Classical English Style

Abraham Lincoln wrote more beautifully and memorably than anyone in public life does now. So did Winston Churchill; so did Edmund Burke; so did many others, none of whom sound quite alike but all of whom achieved an eloquence that seems foreign to our times. What did they know that we don’t?

This book is the third in a series about that question. The first, Classical English Rhetoric, showed how rhetorical figures have been used to great effect in English oratory and prose. The second, Classical English Metaphor, did the same for figurative comparisons. This one takes a similar approach to more basic questions of style: the selection of words, the arrangement of sentences, the creation of a cadence. It shows how masters of the language have made those choices, and how the choices have put life into their writing and their speech.