style, in literature

style, in literature, the mysterious yet recognizable result of a successful blending of form with content. Generally speaking, all the arts reflect one of two stylistic tendencies: the classical or the romantic. When applied to literature the first term suggests objective presentation, formal structure, and clear yet ceremonious language, and the second indicates subjective presentation, organic structure, and obscure, effusive, or everyday language. Stylistically, Milton's Paradise Lost is classical, whereas Shakespeare's King Lear tends toward the romantic (see classicism classicism, a term that, when applied generally, means clearness, elegance, symmetry, and repose produced by attention to traditional forms. It is sometimes synonymous with excellence or artistic quality of high distinction.
..... Click the link for more information. ; romanticism romanticism, term loosely applied to literary and artistic movements of the late 18th and 19th cent.

Characteristics of Romanticism

Resulting in part from the libertarian and egalitarian ideals of the French Revolution, the romantic movements had in
..... Click the link for more information. ). But style is also the badge of individuality that distinguishes a good writer from a poor or mediocre writer. A good poet's sense of style will ensure that the words and lines of his verse cannot be deleted or rearranged without ruining, or at least weakening, the poem as a whole. Keats's sense of style made him change Stanza 30 of "The Eve of St. Agnes" from "she slept" to "she slept an azure-lidded sleep." At the same time, a style that is overblown attracts the attention of parodists. In The Canterbury Tales Chaucer mimics the medieval romances in "The Tale of Sir Thopas"; Shakespeare parodies tragic diction in the "Pyramus and Thisbe" passage in A Midsummer Night's Dream; Robert Benchley's version of Dickens's Christmas Carol ends with a revised utterance from Tiny Tim, "God help us, every one." Commentaries on style abound. The most famous are themselves models of what they instruct. Among these are Horace's Ars Poetica (c.13 B.C.); Quintilian's Institutio oratoria; Boileau's Art poétique (1674) and Alexander Pope's Essay on Criticism (1711), both verse imitations of Horace; Buffon's Discours sur le style (1753), a work all the more remarkable for being written by a naturalist; and William Strunk and E. B. White's Elements of Style (3d ed. 1979), a charming yet practical primer for the would-be writer.

style, in printing

style, in printing, arbitrary rule or collection of rules governing the practice of a printer or a publisher in doubtful or disputed matters to obtain consistency. Correct spelling is a matter of literacy, but a rule prescribing the use of one of two correct spellings is a matter of style. The stylebook of a printer or a publisher is a collection of rules governing office usage in matters of style. It is not a substitute for grammars and reference works. Frequently used stylebooks are The Chicago Manual of Style, (15th ed. 2003) published by the Univ. of Chicago Press, the Style Manual of the United States Government Printing Office, Skillin and Gay's Words into Type, and the Associated Press Style Book and Libel Manual.

style, in botany

style: see pistil pistil (pĭs`tĭl), one of the four basic parts of a flower , the central structure around which are arranged the stamens, the petals,
..... Click the link for more information. .

style

1. a distinctive, formal, or characteristic manner of expression in words, music, painting, etc.

2. Botany the stalk of a carpel, bearing the stigma

3. Zoology a slender pointed structure, such as the piercing mouthparts of certain insects

4. a method of expressing or calculating dates

5. another word for stylus (sense 1)

style [stīl]

(botany)

The portion of a pistil connecting the stigma and ovary.

(engineering)

gnomon

(zoology)

A slender elongated process on an animal.