Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 378

6th International Conference on Education, Language, Art and Inter-cultural Communication (ICELAIC 2019)

A Literature Review on Prose Study

Gangni Chen
School of Foreign Languages
Northwest University
Xi'an, China

Abstract—Prose, as a literary genre, has been scantly in between. In a broad sense, it refers to a literary medium
studied. This paper attempts to survey the relevant studies of it. distinguished from poetry especially by its irregularity and
It firstly examines the concept of prose so that a clarification variety of rhythm and its close correspondence to the
can be made. Then it surveys some perspectives of prose study patterns. According to this definition, fiction and drama fall
namely, aesthetic, linguistic and semantic. It is expected that within the scope of prose. In a narrow sense, however, it
the present survey will not only enhance people's refers to a type of literary genres opposed to poetry, fiction
understanding of prose but also promote the further study of and drama. And there are some features which make it
prose. possible to distinguish it from poetry, drama and fiction.
Keywords—prose; aesthetic perspective; linguistic perspective; Poetry is mostly characterized by its meter and stanza
semantic perspective which can strike reader immediately. And meter and stanza
are the two obvious ways to differ a piece of poetry from
I. INTRODUCTION prose. Sometimes poetry can be called verse, and this
depends greatly on the natural rhythms and sounds of
Prose is one of literary genres and it has undergone a language for its special effects (Burton, 1973:1). Most often,
long history from its coming into being to its present the first word of every line begins with a capital letter, even
development. As a literary genre, its development is
in the middle of a sentence. While meters in prose are hardly
inseparable from that of novel. And it can be said that novel
unperceivable to reader and stanza does not exist which
originates from prose. In seventeenth century, the novel
makes a prose passage seems to be shapeless.
started to rise as an independent literary genre with John
Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress as the pioneering work Fiction is different from prose in its imagination. It
(Wang, 1998:51-53).It is widely read among various walks includes characters who does not really exist, event which
of people, and differs from poetry in the sense that only the have never occurred and places which may not be real. As
well-educated people with certain knowledge of literature we read fiction our imagination is stimulated so that we
can have access to it. Thus it may be said that to some degree, become part of the action as it unfolds, sympathetic towards
it is because of such easiness of understanding and characters as they develop and aware of the world in which
comprehending that prose enjoys great popularity. Contrary they live. The story in fiction can be narrative by different
to its popularity is that the study of it is scanter compared person, first person perspective, the third person, while prose
with that of other literary genres, such as fiction, drama and is often concerned with the writer's experience, speculation
poetry. This directly leads to the fact that it seems that or their preference. The narrator in most cases is the writer.
everyone knows prose but knows little about it. Therefore it While in fiction, the narrator and the writer are different
is necessary to review what have been done on the study of it persons.
so that we know more about it and understand it better.
Drama is literature designed to be performed by actions.
Like fictions it may focus on a single character or a small
II. CONCEPT OF PROSE number of characters and it enacts functional elements as if
they were happening in the present, to be witnessed by an
A. Definition of Prose audience. Although most modern plays use prose dialogue,
For long time, the study of prose has been overlooked in the belief that dramatic speech should be as lifelike as
and even the definition of it lacks the precision and to some possible, many play from the past like those of ancient
degree is very vague. For the convenience, it is required that Greece and renaissance England are in poetic form. It is
a clear understanding of what is prose is necessary. mainly composed of the character's conversation or
monologue, which is sometimes called line.
Originally, the word prose originated from the Latin one
"prosa" meaning straightforward discourse. In the new
oxford American dictionary it is defined as "written or B. Categorization of Prose
spoken language in its ordinary form, without metrical There are different categorizations of prose varying with
structure." This indicates that any writing not in verse form different people. Generally speaking the influential and
can be thought of prose. It can also be termed in two senses: widely accepted ones are the categorization of prose into
the broad one and the narrow one as well as the one which is three types and that into four types. The representative of the

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Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 378

former is Alexander (1963) who categorized prose into three III. THE VARIOUS PERSPECTIVES OF PROSE STUDY
types: narrative, description and argument. The first type
refers to writing which describes an action or a series of A. Study of Prose from the Aesthetic Perspective
actions to tell a story; the second refers to writing which Aesthetics is the study of beauty in nature and arts (Ross
describes scenes, object, people, or even a person's feeling in et al, 1998:5). It is originally a branch of philosophy dealing
such a way that we can imagine them vividly. For the last with the nature of beauty. And it was established as a
type he remarks that it differs from the previous two in "idea, discipline by German philosopher Alexander Gottlieb
not about action or object: a problem is presented, an Baumgarten. The word "aesthetics" can be employed to
argument is built logically round it and often, but not always, mean the appreciation of the qualities perceived in works of
the author draws conclusions from his argument, giving his art or the mind and emotions in relation to a sense of beauty.
view of the question that he is discussing" (Alexander, Thus there are two factors involved in the composition of
1963:68). Besides Alexander, another one who holds such aesthetics; one is objective and the other subjective. The
kind of categorization of prose is Sheridan (1981). former refers to the aesthetic qualities which lie in the object
According to him, "in essence, description is spatial, and and the latter points to human being without whose
narration is temporal" (1981: 165) which well illustrates the perception it will be hard to define the former.
difference between description and narration. He also makes
it clear that sometimes in a piece of writing description and Generally speaking, the object which possesses the
narration blend so effectively so that it is almost aesthetic quality and can arouse certain emotion in human
indistinguishable. Tao is one who holds such view in China being can be called aesthetic object. It can be the concrete
and further explicates there are different forms of prose, such and tangible thing in nature as well as the artistic work
as letters, diary, reminiscent, traveling account (2002: 1). created by the intelligence of human being. Without doubt,
the various genres of literary works belong to the category of
Generally speaking, the categorization of prose into three aesthetic object. Prose as one of genres of literature, is
types to some degree has made its own contributions to the without exception aesthetic. That is, it gives reader pleasure.
understanding of the various types of prose writing, but the And the "beauty" characteristic, of prose is mainly embodied
deficiency it has lies in the fact that the different types of in its formal and non-formal levels. Thus to appreciate prose
prose based on such categorization may overlap. As it is is to recognize and enjoy the beauty both at formal and non-
generally known that narrative, descriptive and formal level. In this dynamic process the reader takes
argumentative which are actually three modes of expression initiative to discover the beauty (Zhu, 2002:178). And it is
always occur in the same piece of writing simultaneously. mainly the sound, syntax, which are the formal level.
Thus when this happens, it will be hard to decide to which
type a piece of prose writing should belong. The formal level refers to the various figures of speech or
rhetoric devices which are related to the phonological level,
Those who are the proponents of categorization or prose lexical level and sentence level. Mao illustrates some figures
into four types regard that prose can be categorized into: of speech at phonological level, such as alliteration,
narrative, argument, object, lyric (Fang, 2004:35). Their assonance, rhyme, onomatopoeia. At lexical level, he mainly
definitions of descriptive, narrative and argument are almost focuses on those figures of speech, such as metaphor,
like that by Alexander. In this categorization, lyric is defined zeugma, at sentence level, he mainly discuss parallelism
as the writing of feeling expression. Though such a (Mao, 2005). All of the rhetoric devices can be used to
categorization is apparently much finer and more delicate achieve aesthetic function. The employment of various
than the previous one, still some problems are involved in it. figures of speech as the aesthetic rhetoric for language used
Firstly it excludes some prose writings concerned with in this way will be more colorful and expressive; the images
scenes and objects hence breaches the "principle of created on the reader will be more vivid and impressive.
inclusiveness"-one of the principles of categorization
proposed by Ye (Fang, 2004:31). Secondly there is no B. Study of Prose from the Linguistic Perspective
consistent standard with respect to categorization for the
standard of narrative and argumentative is based on the mode With the advent of modern linguistics which has
of expression, while object and lyric are on the subject- established itself as a scientific discipline at the beginning of
matter dealt with in the prose writing. the 20th century with Saussure being described as "father of
modern linguistic" (Liu & Feng, 2002:94), Linguists start to
Due to the deficiencies mentioned in the above be attracted to literary work, this is partly because "it
categorizations, the present paper would like to divide prose represents data which can be accounted for in terms of
into four types according to the subject-matter involved in it, models of linguistic description and the other that it
namely character, scenery, event, as well as argument. The represents data which can not be so accounted for"
advantages obviously lie in the consistency in categorization (Widowson, 1975:7).
on one hand and on the hand there is neither inclusiveness
nor exclusiveness involved. In 1967 Miss Miles published her book entitled style and
proportion: the language of prose and poetry which can be
regarded as the earliest prose study from the linguistic
perspective in modern times. It can also be considered as the
earliest stylistic study of literary genres, for in 1969, two
years later, Leech, Geoffrey's book exclusively concerned

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Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 378

with the study of poetry style made its appearance. Miss times; rhetoric is mainly concerned with investigating the
Miles's book is attempted at exploring the style of both prose various techniques in prose which are aimed at achieving
and poetry. To achieve this end, the author sampled a corpus persuasion (Luo, 2006) rather than semantic meaning. To be
of 120 texts concerning both prose and poetry which range specific the semantic approach to the study of prose is
from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. On the basis of largely focus on the evaluative meaning.
the relative number of adjectives, nouns, verbs, and
connective, she categorized the corpus of both prose and In the history of linguistics, "evaluative" has long been
poetry into three groups: predicative, the connective- regarded as one of language functions on which linguists
subordinative, and the adjectival styles. Of the three styles, 'inherited Buhler's idea.'(Xu, 2006: 56) and different terms
her counting results shows that the predicative emerges as have been adopted for it which may differ from each other a
the chief one in that nearly half the authors examined wrote little. Jacobson (1960: 353-359) uses 'emotive' which focuses
in this style in preference to the others. (Hendricks, 1968:675) on addresser, this is the function by which language is used
to expressed the speaker's attitudes, feelings and emotions
The main attribution to the study of prose style made by towards what he is talking about, while Hymes names what
Miss Miles can be that for the first time the previous vague Jacobson called 'emotive' as 'expressive'. And this emphasis
description of prose style is replaced by something precise, of evaluative function of language has also been reflected in
for in the past people often resort to vague metaphorical the relevant studies of prose in which different terms, such as
description, characterizing an author's style as "crisp", emotion, tone etc. are employed with respect to this
"elegant", "ponderous", "formal", and the like without evaluative meaning. Although such studies are scant and
knowing precisely how they arrived at their particular scattered, lack of comprehensiveness and system, the
judgment (Woodman, 1973:587). contributions they made cannot be ignored. They indicate
that for the first time, the semantic meaning of prose is taken
Study of prose style similar to the above done by Miss notice of.
Miles is also conducted by Lanham in 1983. He
distinguishes noun and verb styles rather than predicative, In 1973 The Literary critics' attention paid to the
the connective-subordinative, and the adjectival styles. evaluative meaning of prose language was witnessed with
According to him, verb style is 'based on verbs, on action', Burton's the criticism of prose. In this book, Burton made a
while a noun style is 'based on nouns, on stasis' (1983:11). clear acknowledgement of emotional meaning of prose. To
Instead of building up a corpus and do the statistic work, he clarify his idea, he distinguished two kinds of word meaning,
seems think that the sentence can be the basic structure of one is reference, and the other is emotive meaning.
either noun style or verb style, such as: According to him, reference refers to the images and ideas
that are associated with a word, while emotive meaning is
(1) When we act in real life we often recognize it, either concerned with the feelings that are associated with a word.
at the time or later. (Lanham, 1983:17) At the same time, he recognized the importance of a
Sentence (1) is often regarded as verb style, while for the meaningful context in determining the two kinds of meaning
following sentence: which can be clearly demonstrated by his statement that
"little is gained by discussing single words in isolation from
(2) The connection between behavior in the socially real a meaningful context." (Burton, 1973:27) He also claims that
world and dramatic performance is a double link. (Lanham, there is variation of using the two kinds of meaning among
1983:16) different authors, for example, a scientist tends to use
It is treated as noun style by Lanhan. Furthermore based language more referentially, an orator more emotively. His
on the study of prose style at sentence level, he then turns to contribution can be generalized as a. the address of the
the prose style at the passage level. But his judgment and importance of context in determining the emotive meaning
assessment of prose style at the passage level seems to be a of a word, b. the awareness of emotive differences among
little bit subjective and impressionistic for lack of the precise different authors. In this sense, his understanding is quite
qualitative approach to support and testify his assessment. deep and profound, but his aims are neither directed at
What is common between Lanham and Miss Mille's studies distinguishing the various evaluative meanings nor at
is that both of them start with 'grammatical perspective' discovering other means which can achieve such emotive
(Hendricks, 1968:675). While the advantage of Miss Mill's meaning besides words. Fortunately the weaknesses in those
study over that of Lanham is that she forms her claim on the two aspects can be complemented by appraisal theory and
sound basis of counting work. Anyhow both of them appraisal stylistics. For the former makes a detailed and clear
overlook the study of prose style from the semantic level. In distinction of various appraisal meanings, and the latter give
the history the semantic level did have been explored, but not equal importance to all the various means conveying
as a means to explore the prose style. And this semantic appraisal meaning, apart from words.
focus is on the evaluative meaning of prose. Actually we will Stylisticians who study the style of literary works,
brief survey such study in the following part. without exception, as well, made their contribution to the
studies of evaluative meaning of prose language with the
C. Study of Prose from the Semantic Perspective employment of different terms rather than the word
Although the study of prose can date back to ancient evaluative itself. Among them Leonora Woodman is the
times in western country, the study of prose from semantic influential one. He compares two pieces of prose writings
approach only takes place in modern times, for in ancient written by Hemingway and Cooper and shows that one of the

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Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 378

variances of different author rests with their different choice 18JK0741) and by the project of Northwest University (with
of diction. In the former's work, adjectives used are sensuous the grant number 20XNFH024).
ones of simple description, depending on the external world
for their significance and verification, in contrast, in the
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