The Evolution of English Prose, 1700–1800: Style, Politeness, and Print Culture

Between 1700 and 1800 English prose became more polite and less closely tied to speech. A large scale feminisation of literary and other values coincided with the development of a mature print culture; these two historical trends make themselves felt in the evolution of prose. In this book Carey McIntosh explores oral dimensions of written texts not only in writers such as Swift, Defoe and Astell, who have a strong colloquial base, but also in more bookish writers, including Shaftesbury, Johnson and Burke. After 1760, McIntosh argues, prose became more dignified and more self-consciously rhetorical. He examines the new correctness, sponsored by prescriptive grammars and Scottish rhetorics of the third quarter of the century; the new politeness, sponsored by women writers; and standardisation, which by definition encouraged precision and abstractness in language. This book offers support for a hypothesis that these are not only stylistic changes but also major events in the history of the language.

• The first book on eighteenth-century prose style as a whole since Leslie Stephen’s two volumes in 1876 • Exciting combination of literary and linguistic approaches, offering new perspectives on written prose, rhetoric, and language change • Highly accessible study of the language of the eighteenth century and its major prose writers

Preface; 1. The ordering of English; 2. Literacy and politeness: the gentrification of English prose; 3. Testing the model; 4. Loose and periodic sentences; 5. Lofty language and low; 6. Nominal and oral styles: Johnson and Richardson; 7. The new rhetoric of 1748–93; 8. The instruments of literacy; 9. Politeness; feminisation; 10. Style and rhetoric; Epilogue - language change.

‘The Evolution of English Prose launches and sustains its major claims with unfailing lucidity. McIntosh expertly attends to the shift in ‘the primary textures of prose’ as they both register and influence the new ideal. His comprehensive map derives from precise topographical studies … is especially persuasive as an interpreter of grammars and dictionaries, which did so much to promote the new ideologies of decorum. In an academic climate that encourages blinkered polemics, McIntosh embraces multiple fields, perspectives and methodologies. The Evolution of English Prose deserves a wide readership.’ The Times Literary Supplement