Style

Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia - Cite This Source

style: see pistil.

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Style

Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia - Cite This Source

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; romanticism). 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.

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Style

Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia - Cite This Source

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.

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Style

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This Source

Style may refer to:

• Genre, a loose set of criteria for a category or composition
• Design, the process of creating something
• Format, various terms that refer to the style of different things
• Human physical appearance
• Fashion, a prevailing mode of expression, i.e. clothing
• Typeface, style is one of the three traditional design features along with size and weight: either regular, italic or condensed

Style may also refer to:

• Painting style, in art and painting style can refer either to the aesthetic values followed in choosing what to paint (and how) or to the physical techniques employed
• Style (manner of address), titles or honorifics, including Chinese courtesy names
• Style (botany), a stalk structure in female flower parts. See Gynoecium

Music

• Music genre, music that shares a certain style or "basic musical language"
• Style (Cameo album), released in 1983
• Style (Namie Amuro album), an album by Namie Amuro, released in 2003
• "Style" (2007 song), from the Tamil film Sivaji: The Boss
• Styles P, one third of the group LOX or one fourth of the supergroup, D-Block
• "Style", a song from the movie Robin and the 7 Hoods

Film and television

• Style Network, a Comcast-owned cable and satellite television network
• Style (2006 film), a Telugu film starring Raghava Lawrence and Prabhu Deva
• Style (2004 film), a Burmese romantic comedy
• Style, a CNN fashion series hosted by Elsa Klensch from 1980 to 2000

Literature and linguistics

• Cascading Style Sheets, in web design
• Style guide in writing
• Stylistics (linguistics), in linguistics, variation in the language use of an individual, such as formal/informal style
• "Style", a pseudonym of author Neil Strauss
• Style, a book by Sir Walter Raleigh

Other uses

• "Style", on a sundial, the part of the gnomon that casts a shadow

See also

• Stile, a step used for crossing a fence
• Stylus, a writing instrument

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