THE ESSAY - раздел Образование, PART I INTRODUCTION As A Separate Form Of English Literature The Essay Dates From The Close Of Th...
As a separate form of English literature the essay dates from the close of the 16th century. The name appears to have become common on the publication of Montaigne's "Essays", a literary form created by this French writer. The essay is a literary composition of moderate length on philosophical, social, aesthetic or literary subjects. It never goes deep into the subject, but merely touches upon the surface. Personality in the treatment of theme and naturalness of expression are two of the most obvious characteristics of the essay. An e s s а у is rather a series of personal and witty comments than a finished argument or a conclusive examination of any matter. This literary genre has definite linguistic traits which shape it as a variety of publicistic style. Here is a part of an essay by Ben Jonson which illustrates this style in its most typicarl and original form as it was at the end of the 16th century:
"Language most shows a man; speak, that I may see thee. It springs out of the most retired and inmost parts of us, and is the image of the parent of it, the mind. No glass renders a man's form or likeness so true, as his speech. Nay, it is likened .to a man; and as we consider feature and composition in a man, so words in language; in the greatness, aptness, sound, structure, and harmony of it. Some men are tall and big, so some language is high and great..Then the words are chosen, the sound ample, the composition full, the absolution plenteous, and poured out, all grace, sinewy and strong. Some are little and dwarfs; so of speech, it is humble and low; the words are poor and flat; the members are periods thin and weak, without knitting or number. The middle are of just stature. There the language is plain and pleasing: even without stopping, round without swelling; all well turned, composed, eloquent, and accurate. The vicious language is vast and gaping; swelling and irregular; when it contends, high, full of rock, mountain and pointedness; as it affects to be low it is abject and creeps, full of bogs and holes."
The essay was very popular in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the 17th century essays were written on topics connected with morals and ethics, while those of the 18th century focussed attention on political and philosophical problems.
The 18th century was the great age of essay writing. It was then the principal literary form, and discoursed on the important subjects of the day, often-criticizing the shortcomings of the* political and social system in England. "Encyclopedia Britannica" states that the essay became a dominant force in English literature of the 18th century. The following statement of an 18th century essayist is of some interest as it describes the character of the essay: "We writers of essays or (as they are termed) periodical papers"... This statement shows that periodical papers at that time contained only essays.
In the 19th century the essay as a literary term gradually changed into what we now call the journalistic article or feature article which
covers all kinds of subjects from politics, philosophy or aesthetics to travel, sport and fashions. Feature articles are generally published in newspapers, especially weeklies and Sunday editions. They are often written by one and the same writer or journalist, who has cultivated his own individual style.
The most characteristic language features of the essay, however, remain 1) brevity of expression, reaching in good writers a degree of epigrammaticalness, 2) the use of the first person singular, which justifies a personal approach to the problems treated, 3) a rather expanded use of connectives, which facilitate the process of grasping the correlation of ideas, 4) the abundant use of emotive words, 5) the use of similes and sustained metaphors as one of the media for the cognitive process. It is in the interrelation of these constituents that the real secret of the essay substyle consists.
Some essays, depending on the writer's individuality, are written in a highly emotional manner resembling the style of emotive prose, others resemble scientific prose, and the terms review, т е т о i r or trea tise are more applicable to certain more exhaustive studies. l
The essay on moral and philosophical topics in modern times has not been so popular, perhaps because a deeper scientific analysis and interpretation of facts is required. The essay in our days is often biographical; persons, facts and events are taken from life. These essays differ from those of previous centuries — their vocabulary is simpler and so is their logical structure and argumentation. But they still retain all the leading features of the publicistic style.
In comparison with oratorical style, the essay aims at a more lasting, hence, at a slower effect. Epigrams, paradoxes and aphorisms are comparatively rare in oratory, as they require the concentrated attention of the listener. In the essay they are commoner, for the reader has opportunity to make a careful and detailed study both of the content of the utterance and its form.
The close resemblance in structure^between the essay and the oration has more than once been emphasized by linguists. The main difference between them is very well summarized by H. Robbins and R. Oliver in their work "Developing Ideas into Essays and Speeches."
"...an essay is distinguished from a speech primarily by the fact that the essay seeks a lasting, the speech an immediate effect. The essay must have a" depth of> meaning which will repay the closest analysis and frequent rereading ... the basic requirement of a good speech is that it carry immediately into the mind of its hearer precisely the point which- the speaker wishes to make."2
Therefore writers say that"... the speaker is allowed much more leeway in sentence structure than the writer."^
In summing up the characteristics of the essay it will not come amiss to give the following epigrammatic definition:
"The Essay is not a treatise. It is not Euclid, it is flash-light. It is not proof, it is representation. It is a chat; the key-note to the essay is its personality."
Все темы данного раздела:
I. GENERAL NOTES ON STYLE AND Stylistics
Stylistics, sometimes called lingvo-stylistics, is a branch of general linguistics. It has now been more or less definitely outlined. It deals mainly with two interdependent
T^jire treated are the main distinctive features of individual style.
The treatment of the selected elements brings up the problem of the norm. The notion of the norm mainly refers to the literary language and always presupposes a recognized o
EXPRESSIVE MEANS (EM) AND STYLISTIC DEVICES (SD)
In linguistics there are different terms to den _by which utterances are foreground, i.e. made more conspicuous, more "effective and therefore imparting some additional information. They are c
GENERAL NOTES ON FUNCTIONAL STYLES OF LANGUAGE
We have defined the object,of linguo-stylistics as the study of the nature, functions and structure^ SDs and EMs, on the one hand, and the study of the functional styles, on the other. In section 2
The gap between the spoken and written varieties of language, wider
narrower at different periods in the development of the literary lan-
guage, will always remain apparent due to the difference in circumstances in which the two ar
A BRIEF OUTLINE OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH LITERARY (STANDARD) LANGUAGE
Up till now we have done little more than mention the literary (standard) language, which is one of the most important notions in stylistics and general linguistics. It is now necessary to elucida
MEANING FROM A STYLISTIC POINT OF VIEW
Stylistics is a domain where meaning assumes paramount importance.. This is so because the term 'meaning' is applied not only to words, word-combinations, sentences but also to the manner of expres
I. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
Like any linguistic issue the classification of the vocabulary here suggested is for purely stylistic purposes. This is important for the course in as much as some SDs are based on the interplay of
Common CoUo^uiaL Vocabulary
-Professionalisms i special Colloquial Vocabulary (non-Literary)
of the English language as being divided into three main layers: the literary layer, the neutral
B) Poetic and Highly Literary Words
Poetic words form a rather insignificant layer of the special literary vocabulary. They are mostly archaic or very rarely used highly literary words which aim at producing an elevated effect. They
C) Archaic, Obsolescent and Obsolete Words
The word-stock of a language is in an increasing state of change. Words change their meaning and sometimes drop out of the language altogether. New words spring up and replace the old ones. Some wo
D) Barbarisms and Foreignisms
In the vocabulary of the English language there is a considerable layer of words called barbarisms. These are words of foreign origin which have not entirely been assimilated into the English lang
A) Slang
There is hardly any other term that is as ambiguous and obscure as the term slang. Slang seems to mean everything that is below the standard of usage of present-day English.
Much has been
B) Jargonisms
In the non-literary vocabulary of the English language there is a group of words that are called jargonisms. Jargon is a recognized term for a group of words that exists in almost every language an
C) Professionalisms
H Professionalisms, as the term itself signifies, are the words used in a definite trade, profession or calling by people connected by common interests both at work and at home. They commonly desi
D) Dialectal words
This group of words is obviously opposed to the other groups of the non-literary English vocabulary and therefore its stylistic, functions can be more or less clearly defined. Dialectal words are
E) Vulgar words or vulgarisms
The term vulgarism, as used to single out a definite group of words of non-standard English, is rather misleading. The ambiguity of the term apparently proceeds from the etymology of the word. Vulg
GENERAL NOTES
The stylistic approach to the utterance is not confined to its structure and sense. There is another thing to be taken into account which, in a certain type of communication, viz. belles-lettres,
Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is a combination of speech-sounds which aims at imitating sounds produced in nature (wind, sea, thunder, etc), by things (machines or taols, etc), by people (sighing, laughter, patter
Alliteration
Apt Alliteration's Artful Aid. Charles Churchill
Alliteration is a phonetic stylistic device which aims at imparting a melodic effect to the utterance. The essence of this device lies in
A. INTENTIONAL MIXING OF THE STYLISTIC ASPECT OF WORDS
Heterogeneity of the component parts of the utterance is the basis for a stylistic device called b a th о s. Unrelated elements are brought together as if they denoted things equal in rank or belon
B. INTERACTION OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF LEXICAL MEANING
Words in context, as has been pointed out, may acquire additional lexical meanings not fixed in dictionaries, what we have called contextual meanings. The latter may sometimes deviate from the
INTERACTION OF PRIMARY DICTIONARY AND CONTEXTUALLY IMPOSED MEANINGS
The interaction or interplay between the primary dictionary meaning (the meaning which is registered in the language code as an easily recognized sign for an abstract notion designating a certain
Metaphor
The term 'metaphor', as the etymology of the word reveals, means transference of some quality from one object to another. From the times of ancient Greek and Roman rhetoric, the term has been known
Metonymy
Metonymy is based on a different type of relation between the dictionary and contextual meanings, a relation based not on identification, but on some kind of association connecting
INTERACTION OF PRIMARY AND DERIVATIVE LOGICAL MEANINGS Stylistic Devices Based on Polysemantic Effect, Zeugma and Pun
As is known, the word is, of all language units, the most sensitive to change; its meaning gradually develops and as a result of this develop-"' ment new meanings appear alongside the primary
INTERACTION OF LOGICAL AND EMOTIVE MEANINGS
The general notions concerning emotiveness have been set out in part I, § 6—"Meaning from a Stylistic Point of View" (p. 57). However, some additional information is necessary for a bette
Interjections and Exclamatory Words
Interjections are words we use when we express our feelings ^strongly and which may be said to exist in language as coriyeritional symbols of human emotions/The role of interjections in creating em
The Epithet
From the strongest means of displaying the writer's or speaker's emotionaj. attitude to his communication, we now pass to a weaker but still forceful, means — the ep i th e t. .The epithet is subtl
Oxymoron
Oxymoron is a combination of two words (mostly an adjective and a noun or an adverb with an adjective) in which the meanings of the two clash, being opposite in sense, for example:
'low sk
Antonomasia
We have already pointed out the peculiarities of nominal meaning. The interplay between the logical and nominal meanings of a word is call-ed antonomasia. As in other stylistic devices based on the
C. INTENSIFICATION OF A CERTAIN FEATURE OF A THING OR PHENOMENON
In order to understand the linguistic nature of the SDs of this group it is necessary to clear 4up some problems, so far untouched, of d e f i n i-t i о п as a philosophical category, Any definitio
Periphrasis
Periphrasis is a device which, according to Webster's dictionary, denotes the use of a longer phrasing in place of a possible shorter and plainer form of expression. It is also called circumlocuti
Euphemism
There is a variety of periphrasis which we shall call euphemistic.
Euphemism, as is known, is a word or phrase used to replace an unpleasant word or expression by a conventionally more acc
Hyperbole
Another SD which also has the function of intensifying one certain property of the object described is h у p e r b о I e. It can be defined as a deliberate overstatement or exaggeration of a featur
D. PECULIAR USE OF SET EXPRESSIONS
In language studies there are two very clearly-marked tendencies that the student should never lose sight of, particularly when dealing with the problem of word-combination. They are 1) the analyti
The Cliche
A cliche is generally defined as an expression that has become hackneyed and trite. As Random House Dictionary has it, "a cliche ... has lost originality, ingenuity, and impact by long over-us
Proverbs and Sayings
Proverbs and sayings are facts of language. They are collected in dictionaries. There are special dictionaries of proverbs and sayings. It is impossible to arrange proverbs and sayings in a form th
Epigrams
An epigram is a stylistic device akin to a proverb, the only difference being that epigrams are coined by individuals whose names we know, while proverbs are the coinage of the people. In other wor
Allusions
An allusion is an indirect reference, by word or phrase, to a historical, literary, mythological, biblical fact or to "a fact of'everyday life made in the course of speaking or writing. The us
Decomposition of Set Phrases
Linguistic fusions are set phrases, the meaning of which is understood only from the combination as a whole, as to pull a person's leg or to have something at one's finger tips. The meaning of the
A. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
Within the language-as-a-system there establish themselves certain [definite types of relations between words, word-combinations, sentences I and also between larger spans of utterances. The branch
B. PROBLEMS CONCERNING THE COMPOSITION OF SPANS OF UTTERANCE LARGER THAN THE SENTENCE
In recent years a new theory concerning the inner relations between context and form within the sentence has appeared. This theory, elaborated by S. Harris, N. Chomsky, M. Postal and others, is ca
Supra-Phrasal Units
The term supra-phrasal unit (SPU) is used to denote a larger unit than a sentence. It generally comprises a number of sentences interdependent structurally (usually by means of pronouns, connective
The Paragraph
A p a r a g r a p h is a graphical term used to name a group of sentences marked off by indentation at the beginning and a break in the line at the end. But this graphical term has come to mean a
C. COMPOSITIONAL PATTERNS OF SYNTACTICAL ARRANGEMENT
The structural syntactical aspect is sometimes regarded as the crucial issue in stylistic analysis, although the peculiarities of syntactical arrangement are not so conspicuous as the lexical and
Stylistic Inversion
W о r d-o r d e r is a crucial syntactical problem in many languages. In English it has peculiarities which have been caused by the concrete and specific way the language has developed. O. Jesperse
Detached Construction
a sentence by some specific
consideration of the writer is placed so that it seems formally independ-
ent of Ще^ш^1У^^ parts of structures are called lie t ached. They seem_tCLjda
Parallel Construction
Parallel construction is a device which may be encountered not so much in the sentence as in the macro-structures dealt with earlier, viz. the SPU and the paragraph. The necessary condition in par
Repetition
It has already been pointed out that r ej^e ti t i о п is1 an expressive means of language used when the speaker is imder the stress of strong ""ей^зпг-Jt^^ as in the following "pas
Enumeration
E n и т е г a tion is a stylistic device by which separate things, objects, phenomena, properties, actions are named one by one so that they produce a chain, the links of which, being syntactically
Suspense
S usp eji se i s a comppsitionjl device which consists in arranging the fffaFEe? of a commjuhTcation in such a way that the less important, "descriptive, subordinate parts are amassed af the b
Antithesis
In order to characterize a thing or phenomenon from a specific point of view, it may be necessary not to find points of resemblance or association between it and some other thing or phenomenon, bu
Asyndeton
Asyndeton, that is, connection between parts of a sentence or between sentences without any formal sign, becomes a stylistic device if there is a deliberate omission of the connective where it is g
Polysyndeton
Polysyndeton is the stylistic device of connecting sentences, or phrases, or syntagms, or words'by using connectives (mostly conjunctions and prepositions) before each component part, as in:
The Gap- Sentence Link
There is a peculiar type of connection of sentences which for want of a term we shall call the g ap-s en fence link (GSL). The connection is not immediately apparent and it requires a certain ment
E. PARTICULAR USE OF COLLOQUIAL CONSTRUCTIONS
We have already pointed out some of the constructions which bear an imprint of emotion in the very arrangement of the words, whether they are neutral or stylistically coloured (see" p. 39). Su
Ellipsis
Ellipsis is a typical phenomenon in conversation, arising out of the situation. We mentioned this .peculiar feature of the spoken language when we characterized its essential qualities and properti
Question-in-the-Narrative
Questions, being both structurally and semantically one of the types of sentences, are asked by one person and e'xpected to be answered by another. This is the main, and the most characteristic pro
Represented Speech
There are three ways of reproducing actual speech: a) repetition of the exact utterance as it was spoken (direct speech), b) conversion of the exact utterance into the relater'smode of expression
A) Uttered Represented Speech
Uttered represented speech demands that the tense should be switched from present to past and that the personal pronouns should be changed from 1st and 2nd person to 3rd person as in indirect speec
B) Unuttered or Inner Represented Speech
As has often been pointed out, language has two functions: the communicative and the expressive. The communicative function serves to convey one's thoughts, volitions, emotions and orders to the m
Rhetorical Questions
The rhetorical q и e^s t i о n Is a special syntactical stylistic j device the essence of which consists in reshaping the grammatical mean-j ing of the interrogative sentence. In other words, the q
Litotes
Litotes is a stylistic device consisting of a peculiar use of negative constructions. The negation plus noun or adjective serves to establish a positive feature in a person or thing. This positive
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
We have already mentioned the problem of what is known as / и n c-tional styles (FS) of language (see p. 32—35), but only to show that FSs should be distinguished from varieties of language. The ma
A. THE BELLES-LETTRES STYLE
We have already pointed out that the belles-lettres style is a generic term for three substyles in which the main principles and the most general properties of the style are materialized. These thr
LANGUAGE OF POETRY
The first substyle we shall consider is v e r s e. Its first differentiating property is its orderly form, which is based mainly on the rhythmic and phonetic arrangement of the utterances. The rhyt
Metre and Line
It is customary to begin the exposition of the theory of English versification with the statement that "...there is no established principle of English versification/'Eut this statement may a
The Stanza
We have defined rhythm as more or less regular alternations of similar units. Of the units of verse rhythm the following have been named: the syllable, the foot, the line and finally the stanza.
Free Verse and Accented Verse
Verse remains classical if it retains its metrical scheme.
There are, however, types of verse which are not classical. The one most popular is what is called "vers libre" which i
B) Lexical and Syntactical Features of Verse
The phonetic features of the language of poetry constitute what we have called its external aspect. These features immediately strike the ear and the eye and therefore are easily discernible; but t
EMOTIVE PROSE
The substyle of emotive prose has the same common features as have been pointed out for the belles-lettres style in general; but all these features are correlated differently in emotive prose. The
LANGUAGE OF THE DRAMA
The third subdivision of the belles-lettres style is the language of plays. The first thing to be said about the parameters of this variety of belles-lettres is that, unlike poetry, which, except f
B. PUBLICISTS STYLE
The publicist i*c s tу I e of language became discernible as a separate style in the middle of the 18th century. It also falls into three varieties, each having its own distinctive features. Unli
ORATORY AND SPEECHES
The oratorical s ty I e of language is the oral subdivision of the publicistic style. It has already been pointed out that persuasion is the most obvious purpose of oratory.
"Oratoric
JOURNALISTIC ARTICLES
Irrespective of the character of the magazine and the divergence of subject matter—whether it is political, literary, popular-scientific or satirical, all the already mentioned features of publicis
C. NEWSPAPER STYLE
N e w s paper style was the last of all the styles of written literary English to be recognized as a specific form of writing standing apart from other forms.
English newspaper writing dat
BRIEF NEWS ITEMS
The principal function of a b r i e f news i te т is to inform the reader. It states facts without giving explicit comments, and whatever evaluation there is in news paragraphs is for the most part
ADVERTISEMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
Advertisements made their way into the British press at an early stage of its development, i.e. in the micHTth century. So they are almost as old as newspapers themselves.
The principal fu
THE HEADLINE
The headline (the title given to a news item or an article) is a dependent form of newspaper writing. It is in fact a part of a larger whole. The specific functional and linguistic traits of the he
THE EDITORIAL
The function of the editorial is to influence the reader by giving an interpretation of certain facts. Editorials comment on the political and other events of the day. Their purpose is to give the
D. SCIENTIFIC PROSE STYLE
The language of science is governed by the aim of the functional style of scientific prose, which is to prove a hypothesis, to create new concepts, to disclose the internal laws of existence, devel
E. THE STYLE OF OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS
There is one more style of language within the field of standard literary English which has become singled out, and that is the s ty le of official d о с и т е п t s, or "officialese", a
FINAL REMARKS
This brief outline of the most characteristic features of the five language styles and their variants will show that out of the number of features which are easily discernible in each of the styl
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