Wrapping Up the Look at Style

The original purpose of this style series was to weigh in on an off-hand comment elsewhere about using Shakespeare and the King James Bible as a basis for contemporary style. The reasoning behind that comment is that Shakespeare and the King James Bible were the basis of Modern English, so its time to return to the source. My initial objection rested upon the linguistic shift and the subtle differences between Shakespeare's Early Modern English and today's Modern English. (Oh what a difference fifty years makes.) But as I poked into various elements of style, I realized my objection was based on a realization that any discussion of style would only add to the initial selections of Shakespeare and the King James Bible instead of offering alternatives. Fortunately, the investigation proved profitable.

I am in no way suggesting that writers should not read Shakespeare and the King James Bible. Saying that would be attempting to defend the indefensible. Basic cultural literacy demands familiarity with both. And the core claim that Shakespeare and the King James Bible created Modern English is indisputable. My objection rested solely on how the Great Vowel Shift that occurred while Shakespeare was writing tended to obscure the rhyme, meter, and, occasionally, meaning. But I soon learned that rhythm and rhyme were not the only aspects of style.

While exploring rhetorical devices, it soon became clear that Shakespeare and the King James Bible would be excellent sources for learning these advanced grammars. After all, these foundational English works are used time and time again to illustrate specific rhetorical devices. There is more to dynamic language than just cadence, after all.

And if I think that Shakespeare and the King James Bible should be lifelong studies instead of for a season, the distinction is so slight to not merit argument in this matter.

The question now becomes what Modern English works to augment this impressive canon with. Unfortunately, I now have more questions than answers.

I first turned to Poe, as he is the father of contemporary short fiction and an example of the Romanticist roots of pulp. Between Castle of Otranto and Poe's detective fiction, I had been viewing the Romantic period through rose-colored lenses. For while modern mysteries and fantasy originated during this time, so did the simplification of style that led to today's terse, transparent style, sometimes called Hemingway's even as it lacks his longer sentences. B. R. Myers pointed out that the inability to construct the long sentence is one of the leading challenges for today's style-minded writers, unlike in the period between Shakespeare and the Romanticists. Then, the fashion of long, complex sentences nested in series of successive clauses thrived in an era where beauty on the page was unencumbered by the demands of performance and oration. The Romanticists' issue with this style echoed Harrison Ford's complaint about Star Wars' script: "You can type this shit, but you can't say it." Now, thanks to 200+ years of literary fashion, the written word needs to reflect everyday speech. Reconciling the demands of the long sentence with those of the spoken word is now the fundamental challenge of the would-be stylist. And, as the current age continues to be shaped by texting, chat programs, and other social media, to learn complex language, one thing is clear:

You have to go back.

But to where and when?