4.

BASIC COMPONENTS OF A NARRATIVE TEXT

d) Style

The effect of any text is to a very large extent determined by style. In its broadest definition, style is the way in which language is used. Style is thus not a phenomenon that is restricted to literature. Compare when A.E. Housman says:

"Wake: the vaulted shadow shatters, trampled to the floor it spanned, and the tent of night in tatters, straws the sky-pavilioned land", with: "Get up mate, it's daylight" Form produces meaning. It is thus worth examining how it does that. When examining the style of a text, one scrutinizes mainly two aspects: diction (the choice and use of words) syntax (the sentence structure). In other words, one examines which words are used and how these words are put together. Closely related to such questions is the use of rhetorical devices. Particularly in poetry and verse-drama one also focuses on the rhythmical patterns and sound effects. The question at the centre of such examinations, is HOW the use of diction, syntax and rhetorical devices produce certain effects and are aimed to evoke certain responses in the reader.

i. Diction
An authors diction is his/her choice of words, or, more specifically the kinds of word which he selects from all the words which are theoretically available to him in the English language. In making a general assessment of an authors diction, we may usefully bear in mind such questions as the following:
Are the words which the author uses mostly long, or mostly short? Are they derived from Latin, or mostly from Anglosaxon, or from both more or less equally? Are they unusual, even obscure, or are they in common use? Are they formal, colloquial, or even slangy? Are some of them technical, referring to specialized fields of knowledge such as chemistry, architecture, economics or art? Were they in current use when the author was writing, or were they already archaic? Are they precise or vague? Are they forceful and energetic, or sober and restrained? Are they concerned with abstract ideas? Are they concerned with states of mind, or feelings? Are they concerned with physical appearances or physical sensations, such as colours, smells, tastes and sounds? 1

Are they evaluative, expressing and inviting approval and/or disapproval? Or are they studiedly neutral? Does he repeat certain words? Does he use clichs; or euphemisms? Does he use words which are more often found in literature or journalism than in everyday speech and writing? Does he use many adjectives, or few? Does he use many adverbs, or few? Does his diction include many active verbs, or perhaps none at all? Do most of the authors words have only one meaning, in their particular context, or do they have several shades of meaning? Is his diction elevated, or down to earth, or perhaps a mixture of both? Does the author use words in their literal senses, by and large, or does he use them metaphorically? Does the author use words in their literal senses, by and large, or does he use them ironically?

Most important of all remains the question: What effect does the use of diction have in this particular text? In classical rhetoric styles were classified into three main levels: the grand style, the middle style and the low (or plain) style. Certain types of diction were thought appropriate for certain stylistic levels. This was called the principle of decorum, which was an influential concept well into the eighteenth century. Denotation and connotation The denotation of a word is its basic meaning. Its connotations are its secondary or acquired meanings: what it suggests or implies. E.g.: Both the words house and home denote the same thing: a dwelling-place. However, the word home has connotations of comfort, security and family warmth which are lacking in the word house. We should also bear in mind that many English words have several quite different basic meanings or denotations (bank: banco y ribera); and, sometimes, the same word can often be used as a verb or as a noun, for example (record). In these cases, the context helps to clarify the meaning of the otherwise ambiguous word. Let us see an example of different meanings expressed with similar expressions: Positive: Sally was an enthusiastic member her sorority. Neutral: Sally was an active member of her sorority. Negative: Sally was a fanatical member of her sorority. Elevated diction - One important use of elevated diction is to dignify and ennoble the authors subject-matter. - In elevated diction, everyday words with their everyday connotations are carefully avoided. - Elevation is used today whenever the speaker or writer wants to invite the serious and respectful attention of his audience. E.g.: (Said by an Australian
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parliamentarian): Because of darkness and poor visibility, the exact nature of what transpired was unable to be ascertained with any clarity or certainty. = It was too dark to see.

ii. Syntax
Just like the analysis of diction, the analysis of syntax involves answering a series of questions relating to the use of sentence structure; questions such as: What kind of sentences are used? Simple or complex? Long or short? Paratactic or hypotactic? Statements, exclamations, questions, or commands? etc. Is there a type of clause that is preferred? Relative clause? Adverbial clause? Interrogative clause? That-clause? Finite or non-finite clause? etc. How are sentences linked (sentence cohesion)? Are there cross references and what type? Are sentences connected with logical links? Or are they purely associative? Are any particular sentence structures repeated? Are any particular words repeated which create cross references? What rhetorical devices are used on the sentence level? Once again, the most important question is: What effect does the use of syntax achieve? There are no fixed answers to this question. The effect of stylistic devices will differ from text to text and within texts, depending on the immediate context. Syntactical Deviations In literary texts generally, and especially in poetry, syntax can differ from everyday usage. There is, on the one hand, a certain amount of poetic licence which makes it quite acceptable for a poet to deviate slightly from ordinary syntax to accommodate the sentence to the line form and metre. Such accommodations can be, for instance, inversions, that is, a change in word order: "The King's real, or his stamped face / contemplate" (Donne, Canonization) instead of 'Contemplate the King's real or his stamped face'.
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iii. Rhetorical devices

Style is part of classical rhetoric and a number of rhetorical devices are worth considering in any analysis of style. For the analysis of literature a knowledge of rhetorical devices is indispensable, since there is often a considerable density of rhetorical figures and tropes which are important generators and qualifiers of meaning and effect. This is particularly the case in poetry. Especially the analysis of the use of imagery is important for any kind of literary text. Figures of speech in classical rhetoric were defined as a form of speech artfully varied from common usage (Quintilian, Inst. Orat. IX.i.2). The forms of figurative languages are divided into two main groups: schemes (or figures) and tropes. Rhetorical schemes describe the arrangement of individual sounds (phonological schemes), the arrangement of words (morphological schemes), and sentence structure (syntactical schemes). Rhetorical tropes are devices of figurative language. They represent a deviation from the common or main significance of a word or phrase (semantic figures) or include specific appeals to the audience (pragmatic figures).

Schemes: Phoneme-level (level of individual sounds)

alliteration the same sound is repeated at the beginning of several words or in stressed syllables of words that are in close proximity

Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell (T.S. Eliot, Book of Practical Cats) Moping melancholy mad (Housman, Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff)

assonance

Dombey and Son had often dealt in hides but not in hearts. They left that fancy war to boys and girls, and boarding-schools and books. (Dickens, Dombey and Son) the same or similar vowel sounds are repeated in the stressed syllables of words that are in close proximity while the consonants differ

Breathing like one that hath a weary dream (Tennyson, The Lotos-Eaters)

consonance

Gun, drum, trumpet, blunderbuss and thunder (Pope, Imitations of Horace) two or more consonants are repeated, but the adjacent vowels differ

Friend/frowned killed/cold,
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horse/hearse onomatopoeia the sound of the word imitates the sound of the thing which that word denotes

clatter, bash, bang, rumble, sniff, howl, etc. [] aspens quiver Little breezes dusk and shiver (Tennyson, Lady of Shalott - imitates the sound of the breeze in the leaves) Hear the loud alarum bells Brazen bells! What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! [...] How they clang, and clash and roar! (Poe, The Bells)

Schemes: Word-level
anadiplosis / reduplicatio (Greek for doubling back) the word or phrase that concludes one line or clause is repeated at the beginning of the next

A wreathed garland of deserved praise, Of praise deserved, unto thee I give, I give to thee, who knowest all my ways, My crooked winding ways, wherin I live. (Herbert, A Wreath)

anaphora

[...] if you have a lot of things you cannot move about a lot, [...] furniture requires dusting, dusters require servants, servants require insurance stamps [...]. (E.M. Forster, My Wood) a word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses or lines

Because I do not hope to turn again Because I do not hope Because I do not hope to turn. (T.S. Eliot, AshWednesday)

climax / gradatio

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee. (Shakespeare, Sonnet 18) (Greek for ladder) arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in an order of ascending power

Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. (Shakespeare,
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epistrophe

Twelfth Night) a word or expression is repeated at the end of successive phrases, clauses or lines

There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee; Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee. (Byron, Stanzas Written on the Road between Florence and Pisa) We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another. (Nixon, Inaugural Address)

geminatio / epanalepsis

We meet tonight and part tonight. (Dickens, Dombey and Son) the repetition of the same words immediately next to each other

homonym

Peace, peace seems all (Browning, The Bishop Orders His Tomb) words with the same pronunciation and / or spelling but with different meanings

their there ball (toy) ball (dance event)

polyptoton / metabole

hear here one word is repeated in different grammatical or syntactical (inflected) forms. A special case of polyptoton is the figura etymologica which repeats two or more words of the same stem

There hath he lain for ages, and will lie (Tennyson, The Kraken)

portmanteau words (blend, contaminatio)

[] love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. (Shakespeare, Sonnet 116) figura etymologica words formed by blending two words into one

spellotape (spell + sellotape in Harry Potter)

symploce

brunch (breakfast + lunch) A combination of anaphora and epistrophe, so that one word or phrase is repeated at the beginning and another word or phrase is repeated at the end of successive phrases, clauses or
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sentences Much is your reading, but not the Word of GOD Much is your building, but not the House of GOD. (T.S. Eliot, The Rock) use of words with the same or similar meanings alter change brief short assist help

synonym

tautology

I hate inconstancy - I loathe, detest, Abhor, condemn, abjure the mortal made Of such quicksilvery clay [...] (Byron, Don Juan) one idea is repeatedly expressed through additional words, phrases, or sentences

small dwarf With malice toward none, with charity for all. (Lincoln, Second Inaugural)

Schemes: Sentence-Level
aposiopesis the speaker fails to complete his sentence, (seemingly) overpowered by his emotions Sir Leicester's gallantry concedes the point; though he still feels that to bring this sort of squalor among the upper classes is really really (Dickens, Bleak House) the omission of conjunctions to coordinate phrases, clauses, or words (opposite of polysyndeton) where normally conjunctions would be used

asyndeton

What can the sheepdog make of such simplified terrain? no hills, dales, bogs, walls, tracks (C. Day Lewis, Sheepdog Trials in Hyde Park) I may, I must, I can, I will, I do Leave following that which it is gain to miss (Sidney, Astrophil and Stella)

chiasmus

that government of the people, by the people, for the people (Lincoln, Gettysburgh Address) from the shape of the Greek letter chi (X); two corresponding pairs are arranged in inverted, mirror-like order (a-b, b-a)

At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely. (W. Somerset
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Maugham)

Gross as her sire, and as her mother grave (Pope, Dunciad) Fair is foul and foul is fair. (Shakespeare, Macbeth)

ellipsis

Swans sing before they die twere no bad thing Did certain persons die before they sing. (S.T. Coleridge, Epigram on a Volunteer Singer) a word or phrase in a sentence is omitted though implied by the context A mighty maze! but not without a plan. (Pope, Essay on Man) (Greek for stepping over) a figure of syntactic dislocation where phrase or words that belong together are separated

hyperbaton (see also inversion)

I got, so far as the immediate moment was concerned, away. (James, Turn of the Screw)

hypotaxis

Were I, who to my cost already am, One of those strange, prodigious creatures, Man. (Rochester, Satire Against Mankind) clauses and sentences are arranged with subordination, usually longer sentence constructions (opposite of parataxis)

The house had a name and a history; the old gentleman taking his tea would have been delighted to tell you these things: how it had been built under Edward the Sixth, had offered a nights hospitality to the great Elizabeth (whose august person had extended itself upon a huge, magnificent and terribly angular bed which still formed the principal honour of the sleeping apartments), had been a good deal bruised and defaced in Cromwells wars, and then, under the Restoration, repaired and much enlarged; and how, finally, after having been remodeled and disfigured in the eighteenth century, it had passed into the careful keeping of a shrewd American banker, who had bought it originally because (owing to circumstances too complicated to set forth) it was offered at a great bargain; bought it with much grumbling at its ugliness, its antiquity, its incommodity, and who now, at the end of twenty years, had become conscious of a real aesthetic passion for it, so that he knew all its points and would tell you just where to stand to see them in combination and just the hour when the shadows of its various protuberances
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inversion

which fell so softly upon the warm, weary brickwork were of the right measure. (James, Portrait of a Lady) the usual word order is rearranged, often for the effect of emphasis or to maintain the meter (a type of hyperbaton) Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed (Shakespeare, Sonnet 18) (instead of: Sometime the eye of heaven shines too hot and his gold complexion is often dimmed) the repetition of identical or similar syntactic elements (word, phrase, clause)

parallelism

Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals. (Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray) Though the heart be still as loving And the moon be still as bright (Byron, So We'll Go no More A-Roving)

parataxis

Dombey was about eight-and-forty years of age. Son about eight-and-forty minutes. Dombey was rather bald, rather red, and though a handsome well-made man, too stern and pompous in appearance, to be prepossessing. Son was very bald, and very red, and though (of course) an undeniably fine infant, somewhat crushed and spotty in his general effect, as yet. (Dickens, Dombey and Son) clauses or sentences are arranged in a series without subordination, usually shorter sentence constructions (opposite of hypotaxis)

polysyndeton

My hot water bottle was red, Manchester Uniteds colour. Sinbads was green. I loved the smell off the bottle. I put hot water in it and emptied it and smelled it. I put my nose to the hole, nearly in it. (Doyle, Paddy Clarke) the unusual repetition of the same conjunction (opposite of asyndeton)

It is a land with neither night nor day, Nor heat nor cold, nor any wind, nor rain, Nor hills nor valleys. (Ch. Rossetti, Cobwebs) Matchd with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. (Tennyson, Ulysses)
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redditio / kyklos / framing

a syntactic unit or verse line is framed by the same element at the beginning and at the end

Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure; Like doth quit like, and Measure still for Measure. (Shakespeare, Measure for Measure)

zeugma

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity! (Browning, The Bishop Orders his Tomb) (Greek for yoking) one verb controls two or more objects that have different syntactic and semantic relations to it

Harriet had broken all her old ties and half the commandments [...] (Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night) Or stain her honour or her new brocade. Forget her prayers or miss a masquerade, Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball (Pope, Rape of the Lock)

Tropes
antithesis opposition, or contrast of ideas or words in a parallel construction

Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed. (Samuel Johnson) Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar)

apostrophe

addressing an absent person, a god or a personified abstraction Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him. (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar) substitution of an agreeable or at least non-offensive expression for one whose plainer meaning might be harsh or unpleasant

euphemism

hyperbole

[] one particular lady, whose lord is more than suspected of laying his umbrella on her as an instrument of correction, [...] (Dickens, Bleak House) obvious exaggeration for emphasis or for rhetorical effect

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irony

[] he couldnt, however sanguine his disposition, hope to offer a remark that would be a greater outrage on human nature in general [] (Mrs Chicks response to her husbands suggestion that the starving baby should be fed with the teapot since there was no nurse. Dickens, Dombey and Son) expression of something which is contrary to the intended meaning; the words say one thing but mean another

Well! said Mrs Chick, with a sweet smile, after this, I forgive Fanny everything! It was a declaration in a Christian spirit, and Mrs Chick felt that it did her good. Not that she had anything particular to forgive in her sister-in-law, not indeed anything at all, except her having married her brother in itself a species of audacity and her having, in the course of events, given birth to a girl instead of a boy []. (Dickens, Dombey and Son)

metaphor

In addition [...] you are liable to get tide-trapped away in the swamps, [...] Of course if you really want a truly safe investment in Fame, and really care about Posterity, and Posterity's Science, you will jump over into the black batter-like, stinking slime cheered by the thought of the terrific sensation you will produce in 20,000 years hence, and the care you will be taken of then by your fellow-creatures, in a museum (Mary Kingsley, Travels in West Africa) a figure of similarity, a word or phrase is replaced by an expression denoting an analogous circumstance in a different semantic field. The comparison adds a new dimension of meaning to the original expression. Unlike in simile, the comparison is not made explicit ( like or as are not used, see the longer discussion in Analysing a Metaphor)

The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together. (Shakespeare, All's Well that Ends Well)

metonymy

That fence about my soul (MacNeice, London Rain) a figure of contiguity, one word is substituted for another on the basis of some material, causal, or conceptual relation

My Head and Heart thus flowing thro my Quill (Pope, Imitations of Horace) (i.e. the thoughts produced in my head and the feelings of my heart are expressed in the things I write with my quill)
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oxymoron

(Greek for sharp-dull) a self-contradictory combination of words or smaller verbal units; usually noun-noun, adjectiveadjective, adjective-noun, adverb-adverb, or adverb-verb a paradoxical utterance that conjoins two terms that in ordinary usage are contraries

bittersweet, pleasing pains, loving hate, etc.

paradox

I will complain, yet praise; I will bewail, approve; And all my sour-sweet days I will lament and love. (George Herbert, Bitter-Sweet) a daring statement which unites seemingly contradictory words but which on closer examination proves to have unexpected meaning and truth

Snail-paced in a hurry (Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market)

paronomasia / pun

Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear. (Milton, Paradise Lost) wordplay, using words that are written similarly or identically, but have different meanings

[] he Who lied in the chapel Now lies in the Abbey. (Byron, Epitaph for William Pitt) Holland [...] lies so low they're only saved by being dammed. (Thomas Hood, Up the Rhine) Some folk are wise, and some are otherwise. (Smollett, Roderick Random)

pejorative

I always say beauty is only sin deep. (Saki, Reginald's Choir Treat) the use of words with disparaging connotations

periphrasis

[] the nurse, a simpering piece of faded gentility (Dickens, Dombey and Son) a descriptive word or phrase is used instead of a proper name

finny race (for fish) The Swan of Avon (for Shakespeare) On one occasion [...] a mighty Silurian [...] chose to
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get his front paws over the stern of my canoe, and endeavoured to improve our aquaintance. I had to retire to the bows, to keep the balance right, and fetch him a clip on the snout with a paddle, when he withdrew [...] I should think that crocodile was eight feet long. (Mary Kingsley, Travels in West Africa)

[...] the Fans round Talagouga wouldn't go at any price above Njole, because they were certain they would be killed and eaten by the up-river Fans. Internally consigning the entire tribe to regions where they will get a rise in temperature, even in this climate, I went with Mme Forget to M. Gacon [...]. (Mary Kingsley, Travels in West Africa)

personification animals, ideas, abstractions or inanimate objects are endowed / prosopoeia with human characteristics

And moody Madness laughing wild Amid severest woe (Gray, Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College) On the brow of Dombey, Time and his brother Care had set some mark. (Dickens, Dombey and Son)

simile

two things are openly compared with each other, introduced by like or as

My heart is like a singing bird. (Christina Rossetti, A Birthday)

synaesthesia

Youth like summer morn, age like winter weather. (Shakespeare, The Passionate Pilgrim) the description of one kind of sensation in terms of another (description of sound in terms of colour: blue note; description of colour in terms of sound: loud shirt; etc.)

The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath Not seen, mans hand is not able to taste, his tongue To conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. (Shakespeare, Midsummer Nights Dream)

synecdoche

If music be the food of love, play on [] (Shakespeare, Twelfth Night) A figure of contiguity (form of metonymy), the use of a part

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for the whole, or the whole for the part: pars pro toto or totum pro parte I went into a public-ouse to get a pint obeer The publican e up an sez, We serve no red-coats here. (Kipling, Tommy) (instead of a soldier, who wears a red coat) understatement an idea is deliberately expressed as less important than it (meiosis) actually is; a special case of understatement is litotes, which denies the opposite of the thing that is being affirmed (sometimes used synonymously with meiosis)

Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe how much it altered her appearance for the worse. (Swift, Tale of a Tub) This is not unexciting. (litotes)

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