Everyday Canvas

Language Arts in Literature

Prompt: What, do you think, creates the most delightful usage of language in literature? Descriptions, dialogue, rhetorical devices, style, voice? Anything else?

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All of the above and then some.

Literature can be any piece of writing that has an artistic beauty in some way. What creates the delight in literature does not always depend on the subject matter but the way any subject is handled through language arts because form and content are dependent on each other.

The effect of any text is mostly determined by voice and style. Style in literature is dependent on the context, or the way the author through his characters chooses to speak to the readers. Some writers may be limited in the range of styles at their command or sometimes they flaunt their own style if they don’t fit their expectations. A newspaper article written in the style of a formal poem or a romance story written as a school report would be ridiculous.

Style of a text depends on diction (word choices) and syntax (sentence structure). Closely related are the rhetorical devices that focus on rhythmical patterns and sound effects.

Where diction is concerned, these concerns are significant: Whether the choices are simple or complex, Latinate or Anglo-Saxon, abstract or concrete, formal or informal, neutral, evaluative, emotionally charged, vulgar or refined, jargon or subject-specific, appropriate or inappropriate in the context, words used in unusual combinations or words to fit in with any particular society’s lexicon.

Where syntax is concerned, what is important is the choice or the mix of sentences: simple, complex, long, short, exclamatory, statement, question, command, or paratactic (sentences, clauses, or phrases placed together of without any conjunctions as in “Get outa here, heck, you don’t mean that!”

Rhetorical devices are the elements of figurative language such as imagery, symbols, similes and metaphors, plus the arrangement of sounds (alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia) and different sentence structures.

Voice may mean active or passive voice, but what I am referring to is the distinctiveness of the voices of each character or each author. It is their speech and thought patterns that stand out among others. Tone, choice of words, choice of content, and even punctuation adds up to a literary voice. A voice can be commanding, influential, pompous, funny, chatty, warm, or a combination of different qualities for one single character. To me, finding the voice for each piece and character is very important for an author.

Descriptions, dialogue, characters, and plot have more to do with the author’s imagination but they make up what is delightful in literature together with the above-mentioned aspects. As Gustave Flaubert said in Madame Bovary, “Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.”

May we all be able to make music to melt the stars through our work!