Question: Write a note on Emerson's prose style.
Or, Point out the qualities and defects, if any, of Emerson's prose.
Or, Evaluate the prose style of Emerson.
Or, Discuss Emerson's prose style.
Or, How far is Emerson successful as a writer of English prose?
Answer: It is necessary to have some ideas about style before we try to analyze his prose style of Emerson and decide how successful he was as a stylist in prose.
Style is the characteristic way of saying things of a particular writer. It includes an arrangement of ideas, imagery, choice of vocabulary, syntax, and variety in the structures of sentences. There are also some intangible elements of style, such as rhythm, repetition, coherence, emphasis, unity, and tone. In modern linguistics, stylistics is a term that is used to identify several analytical studies of literature. Modern linguists consider the traditional analyses of style as subjective and impressionistic, and as such, reject them. They want to analyze the style objectively and scientifically. Their stylistic features include patterns of sound devices, types of sentence structures and their frequency, use of words, such as the proportion of abstract words to concrete, and the relative frequency of various parts of speech, the elements of rhetoric such as imagery, symbolism and figurative language. They do not follow the best of the traditional definitions of style such as the one given by Jonathan Swift, “proper words in proper places", and another by Buffon, “Style is the man himself.”
To judge Emerson's style in the light of the concepts given by modern linguistics would require almost a volume of a book. That is not possible here within the length of an essay for a student's answer. We would only throw some light only on the chief features of Emerson's prose style.
Emerson evinces an individual style. Some critics have found fault with his style, especially in respect of the organization of paragraphs and essays. But their charge is baseless. Emerson's thoughts are lofty and expansive, but he has tried to compress them within a short space. As a result, his sentences have become aphoristic and epigrammatic, much like Bacon's. The links between sentences are very often provided not by normal cohesive devices, but by sequencing of ideas. To ordinary readers, they might appear to be unlinked and incoherent. But they are not; they have coherence through the concatenation of ideas. Some remarkable features of his ideas are the aphoristic and epigrammatic aspects of his sentences, and the effective use of rhetorical figures, allusions, imagery, and symbol. All these qualities make his prose poetic and lofty in style.
The use of various devices by Emerson has been aptly illustrated by S. Mallikerjunan. The aptness of analogy is reinforced by the artistry of expression where he tells us- "It is one central fire, which flaming now out of the lips of Etna, lightens the capes of Sicily, and now out of the throat of Vesuvius, illuminates the towers and vineyards of Naples. It is one light that beams out of a thousand stars. It is one soul which animates all men.”
"The ideas get clarified, strengthened, and beautified by the presentation and the language. We may notice the fine co-operative contrast between the phrases, "the lips of Etna" and "the throat of Vesuvius” and between the verbs “lighten” and “illuminates", enabling Emerson to repeat himself without repetition. The perceptions of analogy take also the less direct and more forceful form of metaphor.”
According to another critic, Higginson, "our criticism is shamed into silence by finding frequent passages so majestic in thought and rhythm, of a quality so rare and delicious as to form a permanent addition to the highest literature of the human race."
His style is best illustrated in selected passages. The sentences are terse, vital, and epigrammatic, yet they are always poetic rather than practical and always hint at much more than they express. Emerson's figures have an elemental quality unlike those of any other writer. The dew and fragrance of the morning are in all his works.
In Emerson's prose, we observe remarkable qualities. His sentences are epigrammatic and aphoristic. They are characterized by concentration and condensation, they are pithy, terse, and compact. The following sentences illustrate this.
“Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst."
“A great soul will be strong to live as well as strong to think.”
“Fear always springs from ignorance."
Emerson's prose is full of rhetorical figures. When he is inspired figures like similes and metaphors come to his mind as one myriad of lights. “The drop is an ocean”, “Men in history mon world today, are bugs, are spawn, and are called "the mass” herd”. These are examples of powerful metaphors. The images are highly suggestive, loaded with great connotative significance eg. It is one light which beams out of a thousand stars." The images and sun are brilliant.
His sentences provide great variety. Long sentences are effectively alternated with short ones so that each has its desired impact on the readers. He seems to be fond of appositives and synonymous phrases; he tries by that means, to make himself understood to the readers. His use of allusions and references is also profuse. All these devices of style make him memorable. In the following sentence we see how short and long sentences are juxtaposed, and have their quantum of impact on the reader:
"The theory of books is noble. The scholar of the first age received into him the world around; brooded thereon; gave it the new arrangement of his own mind, and littered it again."
Such sentences abound in his essays. On the whole Emerson's style gives his essays a tempo, a fluency that is akin to the flux of experience. In his article titled “Emerson: Experiments in Creation," Joel Porte says, "for the essence of the form Emerson is employing and enlarging is that it keeps one going: the essay is perpetually ongoing, a continuous talking with oneself that others are allowed to overhear. It may digress, change its stance and tone, break the monotony of the stranglehold of one mind by citing others, pause to reflect on its own provisional conclusions, and then proceed once more to look for others. It has, precisely, the shape of experience.
Emerson's style might have some limitations- and even the greatest of the writers have limitations- as in the eyes of a good critic like F.O. Mathiessen, but we have, in his writings some of the best in the English language. The excusable faults that he has betrayed were perhaps the results of his not being sufficiently conscious of technicalities of style. He was more concerned with his lofty thous! and how to make his ideas get through with people. We have 11 the type of prose that “translates lofty observations into com speech", and forces them deep into our consciousness where dwell as illumination for quite long.
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