Style

1. Style Diction

2. DICTION • Defined: The selection and arrangement of words. • The quality of the words themselves depends on their meaning and their sound…Example…Tennyson, writing in the 19th Century but using archaic myth, employed verbs such as “spake” and “changeth” to create an aura of the medieval period.

3. DICTION • Example: “Camelot” – A native of Alabama may say ‘y’ all” whereas a person from Brooklyn may say “youse guys.” • Concrete diction describes conditions or qualities that are exact and particular…Abstract diction refers to qualities that are rarefied and theoretical. • Poems or prose works using specific and concrete words tend to be visual, familiar, and compelling. Works using general and abstract words tend to be detached and cerebral, frequently dealing with universal questions or emotions.

4. DICTION • Poems or prose works that use specific language refers to objects or conditions that can be perceived or imagined, while general language signifies broad classes or persons, objects, and phenomena. • High and Formal Diction: elevated and elaborate. • Follows the rules of syntax exactly and avoids idioms, colloquialisms, contractions, and slang. • Example: “The Naked and the Nude” – Graves uses formal diction when he has the speaker assert that the terms in the title are “By lexicographers construed/As synonyms that should express/the same deficiency of dress”

5. DICTION • To “latinate” words is to stiffen and generalize the passage by using lexicographers instead of dictionary writers, construed instead of thought, and deficiency instead of lack. • Middle or Neutral Diction: Maintains the correct language and word order of formal diction but avoids elaborate words and elevated tone. • Example: Emily Dickinson’s “Because I Could Not Stop For Death” employs almost entirely middle diction or register. • Low or Informal Diction: Language of everyday use; it is relaxed and conversational.