually. (Note: there may be a bug in Word Perfect 5.0 here. Although WordPerfect's line numbering menu gives the choice of reinitiating the numbering with each new page or a continuous numbering throughout the entire text, I have not been able to get the numbers to continue beyond a single page in the «view text» mode on the screen, Shift-F7, V. However when the text is printed, the fines are numbered continuously as desired, carrying the proper sequence over from page to page).

Finally, an optional format that you may find useful: if the entire text is in capital letters, you can add the distinguishing element of lower case to any string or strings that you choose to manipulate. A string in lower case can be moved to upper case also, but special macros would have to be written to do this. From upper to lower, on the other hand, can easily be effected because the WordPerfect search command automatically ignores case when lower case is input as the string to be searched. Upper case searches, however, are case-sensitive and will locate only identical strings that are in upper case. If your texts are in lower case, an upper case version can be easily generated with the case command (Alt-F4 to block the text, Shift-F3, 1). Some of the text used in my examples below preface a normally capitalized letter with a plus sign (+). I do this to make reconstitution of properly capitalized lower case texts a simple matter of globally changing all letters prefaced with «+» to capitals. WordPerfect 5.0 will preserve capitalization of all words that begin a sentence (i. e. those following terminal punctuation); it cannot, however, retain capitals in names or titles.

You must add them to the directory that your WordPerfect 5.0 program accesses as its main or secondary directory. (Those of you still not particularly familiar with the software can find how and where to do this in the «setup» facility entered from your WordPerfect screen with the Shift-Fl key combination). Once they are placed in the appropriate directory, you will be ready to experiment with them.

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A. I give here, in Figures 2 through 6, the «Display Version» of the macros. A faster version can easily be made from these that will be useful for experimental and exploratory analyses where there is no need to view each single operation as it is being performed¹⁷². Normally the faster version will display «Wait please» on the screen at the bottom of the menu. If you have a processor of less than 15 or 20 megahertz you will probably want the added speed. (On my 8-megahertz processor, the Non-Display versions of the slowest macros, are about 10 times faster). The other display version given here is especially useful for instruction, demonstrations, and familiarizing

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oneself with the operations. For these purposes it may well be that you will find it convenient to slow the dynamic display even more than what these macros naturally give you with your computer. If so, you need only add one command at the beginning of each macro, the «wait» statement, for example, {WAIT}10 changing the number by tens will increase or decrease the speed at which the macro operates, thereby giving you precise control of the display rate).

B. If you wish to cut down on the typing required to call the SELECT (i. e., menu) macros, you can copy them into files with abbreviated names (e. g., «S» or «SF») and they will work in the same way. If you do this, be sure to include the extender. WPM when you make the copies.

C. If you have your WordPerfect set up to back up your texts periodically and a backup occurs during a call to a macro, it will likely cause a malfunction in the operation of the macro. In such an event, check to see that no unwanted hard returns or spaces have been inserted in your text, and then press F1 and recall the menu you have been using (e. g., SELECT). Use the same recovery method if the macros do not cycle properly because of accidental keystrokes during their operation.

* * *

Choose the NUMBER of the operation you wish. Display Version

(Shows operations in process)

1- Repeat Isolations with Bold and Underline (Exits session)

2- Isolate with Boldface

3- Isolate with Underline

3- Isolate with Bold and Underline

4- Blank out text not isolated

5- Delete all but endrimes Caution: erases text and exists session

6- Separate endrimes

7- Rejoin endrimes to text

8- End session

Selection: 0

SELECT

This macro enables you to choose the operation you want to carry out without your having to make a separate call with ALT-F10 and type in the name of a macro. Each of the eight macros called by SELECT choices is independent of the other and may be called individually if you wish. The SELECT menu is merely to make a session of isolations easier and to eliminate hand calls and typing.

I have put this macro, ISOMANY, first, although it is one you will likely use frequently only after you have become familiar with the others. It eliminates a return to the main menu (SELECT) after each string is chosen; thus you can isolate with the same format as many successive elements of your text as you choose. It is useful, for example, in grouping related words or strings with the same format. The rima of Bécquer, in Figure 7, exemplifies this use where the symbols of union are highlighted in a common format. (I have added, in the «Notes», two similar macros (ISOMANYB, ISOMANYU that format with Bold or Underline separately, in the event these may also be useful to you).¹⁷³

The cycling of these three macros is halted by pressing F1, which action will then leave you with the text displayed, ready for printing, or for further analysis by calling SELECT.

The string that you type in is replaced in boldface. You are then returned to the screen with ENTER (i. e., RETURN). The macro is named ISOBOLD.

Figure 3

This selection is to be used only for screen displays. On a monochrome monitor, it will cause all text not reformatted to disappear. With your color screen, un-reformatted text is displayed as dark blue or purple and blends into the background, leaving the isolated material highlighted in yellow. This effect will not be reproduced in a printout. The change on the monitor is accomplished by setting the entire text in «small caps».

A caution: Calling this macro adds spaces to the end of your text and may abort the SELECT menu after several uses. If unwanted spaces build up, just delete them manually, then recall the SELECT macro to continue the session.

You will select this option only if you wish to end your session with the last word of each line displayed in a vertical column on the left margin. It is to provide a list of the end-words, i. e., the end-rhymes. Remember that it deletes all other text, and thus will conclude your analysis. Macro: RIMEONLY.

Figure 5

Choosing this option will provide the same information as Choice 6 but will leave intact the rest of the text. It merely separates the end-word from the body of the text and places it on the right margin of the line. This operation is often most useful in a demonstration display since it has some characteristics of an animation. If you are using it primarily as an exploratory tool, then I suggest you use the SELECT (fast) menu, which does not display the operations in process and is about ten times faster in execution, as I have mentioned above. Macro: RIMES

Having called number 7 to detach the end-words, you can rejoin them to their lines with this choice, thereby restoring your text to its former display. Macro: JOINRIME

Figure 6

Although a printout will retain the distinctive formatting of your different isolations, being in black and white it cannot communicate with the same force and distinctiveness the information conveyed by a color display. Not only is the color a more powerful distinguishing element, it is also luminous in a way that the printout in black and white, relying on reflected light, is not. Features of textual structure, easily missed in a scan of a printout, are often inescapable in the illuminated color of your screen. These differences are doubly important if you are using isolations for instruction. The sample texts reproduced here in Figures 7, 8, 9, 10 will appear very different when you view them projected in color.

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Figure 7, a «Rima» of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, demonstrates how isolations can display parallelisms that bond the concept of the joining of a series of two elements, symbolizing the lovers, to the actual physical form of the poem. The natures of the elements joined in the enumeration then characterize the emotional or spiritual experience.

The sonnet of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, in Figure 8, is especially suitable for isolations as a means of highlighting internal structuring. The formalism of the baroque can be demonstrated well with our macros. Here the parallelisms, inversions, and crossovers are easily distinguished, as well as analogous concepts that are expressed dynamically in the progression of the conceits (e. g., «-miento» of entender and pensar).

In Figure 9, I have included a poem by Dylan Thomas that exemplifies the viability of highly structured verse in our own times. Viewers of these isolations are regularly surprised by the amount and the symmetry of the repeated elements.

Free verse, as that seen in Figure 10, often appears to students as «enhanced prose» and is frequently judged to be «unencumbered» by traditional figures. Their presence and impact can be rediscovered and reasserted more easily with isolation in contrasting color for matting. These excerpts from Pablo Neruda's «Explico algunas cosas», itself a part of his España en el corazón, reveal a variety of complete and partial figures, some very traditional ones such as crossover, for example. Lines 19-23, 45-47; parallelisms, lines 48-50, 65-70, and 76-80. Other patterns are also evident. (The line numbers in this printout, incidentally, are those generated by the «fine number» feature of WordPerfect 5.0 that I mentioned earlier and are not part of the actual text used).

1: * +DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT,
2: + OLD AGE SHOULD BURN AND RAVE AT CLOSE OF DAY;
3: + RAGE, RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT.
4: * +THOUGH WISE MEN AT THEIR END KNOW DARK IS RIGHT,
5: +BECAUSE THEIR WORDS HAD FORKED NO LIGHTNING THEY
6: +DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT.
7: * + GOOD MEN, THE LAST WAVE BY, CRYING HOW BRIGHT
8: +THEIR FRAIL DEEDS MIGHT HAVE DANCED IN A GREEN BAY,
9: + RAGE, RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT.
10: * +WILD MEN WHO CAUGHT AND SANG THE SUN IN FLIGHT,
11: +AND LEARN, TOO LATE, THEY GRIEVED IT ON ITS WAY,
12: +DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT
13: * +GRAVE MEN, NEAR DEATH, WHO SEE WITH BLINDING SIGHT
14: +BLIND EYES COULD BLAZE LIKE METEORS AND BE GAY,
15: +RAGE, RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT.
16: * +AND YOU, MY FATHER, THERE ON THE SAD HEIGHT,
17: + CURSE, BLESS, ME NOW WITH YOUR FIERCE TEARS, +I PRAY.
18: + DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT.
19: + RAGE, RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT
1: * +Do not go gentle into that good	night,
2: + OLD AGE SHOULD BURN AND RAVE AT CLOSE OF	Day;
3: +Rage, rage against the dying of the	light.
4:* +THOUGH WISE men AT THEIR END KNOW DARK IS	Right,
5: +BECAUSE THEIR WORDS HAD FORKED NO LightNING	THey
6: +Do not go gentle into that good	night.
7:* +GOOD men, THE LAST WAVE BY, CRYING HOW	BRight
8: +THEIR FRAIL DEEDS Might HAVE DANCED IN A GREEN	Bay
9: +Rage, rage against the dying of the	light.
10:* +WILD men WHO CAUGHT AND SANG THE SUN IN	FLight,

* * *

Numerous other sorts of macros can be devised as we determine what other features of literary structure we wish to examine. As I have said earlier, the discovery of new kinds of questions we can ask of a text is among the most interesting and enlightening by-products of using the computer interactively. The spontaneity is exciting and sustains our motivation and enthusiasm. If more of us use the computer in this direct way -and encourage our students to do so also- where genuine interaction and progressive discovery are possible, we are sure to develop new insights. We might also accumulate, by a common effort, an expanded and very useful bank of similar analytical macros as time goes by.

Hispania [Publicaciones periódicas]. Volume 73, Number 3, September 1990