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STYLE
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STYLE , in literature a See also:term which may be defined as See also:language regarded from the point of view of the characteristics which it reveals; similarly, by See also:analogy, in other arts, a mode or method of working characterized by distinctive features. The word (which is different from that used in See also:architecture, see above) is derived from the See also:instrument stilus (wrongly spelled stylus), of See also:metal, See also:wood or See also:ivory, by means of which, in classic times, letters and words were imprinted upon waxen tablets. By the transition of thought known as See also:metonymy the word has been transferred from the See also:object which makes the impression to the sentences which are impressed by it, and a See also:mechanical observation has become an intellectual conception. To turn the stylus " was to correct what had been written by the See also:sharp end of the See also:tool, by a judicious application of the See also:blunt end, and this responds to that discipline and self-See also:criticism upon which See also:literary excellence depends. The See also:energy of a deliberate writer would make a See also:firm and. full impression when he wielded the stylus. A See also:scribe of rapid and fugitive See also:habit would See also:press more irregularly and produce a less consistent See also:text. The varieties of See also:writing induced by these See also:differences of temperament would reveal the nature of the writer, yet they would be attributed, and with See also:justice, to the See also:implement which immediately produced them. Thus it would be natural for any one who examined several tablets of See also:wax to say, ", The writers of these See also:inscriptions are revealed by their stylus "; in other words, the style or impression of the implement is the See also:medium by which the temperament is transferred to the written speech. If we follow this analogy, the famous phrase of See also:Buffon becomes at once not merely intelligible but luminous—" le style est 1'homme meme." This See also:axiom is constantly misquoted ("le style c'est l'homme "), and not infrequently miscomprehended. It is usual to interpret it as meaning that the style of a writer is that writer's self, that it reveals the essence of his individuality. That is true, and the statement of it is useful. But it is probably not the meaning, or at least not the See also:original meaning, that Buffon had in mind. It should be recollected that Buffon was a zoologist, and that the phrase occurs in the course of his See also:great Natural See also:History. He was considering See also:man in the abstract, and differentiating him from other genera of the See also:animal See also:kingdom. Hence, no doubt, he remarked that " style was man himself," not as every reviewer repeats the See also:sentence to-See also:day, " the man." He meant that style, in the variety and elaboration of it, distinguished the language of man (Homo sapiens) from the monotonous roar of the See also:lion or the limited See also:gamut of the See also:bird. Buffon was engaged with biological, not with aesthetic ideas.
Nevertheless, the usual See also:interpretation given to the phrase " le style est 1'homme meme " may be accepted as true and valuable. According to an Arab See also:legend See also: A primitive person would say, " But it is See also:time to go to See also:bed "; this statement is See also:drawn out by Browne into the wonderful See also:page beginning, " But the quincunx of See also:Heaven runs See also:low," and collects around it as it proceeds on its voluptuous course the five ports of knowledge, cables of cobwebs, the bed of See also:Cleopatra, the See also:ghost of a See also:rose, the huntsmen of See also:Persia, and a dozen other examples of prolific and ornamented style. In its final formit is so fully characteristic of its author that it may be justly said that the passage is Browne himself. It follows from what has just been said that style appeals exclusively to those who read with See also:attention and for the See also:pleasure of See also:reading. It is not even perceived by those who read primarily for See also:information, and these form the great See also:majority of readers. Even these have a glimmering impression that we must not live by See also:bread alone; that the human See also:heart, with its See also:imagination, its curiosity and sensitiveness, cannot be satisfied by bald statements of fact delivered on the printed page as messages are shouted along the See also:telephone. This See also:instinct it is which renders the untaught liable to fall into those errors of false style to which we shall presently See also:call attention. In the untrained there yet exists a craving for beauty, and the misfortune is that this craving is too easily met by See also:gaudy See also:rhetoric and vain repetitions. The effect on the nature of a human being which is produced by reading or listening to a See also:book, or a passage from a book, which that being greatly admires, is often so violent as to resemble a See also:physical See also:shock to the nerves. It causes a spasm of emotion, which is betrayed by tears or See also:laughter or a heightened See also:pulse. This effect could not be produced by a statement of the fact conveyed in language, but is the result of the manner in which that fact is presented. In other words, it is the style which appeals so vividly to the physical and moral See also:system of the reader —not the fact, but the See also:ornament of the fact. That this emotion may be, and often is, caused by See also:bad style, by the See also:mere tinsel of rhetoric and jangle of See also:alliteration, is not to the point The important See also:matter is that it is caused by style, whether See also:good or bad. Those juvenile ardours and audacities of expression which so often amuse the See also:wise man and exasperate the See also:pedant are but the effects of style acting on a fervid and unripe imagination. The deep delight with which a grown man of experience reads See also:Milton or See also:Dante is but the same phenomenon produced in different conditions. It is, however, desirable at the outset of an inquiry into the elements of style to insist on the dangers of a See also:heresy which found audacious expression towards the See also:close of the 19th See also:century, namely, that style is See also:superior to thought and See also:independent of it. Against this may be set at once another of the splendid apothegms of Buffon, " See also:Les idees seules forment le fond du style." Before there can be style, therefore, there must be thought, clearness of knowledge, precise experience, sanity of reasoning See also:power. It is difficult to allow that there can be style where there is no thought, the beauty even of some poems, the sequence of words in which is intentionally devoid of meaning, being preserved by the characteristics of the See also:metre, the rhymes, the assonances, all which are, in their degree, intellectual in character. A confusion between form and matter has often confused this See also:branch of our theme. Even See also:Flaubert, than whom no man ever gave closer attention to the question of style, seems to dislocate them. For him the form was the See also:work itself: " As in living creatures, the See also:blood, nourishing the See also:body, determines its very See also:contour and See also:external aspect, just so, to his mind, the matter, the basis, is a work of art, imposed, necessarily, the unique, the just expression, the measure, the See also:rhythm, the form in all its characteristics." This ingenious See also:definition seems to See also:strain language beyond its natural limits. If the adventures of an See also:ordinary See also:young man in See also:Paris be the matter of L'See also:Education sentimentale it is not easy to admit that they " imposed, necessarily," such a " unique " treatment of them as Flaubert so superlatively gave. They might have been recounted with feebler rhythm by an inferior novelist, with bad rhythm by a bad novelist and with no rhythm at all by a See also:police-See also:news reporter. What makes that book a masterpiece is not the basis of See also:adventure, but the superstructure of expression. The expression, however, could not have been built up on no basis at all, and would have fallen See also:short of Flaubert's aim if it had risen on an inadequate basis. The perfect See also:union is that between adequate matter and an adequate form. We will See also:borrow from the history of See also:English literature an example which may serve to illuminate this point. See also:Locke has no appreciable style; he has only thoughts. See also:Berkeley has thoughts which are as valuable as those of Locke, and he has an exquisite style as well. From the artist's point of view, therefore, we are justified in giving the higher See also:place to Berkeley, but in doing this we must not deny the importance of Locke. If we compare him with some pseudo-philosopher, whose style is highly ornamental but whose thoughts are valueless, we see that Locke greatly prevails. Yet we need not pretend that he rises to an equal height with Berkeley, in whom the basis is no less solid, and where the superstructure of style adds an emotional and aesthetic importance to which Locke's plain speech is a stranger. At the same time, an abstract style, such as that of See also:Pascal, may often give extreme pleasure, in spite of its See also:absence of ornament, by its precise and pure definition of ideas and by the just See also:mental impression it supplies of its writer's distinguished vivacity of mind. The abstract or See also:concrete style, moreover, what See also:Rossetti called " fundamental See also:brain-work," must always have a leading place. When full justice has been done to the See also:necessity of thought as the basis of style, it remains true that what is visible, so to speak, to the naked See also:eye, what can be analysed and described, is an See also:artistic arrangement of words. Language is so used as to awaken impressions of See also:touch, See also:taste, odour and See also:hearing, and these are roused in a way See also:peculiar to the genius of the individual who brings them forth. The personal aspect of style is therefore indispensable, and is not to be ignored even by those who are most rigid in their objection to mere ornament. Ornament in itself is no more style than facts, as such, constitute thought. In an excellent style there is an effect upon our senses of the mental force of the man who employs it. We discover himself in what he writes, as it was excellently said of See also:Chateaubriand that it was into his phrases that he put his heart; again, D'See also:Alembert said of See also:Fontenelle that he had the style of his thought, like all good authors. In the words of See also:Schopenhauer, style is the See also:physiognomy of the soul. All these attempts at epigrammatic definition tend to show the sense that language ought to be, and even unconsciously is, the mental picture of the man who writes. To attain this, however, the writer must be sincere, original and highly trained. He must be highly trained, because, without the exercise of clearness of knowledge, precise experience and the habit of expression, he will not be able to produce his soul in language. It will, at best, be perceived as through a See also:glass, darkly. Nor can anyone who desires to write consistently and well, afford to neglect the laborious discipline which excellence entails. He must not be satisfied with his first sprightly periods; he must See also:polish them, and then polish them again. He must never See also:rest until he has attained a consummate See also:adaptation of his language to his subject, of his words to his emotion. This is the most difficult aim which the writer can put before him, and it is a See also:light that flits ever onward as he approaches. Perfection is impossible, and yet he must never desist from pursuing perfection. In this connexion the famous tirade of Tamburlaine in See also:Marlowe's tragedy cannot be meditated upon too carefully, for it contains the finest definition which has been given in any language of style as the unapproachable fen-See also:fire of the mind: " If all the pens that poets ever held Had fed the feeling of their See also:master's thoughts, And every sweetness that inspired their See also:hearts, Their minds, and See also:muses, on admired themes If all the heavenly See also:quintessence they 'still From their immortal See also:flowers of poesy, Wherein, as in a See also:mirror, we perceive The highest reaches of a human wit If those had made one poem's See also:period, And all combined in beauty's worthiness, Yet should there hover in our restless heads One thought, one See also:grace, one wonder, at the least. Which into words no virtue can See also:digest." Flaubert believed that every thougnt or grace or wonder had one word or phrase exactly adapted to See also:express it, and could be " digested " by no other without loss of clearness and beauty. It was the See also:passion of his See also:life, and the, despair of it, to See also:search for this unique phrase in each individual See also:case. Perhaps in this See also:research after style he went too far, losing something of that simplicity and inevitability which is the See also:charm of natural writing. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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