ABSTRACT
[Hancher argues that, in part because of the lack of suprasegmental elements, the risk of misunderstanding illocutionary force in literature is great enough to merit precaution. He discusses two poems (Shakespeare's ‘Sonnet 19’ and Frost's ‘Spring Pools’), showing that the failure to understand ‘what is being done in what is being said’ can lead to a misinterpretation of the poems. In ‘Sonnet 19,’ Hancher sees a tension between the imperative words and the speech act being performed by these words. In order to perceive this tension, the reader must realize that, in spite of his language, the speaker, not having the requisite status to issue an order, is performing an illocutionary act of conceding. This tension is central to the poem's meaning as evidenced by the final couplet's clash between this concession and the poet's boast that he will immortalize his love. Illocutionary force is also central to ‘Spring Pools.’ The reader who fails to interpret the last four lines as an indirect warning misses the poem's ‘If summer comes, can winter be far behind’ motif.]
