SOURCE: Bowdre, Paul H. Jr. “Eye Dialect as a Literary Device in the Works of Sidney Lanier.” In Papers in Language Variation: SAMLA-ADS Collection, edited by David L. Shores and Carole P. Hines, pp. 247-51. Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1977.

In the following essay, originally presented in 1964, Bowdre reads Lanier's dialect poems for his use of Eye Dialect, or the use of “quasi-phonetic spellings” to represent regional speech.

When William Faulkner has a black servant say to Colonel Thomas Sutpen, “Hyer I am, Kernel,” using the nonstandard spelling kernel for colonel, he is using Eye Dialect. The same may be said about Tennessee Williams when he has Baby Doll talk about wearing “clo'se skintight” and uses the spelling clo'se for clothes. Stephen Crane is using Eye Dialect when he spells says with sez and Sinclair Lewis is also using it when he spells listen with lissen. These...