SCHOOL of

CRITICISM

*stylistic

StylisticStyle is the manner in which something is presented, and this approach concentrates on the peculiarities of diction and imagery employed, sometimes relating them to literary and social theory.

Stylistics-is a valuable if long-winded approach to criticism, and compels attention to the poem's details. Two of the three simple exercises performed here show that the poem is deficient in structure, and needs to be radically recast. The third sheds light on its content.

Stylistics-applies linguistics to literature in the hope of arriving at analyses which are more broadly based, rigorous and objective.

STEPHEN CRANEÆS

•>stylistics represents a promising area not only because stylistic analysis involves both fields, but because such an analysis makes possible a more complex approach to literature.

Strength -the focus is on linguistic devices or applications at the phonological, lexical, or syntactic level, whichever proves to be meaningful in any kind of literary interpretation.

Why then employ stylistics at all?

Because form is important in poetry, and stylistics has the largest armoury of analytical weapons. Moreover, stylistics need not be reductive and simplistic.

Why then employ stylistics at all?

  -Stylistics suggests why certain devices are effective;

- Stylistics is a very technical subject, which hardly makes for engrossing, or indeed uncontentious, reading.

Some stylistic analysis is to be found in most types of literary criticism, and differences between the traditional, New Criticism and Stylistics approaches are often matters of emphasis.

Published Examples of Stylistic Literary Criticism*G.N. Leech's A Linguistic Guide to

English Poetry (1969)*Laura Brown's Alexander Pope (1985)*Roy Lewis's On Reading French

Verse: A Study in Poetic Form (1982)*George Wright's Shakespeare's

Metrical Art. (1988)*Richard Bradford's A Linguistic

History of English Poetry (1993)

Source : http//www.textec.com/criticism

Ana Marie B. Cordova