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...word and is the primary explicit connective in English. Its commonest use is the simplest, to join the elements of compound constructions. But even when the first element of the compound is absent--as when a sentence begins with And--it is felt as implicitly present. Thus the Oxford English Dictionary notes the "introductory" use of and and offers two definitions. The first (number 11 in the OED's sequence of definitions) is: "Continuing the narration: a. from a previous sentence, expressed or understood. [Here are given several illustrative examples, ranging in assigned date from the ninth century to 1861.] b. from the implied assent to a previous question or opinion." The latter, 11b, is illustrated by two quotations, from 1847 and 1853, both of them extracts from conversations in works of fiction, in which the part quoted is a response to another person's speech just preceding. It is clear from the citations given under definition 11 that the word "narration" must be taken broadly, to include the progression of an argument (see the 1449 quotation from Pecock, which could be supplemented with many other examples). Further, in all the instances but one the "introductory" And comes at the beginning of a sentence that follows other text.
What are we to make, then, of an entire stand-alone text that begins with And, as represented by the OED's 1861 citation (actually written much earlier), which opens one of the stories embedded in Edward Bulwer-Lytton's frame narrative The Pilgrims of the Rhine, (1) or by the poems quoted at the beginning of this essay? How does and function in this situation, where there is apparently no prior discourse to which the word may signify connection? Perhaps the OED covers this by saying "a previous sentence ... understood," but that only begs the question. Nor does the newer discipline of pragmatics, which (as will shortly appear) has given considerable attention to turn-initial And in the analysis of conversations, seem interested in discourse-initial And.
The matter needs to be explored further. Such exploration will take us in two directions, linguistic (with the paralinguistic field of pragmatics) and literary, and I hope the two approaches will prove mutually illuminating. My aim is threefold: to offer significant OED antedatings as well as refinements in definition, to point toward an understanding of discourse-initial And from the point of view of pragmatics (albeit in literary--"contrived"--examples rather than in "natural," often tape-recorded speech), and to observe how the device of introductory And contributes to the effect of some well-known and frequently anthologized poems.
A poem is, of course, a special kind of discourse in which a context is often implied; in other words, even though the poem is, strictly speaking, a stand-alone text, its fiction may include some prior event to which it is imagined to be a response. This context might be one of exterior action or speech--examples that spring readily to mind are Robert Browning's dramatic monologues, such as "My Last Duchess," and John Donne's explosive openings, such as "For God's sake hold your tongue" ("The Canonization")--or of the poet's (or speaker's) experience or interior reflection that has given rise to the poetic utterance. In either case, introductory And is sometimes, as in the three examples given, the device employed for directing attention to the poem's imagined context. (2)
Not all poems do stand alone. A poem may be designed as part of a sequence or connected in some other way to a larger unit. Blake's "And did those feet," when first published, was embedded in the prose "Preface" to the poet's Milton and was preceded by the words "Jesus our Lord," providing an immediate reference for "those feet." Its four stanzas are connected to the preceding prose in other ways as well. (3) The introductory And of this poem seems to fit best the simplest of the OED's definitions, "continuing the narration" (11a). But definition 12 may also be relevant, as it certainly is for the other two poems quoted: "In expressing surprise at, or asking the truth of, what one has already heard." (The OED here extends its concern from a narrowly semantic account of the word to noting its role in signaling a speech act.) Four quotations are given, dated by the OED from before 1788, around 1800, 1844, and before 1884. Both the earliest and the latest of our three examples come from outside the range of these dates. The third and fourth quotations are, like those from 11b, colloquial responses extracted from conversations; in that respect, they differ from the poetic examples we are considering. But the first two are the opening lines of poems, William J. Mickle's "Nae Luck aboot the House" (1769) and a song from Charles Dibdin's bailad-opera The Waterman (1774). (4)
A key feature of all seven quotations--the OED's four and my three--is that they are questions. Moreover, the questions with which the poems open all seem natural responses to revelations that carry an element of surprise or a sense of the enigmatic. In the Dibdin and Mickle examples, and perhaps Blake's as well, the implied context is an interlocutor's statement, to which the speaker is responding. But in the other two, we have a response following a period of interior reflection, rather than an immediate conversational response. Both Wesley's and Robbins's verses are hymns. (5) That the Divine One should give up his own life for sinners is a commonplace of theology, but by putting it as a question Wesley refreshes the wonder and astonishment of it. "Died he for me, who caused his pain," Wesley continues; "for me, who him to death pursued? Amazing love! How can it be / ...?" He reminds us that we are in the presence of a mystery, for which paradox is the appropriate rhetorical expression: "'Tis Mystery all! the Immortal dies!" (6) Likewise Robbins adopts a rhetoric of paradox for his meditative response to the story of Christ's ascension (Acts 1:9). How can this naive narrative possibly square with the model of the "heavens" constructed by modern astronomy?
And have the bright immensities received our risen Lord, Where light-years frame the Pleiades and point Orion's sword? Do flaming suns his footsteps trace through corridors sublime, The Lord of interstellar space and Conqueror of time?
We note in these lines a faithfulness to contemporary idiom in combining scientific terminology ("light-years," "interstellar," "space"/"time") with the ancient names of constellations that, though they reflect a more primitive perspective in stargazing, are still in common use. In his second and final stanza Robbins defines the paradoxical nature of understanding this event:
The heav'n that hides him from our sight knows neither near nor far; An altar candle sheds its light as surely as a star; And where his loving people meet to share the gift divine, There stands he with unhurrying feet; there heav'nly splendors shine. (7)
Thus the definition "expressing surprise at, or asking the truth of, what one has already heard" might be enhanced by making a distinction between utterances that indicate an immediate conversational response--the kind now, in analyses of speech, labeled "echoic utterances"--and those that seem to embody more deliberate thought. (8) The hymns by Wesley and Robbins are poems in a meditative tradition, products of extended reflection on the respective doctrines that they...
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