A Literary Stylistics Study on Verbal Humor in Pride and Prejudice

Abstract

Literary stylistics is defined by its object and purpose of study, a school of literature that aims to elucidate the thematic significance and aesthetic value of literary issues. Literary stylistics, as a branch of stylistics, is a combination of linguistics and literary criticism. Literary criticism focuses on interpretation, while linguistics attaches importance to form. Literary stylistics pays attention to both interpretation and form, which is conducive to better language study. Jane Austen, comparable to Shakespeare, is one of the greatest novelists in the history of English literature. As a master of language, she wrote many books, Pride and Prejudice is one of her masterpieces. It has also been adapted into several TV series and films. Among them, English Rose Keira Knightley played Elizabeth is very impressive. For a long time, many critics and writers have studied this work, but there is relatively little research on its style, so this paper studies this film in terms of vocabulary, rhetoric, and syntax. In addition, this paper attempts to interpret the humorous expressions in Pride and Prejudice from the perspective of literary stylistics, to analyze the women’s awakening consciousness implied by the humorous words, and to shed light on contemporary female values.