History of Stylistics

Ancient Times

In ancient Greece the use of language can be seen mainly as an effort to

create speeches. Thu we may recognise a practical function of language in
political and judicial speeches, and ai aesthetic function in ceremonial ones.
The art of creating speech was called Rhetoric (from ft Greek techae
rhetonk&) and was taught as one of the main subjects in schools. The aim
was to trai speakers to create effective and attractive speeches. Another
language activity was the creation i poetic works. The process of artistic
creation was called Poetics. Its aim was to study a piece of ar, and, unlike
rhetoric, it focused on the problems of expressing the ideas before the actual
moments utterance. The work of Aristotle (384 - 322 B.C.) entitled Poetics is
considered to be a pionee publication in this field. His distinction of epics,
drama and lyrics within artistic works is sti applicable. The third field of
language use was the art of creating a dialogue. The study of creatia and
guiding a dialogue, talk or discussion, as well as the study of methods of
persuasion, was calla Dialectics. The ”dialogue technique” as one of the most
convenient and efficient form of exchangia experiences and presenting
research results was introduced and supported by Socrates. Thi method is
still known in pedagogy as the ”dialogical” or ”Socrates’ method”.

The further development of Stylistics was based on the three above

mentioned sources froi which Poetics went its own way and created the field
of study known at present as Literar Criticism. Rhetoric and Dialectics
developed into Stylistics. The development of Stylistics in anciei Rome, that is
about 300 years later, brought the distinction of two different styles in speed
represented by Caesar and Cicero. Their main characteristics are as follows:

Caesar

1. stressed regularity and system rules

2. focused on facts and data

3. His aim was to create simple, clear and straightforward speeches

4. other representatives were Seneca and Tacitus Cicero

1. built his theory of rhetoric on the distinction between three styles: high,
middle and li aimed at the creation and development of ’Ornate Dicere’ that
is flowery language.

2. used unnatural syntactic patterns, sought

3. for innovative often artificial sentence structures

4. created anomalies on all language levels

5. due to their approach, where the true message and communicated content
were second to the form of presentation, Rhetoric was called the ”mother of
lies” 3

The middle Ages

Latin was exclusively used as the language of science, art and administration,
and no atten were made to deal with problems of speech. This period shows
no progress in the developmen
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HISTORY OF STYLISTICS

21

stylistics. An anomalistic rhetoric of Cicero became a model way of public

speaking, which means that aesthetically attractive speeches were popular.
They enabled speakers to develop their individual styles. However, the
influence of ancient India brought about a tendency to make speeches bnef in
the case of a sufficient amount of data and facts being available to a speaker.
This tendency to economise the speech intentionally enhanced the distinction
between the FORM and CONTENT.

The language of science, culture and administration was very different from
the language of common people. However, it would be inappropriate to speak
about styles at this stage. It was the same language (and the same style) but,
of course, different phrases, cliches and stereotyped bookish Latin formulas
were used in each sphere. The most apparent differences occurred in
terminology.

The New Age

On the one hand there were the traditions of Cicero and Aristotle, on the
other, new theories of style have developed: individualist, emotionalist,
formalist, functionalist, etc. In the era of Romanticism the notion and term
style referred exclusively to the written form of language (from Gr. stylos = a
carver, an instrument for writing). Spoken language was the main subject of
rhetoric.

The most impressive work from this period is the book L’Artpoetique (1674)
written by Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux, which became the bible of French
poets of the 17th and 18th century. This book includes explanations of prose,
poetry and drama, and is considered an unusual guidebook for poets and
other artists. At the same time it is not limited to poetics, several definitions
are of a stylistic character or even more general (e.g. ... those pieces of
information which are not new should be pronounced without any special
stress or accent, expressions should not be unnecessarily extended,
borrowed and loan words should be avoided and special attention should be
paid to the selection of a title, etc.)

In general, the book is based on the poetics of Aristotle and Horatio. The
three different styles are mentioned, their distinction being based on the
opposition of language and parole first mentioned by Cicero (and later
elaborated, quite independently, by Ferdinand de Saussure). The French
classical theory of styles requested the usage of a high (grand) style in all
verbal works of art as an opposite to the everyday communication of
common people in which the middle and low (plain) styles were used. The
styles were classified as:

1. Stylus Altus (works of art),

2. Stylus mediocris (the style of high society) and

3. Stylus Humilis (the style of low society but could be used in comedies).
This theory reflects preliminary attempts to describe the notion of style as
based primarily on the selection of expressive means.

At the beginning of the 19th century a German linguist and philosopher,

Wilhelm von Humboldt described functional styles in his book and treated
poetry and prose (colloquial, educational and belles-letters prose) as
opposites: poetry and prose differ in the selection of expressive means, i.e.
words and expressions, use of grammatical forms, syntactic structures,
motional tones, etc. Humboldt’s ideas appeared quite intriguing, however,
and since his classification of styles was not based on and supported by any
linguistic analyses of text samples, it remained idealistic. Later on, many
linguists returned to and elaborated on his ideas, among others, the most
influential were the members of the Prague Linguistic Circle (1926).

^Some literary schools have also contributed towards the development of

stylistics. The French school Explication de Texte developed a method of text
analysis and interpretation which is known
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A HANDBOOK OF STYLE AND STYLIS1

as close reading. This method was based on a correlation of historical and

linguistic information i on seeking connections between aesthetic responses
and specific stimuli in the text. The met] became quite popular and was used
by many other schools and movements.

The 20th Century: Linguistic Schools and Conceptions before

Ferdinand Saussure

At the beginning of the 20th century a group of German linguists, B. Croce, K.

Vossleram Spitzer, represented the school of the New Idealists. Their
approach is known as individualistii psychoanalytical because its main aim
was to search for individual peculiarities of language elements of expressing
a psychological state of mind (in German ”Seelische Meinung”). B. Ci
regarded language as a creation and thus suggested viewing linguistics as a
subdepartmen aesthetics. Karl Vossler was known for looking for clues to
national cultures behind linguistic del and Leo Spitzer for tracing parallels
between culture and expression. His working method beci famous as the
pitzerian circle. However, the German school of individualists and psychoanal
belongs to the past and there are no followers anymore. The origin of the new
era of lingu stylistics is represented by the linguistic emotionalistic
conception of the French School of Cha Bally. Bally worked under the
supervision of Ferdinand de Saussure in Geneva and after Saussu death
published his work: Cours delinguistique generale (1916). Bally’s own concept
of stylistic classified as emotionally expressive because of his strong belief
that each particular componei linguistic information combines a part of
language and a part of a man who interprets or annoui the information. While
at the beginning of the 20 th century the Romance countries were ma
influenced by Bally’s expressive stylistics and Germany by Croce’s individual
stylistics, a linguistic and literary movement developed in Russia and became
known as formalism.

The Russian Formalists introduced a new, highly focused and solid method of
literary linguistic analysis. Formal method used in linguistics was based on
the analytical view of the f< the content of a literary work was seen as a sum
of its stylistic methods. In this way, the foi characteristics of a literary work
are seen in opposition to its content. In other words, the focus on ’devices of
artistry’ not on content (i.e. HOW not WHAT). The formalists originated as
opposition to a synthesis introduced by the symbolists. The development
follows from syntt towards analysis, putting the main emphasis on the form,
material, or,skill’.

The main representative was Roman O. Jakobson; others were J. N. Tynjanov

and V Vinogradov. Russian formalism originated in 1916. flourished in 1920,
and had practically cease exist by the end of the 20’s. In spite of the short,
about ten-year, existence of Russian formal many ideas were modified and
further elaborated. They became part of structuralism, and can be found in
the works of the members of the Prague School ten years later. The crucial
questic the movement known as Structuralism is tVhat is language and what
is its organisation like? main ideas of structuralism are presented in its
fundamental work Cours de linguistique gem written by F. de Saussure (1856
- 1913) and published posthumously by his student Bally in 191’

The ideas of Structuralism penetrated not only into linguistics and literary
criticism, but into ethnography, folklore studies, aesthetics, hibtory of arts,
drama and theatre studies, etc. program and methodology of work of the
Prague Linguistic Circle (1926) were truly structural] They introduced
systematic application of the term structuralism, which brought about
phenomena introduced into linguistics and literary study. Its influence on
stylistics was crucial, main aspects of the movement can be summarised as
follows:
HISTORY OF STYLISTICS

23

1. Distinction between the aesthetic function of poetic language and

the practical, communicative function of language;

2. Language is seen as a structure, supra-temporal and supra-spatial, given

inherently (in the sense of Saussure’s language);

3. Literary work is an independent structure related to the situation of its

origin/ creation;

4. Individual parts of literary or linguistic structure are always to he

understood from the point of view of a complex structure; the analyses of
particular works were based on language analysis because it was assumed
that in a literary work all components (i.e. language, content, and
composition) are closely inter-related and overlapping within the structure.
The founders and main representatives of the Prague Linguistic Circle were R.
O. Jakobson, N. S. Trubeckoj, V. Mathesius, J. Muka 0 ovsky.

Recent Development: Stylistics in the United Kingdom

At the time when structuralism was at its most influential in Czechoslovakia,

Denmerk and the USA, the school known as The New Criticism originated in
Cambridge, Great Britain. The main representatives were I. A. Richards and
W. Empson, who introduced new terms, mainly the method <•! structural
analysis called close reading. They devoted great effort to the study of
metaphor and troduced the terms tenor and vehicle which are still in use. The
New Criticism represents progress m stylistic thinking and their theory is valid
even today. They also have followers in the USA. (exp C Brooks, R. P.
Blackmur, R. P. Warren). v

British ^yiistics is influenced by M. Halliday (1960’s) and his structuralist

approach to the linguistic analysis of literary texts. British tradition has
always been the semiotics of text - context relationships and structural
analysis of text: locating literature into a broader social context and to other
texts. British Stylistics and Linguistic Criticism reached its most influential
point at the end of the 70s (Kress, Hodge: Language as Ideology, 1979;
Fowler,: Language and Control, 1979, Aers: Literature, Language and Society
in England 1580-1680, 1981). All three books used transformational and
systemic linguistics, an overtly structuralist and Marxist theoretical approach
to the analysis of literary texts. Two years later Roger Fowler published a book
signalling new directions in British Stylistics and marking its transition to
Social Semiotics (Fowler: literature as Social Discourse: The Practice of
Linguistic Criticism., 1981). Fowler’s book brings together British works
(Halliday) with those of Barthes, Bakhtin and others of European traditions.
Romance, English and American Stylistics are based on observation and
analysis of literary works (texts) and are very close to poetics. The original
American tradition is based on practical methods of creating various texts,
there is a school subject called creative writing and composition which is very
often identified with stylistics. The field of study of Stylistics in Slovakia is
understood as more independent from poetics than the British tradition, but
also very different from the American tradition (more theoretical, academic,
e.g. F. Miko, J. Mistrik, T. 2ilka, etc.). It is necessary to mention a contribution
of Czech stylistics here, namely in the field of the classification of styles. The
Czech linguist, B. Havranek, one of the representatives of the Prague
Linguistic Circle, introduced the notion of functional styles based on the
classification of language functions. According to B. Havranek the language
functions are:

1. Communicative,

2. Practical professional,

3. Theoretical professional and

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A HANDBOOK OF STYLE AND STYLISTICS

4. Aesthetic function. The first three functions are informative and the fourth
one is aesthetic, This system of functions is reflected in the classification of
styles in the following way:

1. Colloquial (conversational) style,

2. Professional (factual) style,

3. Scientific style,

4. Poetic (literary) style.

In the 1970’s larger structures of texts and networks of relations within which
they circulate were studied, and recourses to Hallidayan linguistics, register
and genre theory became influential. Typical representatives are Ronald
Carter and Roger Fowler. Among the latest tendencies there is the interesting
approach of textual Stylistics which originated in Anglo-Saxon countries and
from American centres of stylistic studies.

University Questions

1. Trace the development of stylistics up to the modern times.

2. Write a note on the major approaches in Ancient and Modern Stylistics.

3. Discuss the historical context of Stylistics.