The Evolution of American Expository Prose Style as Exemplified by the Easy Chair Columnists of HARPER'S MAGAZINE
type: CreativeWork
description: This thesis aims to describe the way American expository prose style evolved during the period 1851 to 1981 as exemplified by the Easy Chair columnists of Harper's Magazine. Major premises of the study are that style and meaning are the same, but that a writer chooses among various shades of meaning, sometimes on the basis of rhetorical strategy, and thus it is possible to make meaningful statements about a writer's style. The research methods emphasized synthesis of many different kinds of information about each author's writing, rather than complete reliance on impressionistic judgement or on quantified data. For each author and for the Easy Chair columnists as a group, the following features underwent scrutiny: content, role of author in society, diction, sentence styles, construction schemes, tropes, finite verbs, and general quality of writing. Methods for examining these features combined strict quantitative techniques with subjective observations which might generally result from careful, critical readings by educated readers. The findings suggest that there have been five periods in the development of American prose style during the last 130 years. The first, 1851 to 1853, saw Donald G. Mitchell in the Chair. This was the Decorative Period, when Mitchell filled the columns with aimless chitchat, gossipy trivia, and melodramatic tales, all served to the reader in long, rhetorically styled sentences piled with numerous tropes and construction schemes that amount almost entirely to excessive garnishes. The Easy Chair was chiefly ornate entertainment. The Rambling and Comfortable Period followed, from 1859 to 1892. George William Curtis occupied the Chair, from it handing down a wise grandparent's analysis of happenings on the American scene, often drawing a moral lesson, but in a positive, easy-going tone, using many long but simple sentences. William Dean Howells occupied the Easy Chair during the Elegant Period, 1880 to 1920. Using the column to promote and g…
abstract: This thesis aims to describe the way American expository prose style evolved during the period 1851 to 1981 as exemplified by the Easy Chair columnists of Harper's Magazine. Major premises of the study are that style and meaning are the same, but that a writer chooses among various shades of meaning, sometimes on the basis of rhetorical strategy, and thus it is possible to make meaningful statements about a writer's style. The research methods emphasized synthesis of many different kinds of information about each author's writing, rather than complete reliance on impressionistic judgement or on quantified data. For each author and for the Easy Chair columnists as a group, the following features underwent scrutiny: content, role of author in society, diction, sentence styles, construction schemes, tropes, finite verbs, and general quality of writing. Methods for examining these features combined strict quantitative techniques with subjective observations which might generally result from careful, critical readings by educated readers. The findings suggest that there have been five periods in the development of American prose style during the last 130 years. The first, 1851 to 1853, saw Donald G. Mitchell in the Chair. This was the Decorative Period, when Mitchell filled the columns with aimless chitchat, gossipy trivia, and melodramatic tales, all served to the reader in long, rhetorically styled sentences piled with numerous tropes and construction schemes that amount almost entirely to excessive garnishes. The Easy Chair was chiefly ornate entertainment. The Rambling and Comfortable Period followed, from 1859 to 1892. George William Curtis occupied the Chair, from it handing down a wise grandparent's analysis of happenings on the American scene, often drawing a moral lesson, but in a positive, easy-going tone, using many long but simple sentences. William Dean Howells occupied the Easy Chair during the Elegant Period, 1880 to 1920. Using the column to promote and g…
author: Rouse, Cherie
language: English
keywords: Comparative Literature, Mass Communication, Speech and Rhetorical Studies, Harper's Magazine; Exposition (Rhetoric); Newspapers -- Sections; columns; etc.
date published: 1981-08-01T07:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T02:52:59Z
provider: Loma Linda University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Loma Linda University