The Cambridge Handbook of Stylistics

This accessible and authoritative guide to the theory and practice of stylistics encompasses both traditional textual analysis and recent innovations.

This Handbook is an accessible and authoritative guide to the theory and practice of stylistics. Drawing on linguistics and related subject areas such as psychology and literary criticism, it encompasses both traditional textual analysis and the most recent innovations in computational techniques and cognition.Stylistics has become the most common name for a discipline which at various times has been termed 'literary linguistics', 'rhetoric', 'poetics', 'literary philology' and 'close textual reading'. This Handbook is the definitive account of the field, drawing on linguistics and related subject areas such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, educational pedagogy, computational methods, literary criticism and critical theory. Placing stylistics in its intellectual and international context, each chapter includes a detailed illustrative example and case study of stylistic practice, with arguments and methods open to examination, replication and constructive critical discussion. As an accessible guide to the theory and practice of stylistics, it will equip the reader with a clear understanding of the ethos and principles of the discipline, as well as with the capacity and confidence to engage in stylistic analysis.