Stylistics

by Richard Bradford, Stephen R. Anderson (Editor), Joan Bresnan (Editor)

Richard Bradford provides a definitive introductory guide to modern critical ideas on literary style and stylistics. It will provide students with a basic grasp of stylistics and literary analysis.
This comprehensive and accessible guidebook for undergraduates examines:
* the terminology of literary form
* how literary style has evolved since the sixteenth century
* the role of stylistics in twentieth century criticism
* the discipline of stylistics from classical rhetoric to post-structuralism
* the relationship between literary style and its historical context
* style and gender
* examples of poems, plays and novels from Shakespeare to the present day.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published February 27, 1997

Reviews

[Joshua · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent little primer on the field of stylistics.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good historical overview of modern literary criticism but I’d have to give it a closer read to actually apply it to my own reading, especially Jakobson’s diagram of the six functions of communication and Bradford’s own double pattern.
Topics covered include the difference between literary and non-literary language, textualism vs contextualism, structuralism, post-structuralism, feminism and new historicism. There are lots of applied examples. This book also led me to an essay by Roger Fowler on A Clockwork Orange.

[Caomhghain · Rating 4 out of 5]

While it is a textbook and occasionally dry this is often an enthusing and enthusiastic approach to literature and very informative.