Analyzing Prose

A verb style? A hypotactic or a paratactic one? "Analyzing Prose" supplies detailed, carefully charted answers to these questions. It teaches a student of prose style how and where to begin, and explains the difference between words that tell how a prose style makes us feel but not much about the style itself. Value judgements constitute a fundamental part of any prose analysis, a necessary complement to descriptive analysis so the book also addresses such questions as: "What difference does it make? How do we connect style and behaviour?" We now inhabit an economy in which information constitutes the new capital. Prose remains our workaday method for communicating and preserving this new kind of central wealth. Understanding how it works is more vital than ever. And now we must understand electronic text as well as print, and the interface between them.