Style Theory and Stylistic Abstractions
From Write
Connors, Robert J. "Style Theory and Stylistic Abstractions." Composition-Rhetoric: Backgrounds, Theory, and Pedagogy. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 1997. 257-95.
Contents |
Introduction and context
"Style Theory and Stylistic Abstractions" is from the collection Composition-Rhetoric, titled to indicate Connors's preferred term for the rhetoric particular to 19th and 20th century writing instruction in the United States. In the text's introduction, Connors argues that the more common label, "current-traditional rhetoric," is both inaccurate and too broad. "What we have reified as a current-traditional rhetoric," he writes, "is, in reality, not a unified or an unchanging phenomenon. It developed over time; the written rhetoric of 1830 is not that of 1870, which is not that of 1910" (5).
"Style Theory and Stylistic Abstractions" is part of Connors's division of current-traditional rhetoric into distinct periods. The essay documents the evolution of style theory from the late seventeeth century forward, showing the strong connection between style and "stylistic abstractions," a concept developed by rhetoric and composition pioneer Albert Kitzhaber. For Connors, the decline of attention to style in the teaching of writing is related to the insufficiency of static abstractions and larger changes in English studies, notably the shift of style from rhetoric to literature.
Content
Connors begins with the history of style in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, outlining the florid and quite bloated styles which were popular, as well as the long, long lists of figures and tropes which substituted for rhetorical theory. This was before the famous simplification of style engaged by Thomas Sprat and others.
For many teachers, style theory shifted radically from this idea of eloquence way to a method for controlling the abundance of figures, tropes, and ornament. Many came up with "static abstractions" which supposedly defined good writing--lists of terms, often very briefly defined, which they could demand students used. For example, Adams Sherman Hill used "clearness, force, and elegance."
Basically, teaching style in writing courses died out, and was replaced with two elements: (1) teaching style by reading literature and belles-lettres; (2) question of avoiding spurious ornament (276). This was in part an overreaction to the problematic nature of supposedly over-ornamented prose, but also because style was difficult to teach. It was easier to drop it. What little style teaching remained was either very pre/proscriptive (like Strunk & White) or inductive, learned by reading an anthology of essays and intuiting the acceptable essayistic style.
SAs waned after WWII, with "back to basics" movement, and eventually died out in 1975 or so with the introduction of the "new rhetoric." Their value was not that they accurately represented style or taught it well, but that theories themselves could be taught quickly and easily.
Consequences
Like much of Connors's work, there are terrific implications for writing teachers in several areas:
- Because static abstractions survive at least in part to this day in the form of groups of concepts or sound bites, the critique transfers from its nineteenth century context. Connors's indictment of abstractions can be applied to contemporary writing texts and curricula which call for writing to be judged in similar, even identical ways.
- As Connors concludes, we should be wary of "neat, comprehensive-sounding conceptual schemes that are easy to teach but that have no real contact with what students need to know in order to learn" (295).
- Arguably, teaching style has never fully recovered from calls to make writing plain and ornament-free.
Evaluation
I find histories of composition extremely valuable, especially if like Connors's work they include extensive original sources. Reading excerpts from older textbooks is very compelling. Like many of the histories of the period, "Style Theory and Stylistic Abstractions" offers pointed pedagogical correctives, blasting "neat, comprehensive-sounding conceptual schemes that are easy to teach but that have no real contact with what students need to know in order to learn" (295). The essay calls for, albeit much less strongly, a return to nuanced teaching of style in writing, supporting the revision of rhetorical approaches to teaching writing which began after World War Two.
A pair of reviews of Composition-Rhetoric published in 1999 (see Roxanne Mountford in JAC 19.3, and Sharon Crowley in Rhetoric Review 16.2) didn't address this chapter in depth. Connors complained rather bitterly about this, writing:
- Two reviewers of my book, Sharon Crowley and Roxanne Mountford, have chosen to devote four-fifths of each of their lengthy reviews to melancholy critiques of a gender thesis that informs one of the book's eight chapters. For each of these reviewers, the other seven-eighths of the book are decidedly minor.
Without a doubt, Connors was a polarizing figure, in large part because of his work with gender issues. His style is also to blame; Connors often made broad, blunt statements and qualified them with separate "I do not mean to say..." paragraphs or sections, challenging the reader to assemble a fully qualified argument from two or more parts. For example, see 283 and 285 in "Style Theory and Stylistic Abstractions." I'm not yet ready to toss Connors's work in the dustbin; I feel like I need to verify some of the claims about him made by others.
Connors's untimely death in a motorcycle accident in June 2000 likely silenced much of the discussion of Composition-Rhetoric which might have continued, given the differences between his work and that of other historians like Crowley. Nonetheless, the book is widely cited, and it does much to show the complexity of composition- or current-traditional rhetoric, though its critique of it is sharply muted in comparison to other scholars. For me, this is the significant weakness of the book, though "Style Theory and Stylistic Abstractions" cannot be indicted for lack of pointedness.
