Historicalness, Comprehensiveness, and Innovativeness: The First Companion to Stylistics

Abstract

Violeta Sotirova, ed. Bloomsbury Companion to Stylistics. Bloomsbury, 2016. vii + 730 pp. second decade of the new century has seen some unprecedented publications in the field of stylistics, with 2014 witnessing the appearance of Routledge Handbook of Stylistics and Cambridge Handbook of Stylistics (see Shen, Routledge, Cambridge), and 2016 the publication of Bloomsbury Companion to which join forces in marking new stage in the development of stylistics. Bloomsbury Companion provides valuable picture of the history and the state of the art of stylistics. comprises four parts, namely, The Discipline of Stylistics, Theoretical Approaches and Research Methods, Current Areas of Research, and Genres and Periods. FIRST PART: EMPHASIS ON FORMALIST LEGACY Part I, The Discipline of Stylistics, only contains the Introduction by the editor Violeta Sotirova. characterized by strong historical concern, devoted to the early influences on modern stylistics, especially Russian Formalism, whose legacy manifests itself in almost every field of present-day stylistic enquiry (16). This part not only offers clear elucidation of Russian Formalists and Czech Structuralists laid the foundation for with their discussions of literariness or literary language, but also engages with recent uneasiness in about formalist under the pressure of contextualization. It not clear, Sotirova observes, how an analysis of literary language can 'un-Formalist,' no matter rich the cultural, historical, readerly contexts that are evoked might be (5) because linguistics the most important analytic tool of stylistics. However, Sotirova points out, the theoretical legacy of Formalist poetics is wider than the strict linguistic focus of some of its practical applications (5). And the next part of the Introduction charts various concepts and theoretical positions of Russian Formalism that have played an important role in the past and present developments of stylistics. About one-fifth of Part I devoted to the relation between Russian Formalism and narratology, the latter regarded as a sub-discipline of stylistics (10). Interestingly, perhaps only in Britain narratology treated as subdiscipline of stylistics; this not so in North America, nor on the European continent, nor in China, where and narratology are two parallel disciplines. In discussing narratology, Sotirova focuses on two key concepts, and discourse, which also originate in the thought of Russian Formalists. Narratogy's often taken to more or less interchangeable with stylistics' style, since refers to the story told and style to the content presented. But in effect, the two concepts cover different aspects of form--structural versus linguistic, with only limited overlap between them. An example of this would rhythm. rhythm of narratology's discourse (see Genette 86-112; Chatman 63-75) matter of the relationship between the actual duration of the events and their textual length, including normal speed (scene), acceleration (summary), pause (e.g., an external narrator's commenting that does not take up story time), slow motion (stretch), and ellipsis (e.g., ten years have passed). Such rhythm in narratology essentially different from the verbal rhythm in stylistics, the latter being matter of the features of words and their combination, such as the alternation between stressed and unstressed syllables, the use of punctuation, and the length of words, phrases, and sentences. Given such distinct concerns, narratology's very much complementary to stylistics' style (see Shen, What). first part of the Bloomsbury companion, through paying much attention to narratology, may constitute an impetus for stylisticians to draw on or to engaged in narratology. …