Thinking Through Style: Non-Fiction Prose of the Long Nineteenth Century
Michael D. Hurley and Marcus Waithe
Abstract
What is ‘style’, and how does it relate to thought in language? It has often been treated as something merely linguistic, independent of thought, ornamental; stylishness for its own sake. Or else it has been said to subserve thought, by mimicking, delineating, or heightening ideas that are already expressed in the words. This ambitious and timely book explores a third, more radical possibility, in which style operates as a verbal mode of thinking through. Rather than figure thought as primary and pre-verbal, and language as a secondary delivery system, style is conceived here as having the cap ... More
What is ‘style’, and how does it relate to thought in language? It has often been treated as something merely linguistic, independent of thought, ornamental; stylishness for its own sake. Or else it has been said to subserve thought, by mimicking, delineating, or heightening ideas that are already expressed in the words. This ambitious and timely book explores a third, more radical possibility, in which style operates as a verbal mode of thinking through. Rather than figure thought as primary and pre-verbal, and language as a secondary delivery system, style is conceived here as having the capacity to clarify or generate thinking. The book’s generic focus is on non-fiction prose, and it looks across the long nineteenth century. Leading scholars survey twenty authors, to show where writers who have gained reputations as either ‘stylists’ or as ‘thinkers’ both in fact exploit the interplay between the what and the how of their prose. But the study demonstrates more than that celebrated stylists might after all have thoughts worth attending to, or that distinguished thinkers might be enriched for us if we paid more due to their style. More than reversing the conventional categories, the innovative chapters collected here show how ‘style’ and ‘thinking’ can be approached as a shared concern. At a moment when, especially in nineteenth-century studies, interest in style is re-emerging, this book revaluates some of the most influential figures of that age, re-imagining the possible alliances, interplays, and generative tensions between thinking, thinkers, style, and stylists.
Keywords:
style,
stylist,
language,
thought,
think,
thinker,
essay,
moralist,
rhythm,
nineteenth century
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2018 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780198737827 |
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2018 |
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198737827.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Michael D. Hurley, editor
University Lecturer and Fellow in English, St Catharine's College, University of Cambridge
Marcus Waithe, editor
University Senior Lecturer, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge
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