Reading the “Deep Talk” of Literary Names and Naming

Abstract

Literary texts contain poetic names whose “deep talk,” or connotative value, is hidden beneath the primary level of the text. Within this level of discourse production, names have the ability to subvert, invert, and create meanings and actions that open a text to radical interpretive possibilities. To read through names and naming is to seek out the manipulative play of poetic names so that their function as strategies of discourse production is revealed and understood.