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' exploit the interplay between 'the what' and 'the how' of their prose. The study demonstrates how celebrated stylists might, after all, have thoughts worth attending to, and that distinguished thinkers might be enriched for us if we paid more due to their style. More than reversing the conventional categories, this innovative volume shows 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.
Les mer
This ambitious and timely book reconceives style as having the capacity to clarify or generate thinking, rather than merely being something linguistic or ornamental. The volume surveys non-fiction prose of twenty authors of the nineteenth-century to reimagine the interplay between thinking, thinkers, style, and stylists.
Les mer
Michael D. Hurley and Marcus Waithe: Introduction: Thinking, Thinkers, Style, Stylists 1: James Engell: 'A Hare in Every Nettle': Coleridge's Prose 2: Matthew Bevis: Charles Lamb . . . Seriously 3: Freya Johnston: Keeping to William Hazlitt 4: Michael O'Neill: 'Pictures' and 'Signs': Creative Thinking in Shelley's Prose, 1816-1821 5: Ruth Scurr: 'The greatest irregular': Thomas Carlyle's Re-Creative Purpose in The French Revolution 6: Michael D. Hurley: John Henry Newman, Thinking Out Into Language 7: Valerie Sanders: 'Things Pressing to be said': Harriet Martineau's Mission to Inform 8: Adam Phillips: Emerson and the Impossibilities of Style 9: James Williams: Darwin's Theological Virtues 10: Dinah Birch: 'Just Proportions': The Material of George Eliot's Writing 11: Marcus Waithe: Ruskin's Style of Thought: Animating Re-description in the Late Writings 12: David Russell: The Idea of Matthew Arnold 13: Angela Leighton: Walter Pater's Dream Rhythms 14: Philip Davis: Cashing In on William James 15: Adrian Poole: Touch-and-go with Robert Louis Stevenson 16: Hugh Haughton: Oscar Wilde: Thinking Style 17: Catherine Maxwell: Vernon Lee's Handling of Words 18: Simon Jarvis: Chesterton and the Superman: Chesterton's Levitations 19: Susan Sellers: Virginia Woolf: Writing and the Ordinary Mind 20: Stefan Collini: Vexing the thoughtless: T.S. Eliot's early criticism
Les mer
impressive ... artfully remind[s] us that prose is the principle medium of thinking and of getting along in the world, and that literary criticism therefore matters not as a dilettantish pastime but as a model for how to handle the prose of the world without being bullied or commodified by it.
Les mer
Considers the question: What is 'style', and how does it relate to thought in language? Includes contributions from leading scholars Provides a literary-historical view of long nineteenth century Surveys the non-fiction prose of twenty authors known as 'stylists' or 'thinkers'
Les mer
Michael D. Hurley teaches English at the University of Cambridge, where he is a University Lecturer and a Fellow of St Catharine's College. He has written widely on literary style and its relationship with feeling and thinking. His books include Faith in Poetry: Verse Style as a Mode of Religious Belief (Bloomsbury, 2017), G. K. Chesterton (Northcote House, 2012), and (co-authored with Michael O'Neill) Poetic Form (CUP, 2012). Marcus Waithe is a Fellow in English and University Senior Lecturer at Magdalene College, Cambridge. He is the author of William Morris's Utopia of Strangers: Victorian Medievalism and the Ideal of Hospitality (2006), and of numerous essays and articles on Victorian and twentieth-century topics. A collection of essays, co-edited with Claire White, entitled The Labour Literature in Britain and France, 1830-1930: Authorial Work Ethics is forthcoming with Palgrave. He is also completing a monograph entitled The Work of Words: Literature and the Labour of Mind in Britain, 1830-1930.
Les mer
Considers the question: What is 'style', and how does it relate to thought in language? Includes contributions from leading scholars Provides a literary-historical view of long nineteenth century Surveys the non-fiction prose of twenty authors known as 'stylists' or 'thinkers'
Les mer

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780198737827
Publisert
2018
Utgiver
Vendor
Oxford University Press
Vekt
724 gr
Høyde
242 mm
Bredde
164 mm
Dybde
30 mm
Aldersnivå
G, UU, 01, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
374

Biographical note

Michael D. Hurley teaches English at the University of Cambridge, where he is a University Lecturer and a Fellow of St Catharine's College. He has written widely on literary style and its relationship with feeling and thinking. His books include Faith in Poetry: Verse Style as a Mode of Religious Belief (Bloomsbury, 2017), G. K. Chesterton (Northcote House, 2012), and (co-authored with Michael O'Neill) Poetic Form (CUP, 2012). Marcus Waithe is a Fellow in English and University Senior Lecturer at Magdalene College, Cambridge. He is the author of William Morris's Utopia of Strangers: Victorian Medievalism and the Ideal of Hospitality (2006), and of numerous essays and articles on Victorian and twentieth-century topics. A collection of essays, co-edited with Claire White, entitled The Labour Literature in Britain and France, 1830-1930: Authorial Work Ethics is forthcoming with Palgrave. He is also completing a monograph entitled The Work of Words: Literature and the Labour of Mind in Britain, 1830-1930.