Exegesis Of English Composition

No date. Green cloth with bright gilt titling on spine. Tears to cloth at edges of spine. No ownership inscription. xii, 452 pages clean and tight. PREFACE. EARLY Synthesis, Analysis, re-invigorated Synthesis-these are the steps, occurring in this order, on which the successful prosecution of any art depends. The Art of Expression forms no exception to the rule. While early Synthesis generally receives, in the home and in the school, an adequate attention, it frequently happens that the second step, of Analysis, is either not attended to at all, or receives only a casual and unsystematic notice via the literature lesson. In such events, the synthetic progress of the student, while gradually improving, no doubt, as years and reading advance, can never reach the high level it might attain were a definite course of analytic study undertaken, accompanied by abundant exercise of re-casting and re-rendering character. Such a course would bring many benefits. It would widely extend the scholar's mere knowledge of the many devices, legitimate and practicable, which are employed in the written presentation of thought. It would quicken his sense of the beauty and the power of words as the instruments by which we both inform and move. It would sharpen his appreciation of the structural modifications through which clearness and emphasis and rhythm may be imparted to sentences. And the application of all this knowledge to his future efforts in composition would become an instructed, a confident, application, resulting no less in security of style than in the pleasure that comes to every craftsman who wields an instrument he understands. It is hoped that this book will take its place as a manual in which the student will find, clearly and comprehensively presented, all points of detail that belong to Style; and that these points will be closely examined in the copious and varied selection of examples that have been carefully gathered, from the very best writers, for purposes of illustration. If the study of all this is further reinforced by the student's own working of the numerous exercises furnished, it is probable that he will gain considerable power and ease in the art of expression. The Exercises are, of course, just as much suggestive and indicative as they are self-contained. They lend themselves to adaptation and supplementation to any degree. The examples, too, may be pressed into additional service as exercises; for instance, by setting a student to discover and describe the literary devices employed in one of the longer extracts, or to paraphrase it, or to learn it by heart. Briefly, this volume may be described as an effort towards resuscitating the needed, and neglected, study of the Art of Expression-which is nothing but old Rhetoric writ large. An intelligent restoration of this study will go far to counteract loose and uninstructed habits of writing, which to-day are very prevalent. In the field of literary composition, there are thousands of aspirants, working earnestly, but with little success. Their failure is due, largely, to the absence of co-ordinated and competent suggestion as to literary method, judiciously selected models of style for literary examination, and compact material for their own literary exercise, That these three desiderata have been usefully united in this exegesis, so as to render this book of real service to all who are engaged, or intend seriously to engage, in literary composition, is the author's very sincere hope. Size: 8vo.…