The Evolution of English Prose, 17001800 Style, Politeness, and Print Culture [Paperback]

A study of the change in English prose from strong oral influence to a new emphasis on formality and precision.At the beginning of the eighteenth century ordinary written English was close to speech; by 1800, people expressed themselves more formally, politely, and precisely. The new 'writtenness' of prose coincided with the development of a mature print culture, the rise of women writers, the invention of prescriptive grammars, and a powerful new rhetoric. Carey McIntosh traces these changes and illustrates them with comparison of work by Defoe and Paine, Swift and Burke, Addison and Johnson, Shaftesbury and Godwin, and Astell and Wollstonecracft.At the beginning of the eighteenth century ordinary written English was close to speech; by 1800, people expressed themselves more formally, politely, and precisely. The new 'writtenness' of prose coincided with the development of a mature print culture, the rise of women writers, the invention of prescriptive grammars, and a powerful new rhetoric. Carey McIntosh traces these changes and illustrates them with comparison of work by Defoe and Paine, Swift and Burke, Addison and Johnson, Shaftesbury and Godwin, and Astell and Wollstonecracft.At the beginning of the eighteenth century ordinary written English was close to speech; by 1800, people expressed themselves more formally, politely, and precisely. The new writtenness of prose coincided with the development of a mature print culture, the rise of women writers, the invention of prescriptive grammars, and a powerful new rhetoric. Carey McIntosh traces these changes and illustrates them with comparisons of work by Defoe and Paine, Swift and Burke, Addison and Johnson, Shaftesbury and Godwin, and Astell and Wollstonecraft.Preface; 1. The ordering of English; 2. Literacy and politeness: the gentrification of English prose; 3. Testing the model; 4. Loose and periodic sentences; 5. Lofty language and low; 6. Nominal and oral styles: Johnson and Richardson; 7. The new rhetl39