Notion of style. Artistic systems. Genre

Being exposed to the literary analysis of emotive prose mainly we bear in mind the two key points of the notion of style: functional style and author’s style.

The author’s individual style is his/her individual manner of presentation, the author’s choice of language means correlated with his/her creative concepts. According to Seymour Chatman, “style is a product of individual choices and patterns of choices among linguistic possibilities”.

The literary communication is not homogeneous, and proceeding from its functions (purpose) we speak of different functional styles.

Functional style of language is a set of interrelated lingual units of all language levels used in a given sphere and serving a definite purpose in communication. This definition implies that a functional style is singled out according to the following main criteria (I.R. Galperin, V.A. Kukharenko):

· a set of deliberately chosen language means which includes a) neutral linguistic units, common to all styles and b) specific linguistic units, found only in the given functional style;

· a definite function of communication which presupposes achieving a desirable effect;

· a peculiar social sphere which conditions the applicability of language means.

This Guide limits itself to consideration of the belles-lettres style (fiction).

The main function of the belles-lettres style, distinguishing it from other styles, is to impress the reader aesthetically, to call forth a feeling of pleasure, caused not only by admiration of the selected language means and their peculiar arrangement but also by the fact that readers are led to form their own conclusions as to the purport of the author. Besides, the belles-lettres style has informative and persuasive functions, also found in other functional styles.

Belles-lettres style falls into several variants, or substyles, each having its distinctive features:

a) language style of poetry;

b) language style of emotive prose;

c) language style of drama.

According to I.R. Galperin, the belles-lettres style has the following linguisticfeatures:

· genuine, not trite, imagery achieved by purely linguistic devices;

· the use of words in contextual and very often in more than one dictionary meaning or at least influenced by the lexical environment;

· a vocabulary reflecting the author’s personal evaluation of things or phenomena;

· a peculiar individual selection of vocabulary and syntax;

· the use of colloquial language.

Most scholars (I.V. Arnold) associate belles-lettres style with prose works, regarding poetry as a special poetic style. Viewed diachronically this opinion does not seem controversial, for poems of previous centuries, indeed, support particular idea adhered to a very specific vocabulary and its ordering. But the poetry of the twentieth and twenty first centuries does not show much difference from prosaic vocabulary, its subjects are no more limited to several specific “poetic” fields but widely cover practically all spheres of existence of contemporary people. So it is hardly relevant to speak of a separate poetic style meaning contemporary literature.

The striking feature of the functional styleunder consideration lies in the artistic method asa special type of artistic vision, the way the writer chooses and analyses the factual material, the writer’s approach to the reality forming an artistic system (realism, romanticism, modernism, postmodernism) or a literary trend (baroque, sentimentalism, naturalism, surrealism, etc.). Speaking about each artistic system we can mention dominant themes, types of plot structure, style conventions, narrative techniques, language peculiarities.

Non-realistic narratives (myth, parables, tales, etc.) have existed since time immemorial as well as realistic ones.

Romanticism started as an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement in the late eighteenth – early nineteenth century. It elevated individuals, their passions, and inner life. Romanticism stressed strong emotion, imagination, freedom from classical correctness in art forms. It rebelled against social conventions, introduced new notions of individuality, of liberty and the power of imagination. The word “romantic” was used to highlight the contrast between the freedom of imagination and restraint and discipline of “classical” literature. The central problems and themes raised were:

· the idea of absolute and infinity, dissatisfaction with skepticism and rationality;

· the problem of powerful personality controversial in his/her emotions (an individual with all their passions, secret desires was seen as a microcosm), welcoming all forms of individuality – dreaminess, eccentricity, egotism, rebellion, theomachism;

· individual vs society, the problem of the evil world (the dominance of material things), revolt against the aristocratic social and political norms;

· the problem of freedom (faith in the powers of a free individual who aspires for ideals and renewal);

· the problem of nature (nature perceived both as a living organism and ideal transcendent sphere; personification of nature), reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature, distrust of the world of men, belief that a close connection with nature is crucial for a person;

· the cult of genius, sensibility, heroic isolation of the artist;

· the problem of cognition, prizing intuition, emotion and imagination over rationalism;

· poeticizing the historical past, elevation of folk art, revival of medievalism, interest in exotic and distant lands.

Romantic novels were full of symbols. The most significant English novelists belonging to Romanticism are Walter Scott (who made Scotland with its grand scenery an idealised romantic country full of adventure (Rob Roy, 1817, The Heart of Midlothian, 1818), Jane Austen (whose novels (Pride and Prejudice, 1813, Emma, 1816) combine rationality with a new spirit of adventure, her heroines are individuals able to form their own judgement), Brontȅ family (Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Brontȅ and Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Brontȅ).

Realism as an artistic system can embrace literary works of different epochs and trends. Realistic literature shows life in images corresponding to existing, typical phenomena. Fiction is seen as reflection of the reality, as the means of cognition of a human being and the surrounding world. A writer highlights all the aspects of life, shows the interaction of the man and the society, influence of the society on human destiny, morals and spiritual life of people. Realism requires trustworthiness, credibility, likeness in depicting life, attention to social and religious background. For instance, Charles Dickens attacks the injustice of social system and inequality between the rich and the poor (Oliver Twist, 1839, David Copperfield, 1850, Bleak House, 1853).

Naturalism is a late nineteenth – early twentieth century literary approach of French origin that vividly depicted social problems and viewed human beings as helpless victims of larger social and economic forces. Naturalism favoured exact impassionate depiction of reality and human character (detailed realism) that is considered to be predetermined by physiology and surrounding. It is aimed at studying society in a scientific way. It takes interest in physiology and human psyche determined by heredity and social environment. The movement opposed to Romanticism that treated its subject in symbolic and idealistic way. Naturalistic novelists were influenced by Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Their works depicted the darker side of life (poverty, racism, violence, prejudice, corruption and other social evils, disease). Naturalism in fiction is marked by pessimism and determinism. The motive of fatalism is the most powerful in Naturalism. Some elements of naturalism can be traced in Drieser’s novels (American Tragedy (1925), Sister Carrie (1900), etc.): the characters’ fate is predetermined by environmental factors.

Aestheticism as a literary movement of the late nineteenth century opposed materialism and industrialisation. It supported French doctrine of “L’art pour l’art” (Art for Art’s sake) and rejected moral purpose in life and literature in favour of beauty. The representatives of the movement are the members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and Oscar Wilde.

" Modernism " is a term used to distinguish early experimental twentieth-century writing from the narrative, descriptive and rational framework and conventions of nineteenth-century writing. Modernism tries to break with traditional styles, experiment with literary form, express new ideas. Modernism was under the influence of contemporary theories – those of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche, Henry Bergson. The Spanish critic and philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) felt that modernism took us towards chaos and dehumanisation, away from the "all too human elements predominant in romantic and naturalistic production". Modernists turned to the human consciousness away from social problems. The stream of consciousness was the most popular technique practiced by James Joyce (Ulysses, 1922) and Virginia Woolf (Mrs Dalloway, 1925, To the Lighthouse, 1927). Modernistic works are characterised by non-linear narrative, mythologisation, expressionism, lack of conciseness, fragmented structure. Modernism addresses the following themes: breaking down of social norms, rejection of social conventions and religion, anger against the world wars.

Surrealism is an artistic movement that uses illogical, dreamlike images to express unconsciousness.

Existentialism embraces the view that the suffering individual must create meaning in an unknowable and chaotic universe. The most popular themes in existential literature are absurd existence, loneliness, fear of death, looking for the sense in life.

As to postmodernism its dominant features are lack of a particular foundation, ambiguity, fragmentation, anti-realism, subjectivity, irony, the spirit of plurality, language play. It invites the reader to consider different ways of treating the subject.

There is no single, unifying definition of postmodernism. It is defined as an aesthetic practice, a cultural epoch or a philosophy. Umberto Eco thinks that postmodernism cannot be defined chronologically, it is rather a mode of presentation at any time. Postmodernism is flexible and contingent. Postmodernism as a term refers to a wholesale relativism and skepticism about truth, ethics, value, and responsibility. According to Leslie Fiedler, “Postmodernism could be seen as a ruptural break with Modernism; a way in which Modernism’s hierarchies of aesthetic value could be broken down to create a new, mongrelized literary form which would collapse any valuing system dependent upon distinctions between Art and Pop”. Gerald Graft states: postmodernism is regressive, anti-intellectual, and hedonistic. John Barth emphasizes its self-referential, ironic mode. According to Richard Palmer, “postmodernism insisted on fragmentation and a skeptical awareness of historical truth as it explored new modalities of consciousness, fragmentary time, and multi-perspective spaces”. Ihab Hassan, the most respected expert on the subject, claims: “Postmodernism was an impulse of negation and unmasking, a celebration of silence and otherness that was always present, though always repressed, within Western culture. Postmodernism – impulse to decentre, to create ontological and epistemological doubts as we accepted, and became intimate with, chaos”.

Postmodernist metafiction continues the tradition of Sterne’s Tristram Shandy (1760-1767), which plays with the conventions of literature and foregrounds discourse rather than story. It, according to Patricia Waugh, emphasizes the status of the text as artifice, provoking reflections about fictionality and textuality which are typical of self-conscious narratives.

Post-modernism questions the foundation of cultural and artistic forms through self-referential irony.

The work of literature is a linguistic and cultural event which creates a fictional world that includes the narrator, characters (imaginary rather than historical individuals), events, and an implied audience (an audience that takes shape through the writer’s decisions about what must be explained and what the reader is presumed to know). Literary works have a particular reference to the real world. Fiction is also an intertextual or self-reflexive construct. Recent theorists have argued that works are made out of other works: made possible by prior works which they take up, challenge, transform (Patricia Waugh). The term “ intertextuality ” has been suggested. A work of fiction exists among other texts, through its relations to them. The writers make attempts to advance or renew the work of fiction, reflect on literature itself. Literature exists by exposing and breaking its own limits and conventions.

 

Scientific language does not draw attention to itself, does not try to be beautiful or emotionally evocative. Its job is to point not to itself but to physical world beyond it, which it attempts to describe and explain. Literary language, in contrast, depends on connotation, i.e. on the implication, association, suggestion, and evocation of meanings or shades of meaning. Literary language is expressive: it communicates tone, attitude, and feeling. While everyday language is often connotative and expressive, too, in general it is not deliberately or systematically so, for its chief purpose is practical. Literary language, however, organizes linguistic resources into a special arrangement, a complex unity, to create an aesthetic experience, a world of its own. Unlike scientific and everyday language, therefore, the form of literary language – the word choice and arrangement that create the aesthetic experience – is inseparable from its content.

As it was mentioned above the belles-lettres style falls into language of poetry,emotive prose anddrama. As being confined to emotive prose, its genres constitute particular conventions of content (such as theme) and form (including structure and style) which are shared by the texts by specifying themselves through variability in plot structure, setting, characters and language peculiarities. In such approach, broadly considered, genre is defined not only in terms of its language, but by features which could be described as external to the text itself. These include areas such as text purpose, writer/reader relationships, and themedium of communication, which naturally have implications for what is called internal features of the text, covering syntax, lexical choice, organization, layout, etc. Genres form a system of groups of texts defined by sets of conventions, which guide both the writing and reading of texts. Genres are often distinguished by the form of communication (e.g. narrative, drama), mood or attitude (elegy, satire), content (crime, science-fiction), the relation to reality (mimetic vs. non-mimetic), and aesthetic effect, or a combination of these criteria.

Texts within a given genre are likely to share certain features, though it is also possible for texts to differ considerably in terms of their structure and language.

The genres of the emotive prose can be of:

· small form: short story – covering one event of a person’s life; novelette – highly dynamic narration about an unusual incident; sketch – a documentary genre describing the morals of the society or some human type;

· medium form: a story about a person’s life interrelated with the lives of other people;

· large form: novel – traditionally defined as an extended fictional work of prose dealing with characters, action, thought, presenting a picture of real life, especially of the emotional crises in the lives of the personages portrayed.

Novels can be categorized in different ways: historical novels (showingconflicts of different historical epochs); war novels (connected with the war events and conflicts) ; didactic novels (intended to teach people a moral lesson, showing the formingof the character); travel novels ( about an imagined travel ); adventure novels (the plot is based on the adventures of the main character) ; love stories (the plot includes the development of the love affairs of the characters) ; psychological novels (revealing the human soul); family epic (the history of one or more families); social novels (concentrating on social aspect of human life), political novels (political events are interwoven into the plot) ; philosophic novels (concentrating on the clash of ideas or concepts); picaresque (whichrefers to the novels that feature, in a series of episodes, the adventures of a “wandering rogue” kind of character); Gothic novels (featuring mysterious happenings in castles, and thrilling, violent events); faction (mixture of fact and fiction presenting true events in fictional form).

Also, novels are referred to as humorous or satirical according to their tone (ironic, humorous, mocking, etc.) or intention;as allegorical (the characters and events represent the ideas that lie outside the text and often teach a moral lesson); and lastly as epistolary (that consist of letters exchanged between the characters).

The definition of genre is closely connected with the cultural, political, historical and social conditions, and any text can be seen as embodying certain moral values and ideological assumptions. It is suggested that all cultures share the concept of shaping text according to some genres, and that the ways the texts are adjusted in relation to genres may show similarities across languages.

Questions

To what literary artistic system/trend does this piece of writing belong? What features of this piece of writing are typical of this artistic system/trend? To what genre can you refer this extract/story?