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First published in 1987, Free Verse and Prose Style argues that both definition and description are essential to the establishment of stylistics as a credible academic discipline. The author addresses directly the central concepts with which literary and linguistic stylisticians are concerned and proposes new approaches to the definition, description, and analysis of both verse and prose style.

The work begins with a demonstration that the problems involved in defining and analysing prose style are essentially the same as those involved in defining and analysing metrical structure. It ends with the establishment of definitions of verse and prose style - definitions which relate directly to the perpetual processes upon which, it is argued, the very existence of language itself depends. On the basis of these definitions, the author proposes an analytic method which clarifies the distinction between 'period style' and 'individual style' and that between 'stylistic individuation' and 'lexical individuation'. It is demonstrated that these distinctions apply equally to prose and verse.

Authors whose works are discussed include Lancelot Andrewes, Thomas Browne, Browning, Coleridge, Donne, T.S. Eliot, Hemingway, Herrick, Henry James, Pope, Milton, William Perkins and Wordsworth.