The elements of style

Each "Communication Corner" essay is self-contained; however, they build on each other. For best results, before reading this essay and doing the exercise, go to the first essay "How an Ugly Duckling Became a Swan," then read each succeeding essay. Over the decades, hundreds if not thousands of books have been published on the keys to good writing. However, barely a handful have reached the status of "must reading." Here is one of them.

No Longer an Adolescent, Not Yet a Prince

The essay explores some of the numerous questions which the readers of The Adolescent — one of the most enigmatic novels by Dostoevsky — face. What is the hidden meaning of the various allusions to Pushkin, Dickens, Shakespeare, which are spread all over the text? What is the encoded meaning of the novel’s specific style, its “cinematographic” visuality, and finally — what is the meaning of the very title, and why it is constantly repeated that the adolescent with a “princely” name is not a “Prince”? The path of the hero and his idea of “becoming Rothschild” is traced. The reasons for such an idea are discovered through parallels to A Christmas Carol by Dickens. The Biblical parable about the rich man and Lazarus is defined as the source of both Dickens’s story and part of Dostoevsky’s novel. The point of transformation of the adolescent’s “idea” is compared with Dostoevsky’s Christmas story The Beggar Boy at Christ’s Christmas Tree. Special attention is paid to such elements of style as the “stream of consciousness”, “internal monologue” etc., which foreshadow revelations of modernism. Cinematographic devices like “close-ups” and materialized metaphors are also in the focus of attention, as most of them visualize the leitmotifs of the novel. The analysis of the adolescent’s spiritual portrait discovers an important role of not only his “two fathers”, but also his school friend Lambert, whose grotesque and almost mythological figure is interpreted in various ways. The structure of the essay leads to the decoding of the laconic formula “Hamlet-Christian” with which Dostoevsky opens his outline and notes to the novel. The maxim is interpreted as some transcendental goal to which the author is leading his hero from the very first line of the novel’s plan. In the context of the theme “No longer an adolescent, not yet a Prince” the essay explores the metaphorical content of such notions as “adolescent” and “prince”. The research highlights that the metaphysical realm of the novel is enormous and embraces not only the path of its young hero but also the possible ways of the historical development of both Russia and Europe.

A Stylistic Analysis of The Good-Morrow by John Donne

The present paper aims to analyze John Donne's poem "The Good-Morrow" stylistically. Being a branch of applied linguistics, Stylistics scrutinizes the literary and non-literary texts in terms of their tonal and linguistic style. Donne's poem, being rich in hyperboles and conceits, depicts the universal theme of undying love where Donne welcomes new dawn and is optimistic for upcoming years of adoration and is exuberant over the magical union of two soulmates. The paper in hand adopts the stylistic analysis as a research methodology to unveil the basic theme of the poem and analyses the poem on the grammatical, phonological and graphological levels. The theoretical framework incorporates the main tenets of Geoffrey N. Leech (1969) from his well-known work "A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry", and also this work focuses on the notions of Mick Short (1996). Stylistic analysis of the chosen poem portrays how the poet, via the use of striking stylistic devices, communicates the central concept of the poem and how the poet has adorned the poem with various elements of style on the levels of grammar phon and graphology.

Dostoevskian Literary Poliphony as Lyrical-Theatrical Hypostasis of Sergey Prokofiev’s Opera The Gambler

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s perspective on humankind and society continues to intrigue any reader, whether specialized or from other areas of activity, due to the universality of the topics and the complexity of the characters involved. The novel entitled The Player depicts the life and specific concerns of 19th-century world society, a subject which attracted Sergey Prokofiev to compose a work with the same title, at the beginning of the 20th century. His opera is a unique work through the avant-garde musical language, the atypical construction of the discourse, the elements of style and conception of the libretto in relation to the original source. These elements generate a multiple correlation between the Dostoevskian prose, literary theory, the philosophy of language through studies and volumes of hermeneutic analysis, such as those signed by critic and semiotician Mikhail Bakhtin, on which we will focus our attention during this research. The terminology used by Bakhtin (dialogism, polyphony, ventrilogism, carnival) indicates a profound insight into the connection between Dostoevsky’s prose and the theatrical, dramatic, lyrical, musical aspects of the epic substratum in his novels. At the same time, Dostoevsky was an involuntary forerunner of the artistic movement initiated in Western Europe by German composers – Expressionism –, which also had echoes in the works of Russian composers from the first half of the last century, as we shall see in Sergey Prokofiev’s approach of The Gambler.

Παρατηρήσεις στο θραύσμα ερυθρόμορφου σκύφου από την αρχαία Κυδωνία με αριθμό ευρετηρίου Αρχαιολογικού Μουσείου Χανίων Π 12489

The Attic red-figured fragment in the Archaeological Museum of Hania, inv. Π 12489, published here in detail, was found during a rescue excavation conducted by the κε´ Ephorate of Antiquities) in Hania (ancient Kydonia) at the former Agricultural Bank Property in Skalidi str. The findspot is within the western limits of the ancient settlement of Kydonia. οnly a small part of a skyphos is preserved. The incomplete scene depicts the upper part of two figures, a beardless Herakles, named by an inscription in white ηρακλησ, probably seated and a Nike offering a phiale. There is also a tripod with ribbons in white, part of a wreath and a stylized blossom, all suspended. Above the picture a band filled with an olive sprig. The depiction can symbolically imply a festive or competitive event in honor of Herakles echoing at the same time the cult background that is attested in Kydonia through a significant inscribed votive offering of a local named Aischylos. Based on the elements of style and iconography the fragment is attributed to Dinos painter, and can be dated around 420 BC

White Fears of Dispossession: Dreyer's English, The Elements of Style, and the Racial Mapping of English Discourse

Dreyer's English, by Benjamin Dreyer, the Senior Copy Editor for Random House, and Strunk and White's The Elements of Style are two extraordinarily popular and commercially successful guides to English language usage that belong to a genre best described as discursive maps for language as racialized, classed and gendered territory. This review traces the history of these books to the nineteenth century "conversation handbooks" and etiquette guides that became popular in a time of shifting class boundaries Precise prescriptives for behavior and for polite conversation helped the aspirational middle-class groom themselves for genteel company. Many of these guides were published during the Reconstruction Era, and were filled with dispositions toward correct language that communicate a kind of outrage from fear of social, cultural and economic dispossession, a telltale mark of White Supremacy. These dispositions still exist in the rhetoric of both Dreyer and E.B. White and are carried through the structural racism of standardized English into educational spaces. Discourses of meritocracy are found in both the classroom and the global neoliberal workplace where "English has been turned into a product (in all senses of the word)..."Though the promotion of English is presented as a way of expanding one’s multilingual resources, it reduces one’s repertoire, as it is often learned/taught at the cost of local languages” (Canagarajah 13). As Canagarajah sees "multilingual communities [finding] spaces for voice, renegotiation, and resistance” (Translingual Practices 56), so can we make students aware of the gatekeeping and power of English by sharing its historical context.

Translation of Tropes and Stylistic Devices in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Novel “Everything Is Illuminated”

Stylistic devices and tropes are the elements of style that give an extra, figurative meaning to a written or oral text. They include metaphors, simile, allegory, paradox, word game and so on. Each author uses them in different ways to make their works more expressive and emotionally dense. Sometimes stylistic devices and tropes can manifest themselves as the characteristics of an author’s individual style. Metaphoric language and bizarre manner of representation are particularly common for the authors of the postmodern era. When it comes to translation of these works from one language to another the process is fraught with pitfalls and challenges for the translator. In the translation studies it’s believed that literary translation requires not only precise rendition of the contents but also conveyance of the stylistic features of a work. This article is dedicated to the analysis of the stylistic devices and tropes used in the novel “Everything Is Illuminated” by Jonathan Safran Foer and their translation from English into Russian. The aim of this work is to identify what kind of translation techniques are used by the translator V. A. Arkanov to render the linguistic and stylistic properties of the original text.

Indigenous Australian Detective Fiction as Political Writing

Indigenous voices emerged within Australian detective fiction with the greatest clarity in the 1990s. This chapter examines the figure of the Indigenous Aboriginal detective created by Indigenous writers as an underrepresented character and speaking subject within Australian detective fiction that both traverses and disrupts conventional elements of literary style. Certainly, the conventional characteristic elements of crime genre are present within detective fiction written by Indigenous writers, but this literary post-colonialist analysis explores how Indigenous writers such as Mudrooroo (“The Westralian,” “The Healer,” and “Home on the Range”), Philip McLaren (Scream Black Murder), and Sally Morgan (My Place) juxtaposed elements of style to both highlight constructs of reality in Australian detective fiction while simultaneously providing fresh perspectives on both the Indigenous detective as a figure of political interest and Australian Indigenous detective fiction as political writing.

Some notes on the military equipment illustrated by two 3rd century rider monuments from Dacia Superior

The present paper discusses two funerary monuments from Alba county (Romania) depicting riders. These had been published before, but only summarily, without taking note of the details of military equipment illustrated on them. This is surprising because depictions of soldiers in full battle equipment are very rare in Dacia, not to mention that both monuments were dated to the 3rd century, a period in which such representations are scarce throughout the Empire. Therefore, the traditional art-historical approach to the study of Roman stone monuments will be by-passed and, instead of focusing on the type of monument, elements of style, workshops etc., the study will attempt to discuss at length the riders’ attire and the implications for the study of Roman military equipment.