The initial section of Louw’s paper illustrates the theoretical premises of his analysis and focuses on the fi gures of Jakobson and Firth. Louw writes that Jakobson’s article entitled ‘Poetry of grammar and grammar of poetry’ (1968) shows that his investigative technique was very close to that of Firthian stylistics. At the same time, however, he also argues that Jakobson’s work managed only a glimpse into the possibilities offered by the notion of ‘context of situation’ as theorised by Malinowski and Firth, and that, as a consequence, his theory of poetry is marred by this serious limitation.