Middle English Prose Style: Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich. Robert K. Stone

Abstract The aim of the present study is to thoroughly analyse the prepositions and adverbs meaning ‘between’ in the works of a Late Middle English poet John Lydgate. As regards their quality, aspects such as the etymology, syntax, dialect, temporal and textual distribution of the analysed lexemes will be presented. In terms of the quantity, the actual number of tokens of the prepositions and adverbs meaning ‘between’ employed in John Lydgate’s works will be provided and compared to the parallel statistics concerning Middle English texts collected by the Middle English Dictionary online and the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse. The most spectacular finding is that John Lydgate regularly uses atwēn, twēn(e) and atwix(t)(en), which are recorded in hardly any other Middle English texts. Moreover, the former two lexemes, and sporadically also atwix(t)(en), produce the highest number of tokens of all lexemes meaning ‘between’ in each analysed Lydgate’s text, which is unique in the whole history of the English language.

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Science and English Prose Style in the Third Quarter of the Seventeenth Century

PMLA ◽

10.2307/457821 ◽

1930 ◽

Vol 45 (4) ◽

pp. 977-1009 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

Richard F. Jones

Keyword(s):

Seventeenth Century ◽

Important Influence ◽

Complex Phenomenon ◽

Human Personality ◽

Literary Style ◽

Unpleasant Sensation ◽

The Third ◽

English Prose ◽

Prose Style

Literary style, like human personality, is a compound exceedingly difficult of analysis, for when its more obvious constituents are made clear, there still remains an illusive element, consciousness of which leaves the analyst with the unpleasant sensation of not having reached the bottom of the matter. As the most complex phenomenon in literature, style is the resultant of all the forces, known and unknown, underlying literary development, and the method and extent of the contribution made by each of these forces are a matter of probable inference rather than of positive demonstration. For that reason, any attempt, however ambitious, to account for the style of a literary epoch must be content with pointing out those more obvious influences that are combined and reflected in speech and writing, and with ignoring other factors which may escape detection. Under the protection of this confession I shall attempt to make manifest what seems to me the most important influence instrumental in changing the luxuriant prose of the Commonwealth into that of a diametrically opposite nature in the Restoration.

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A Study of English Prose Style from Elizabeth to Victoria: Discussion

Transactions and Proceedings of the Modern Language Association of America ◽

10.2307/456031 ◽

1886 ◽

Vol 2 ◽

pp. vi

Author(s):

Th. W. Hunt ◽

Henry E. Shepherd ◽

J. M. Garnett ◽

T. Whiting Bancroft ◽

Henry Wood ◽

...

Keyword(s):

English Prose ◽

Prose Style

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