A COMPUTER-ASSISTED STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY'S PROSE (VICTORIAN)

Ever since Macaulay's first article appeared in the Edinburgh Review, readers have noticed his distinctive style. Many critics have attempted to describe it, but almost all of them have used impressionistic and subjective comments, none of which has been supported by statistical evidence.;I find that Macaulay uses consecutive sentences of similar lengths, a technique I call "doubling," to link ideas together without having to use explicit transition words or coordinators. The doubling technique is also used as a device for antithesis. My study shows that Macaulay's clarity is due, in part, to his high degree of repetition. His statistics for anaphora are well above any of the other authors I examined. A major part of my study focuses on Macaulay's use of parallelism. I categorize eight different parallel structures within and between sentences which allow Macaulay to link ideas, to add information, to establish antithesis, and to establish transitions for the reader.;My study finds significant statistical differences between Macaulay's early and late writings, and between his three genres. With statistical support, I conclude that Macaulay's later writing is less harsh and strident in tone. Longer sentences and fewer consecutive sentences of the same length produce a more diverse prose style. Initial repetition and redundancy are reduced, and variety increases.;Through statistical support and textual evidence of Macaulay's oratorical technique, repetition, doubling, parallelism, antithesis, and preference for function words indicative of the past and of people, this study contributes to a fuller understanding of Macaulay's style.;In an attempt to describe Macaulay's style, I selected samples of his prose from the Essays, the History, and the biographical articles for the Encyclopaedia Britannica. For comparative purposes, I selected prose samples from three other authors: Samuel Johnson, Thomas Carlyle, and John Stuart Mill. All the samples were analyzed by two computer programs: a concordance program and a limited syntax recognition program. The results of the study allow me to discuss Macaulay's stylistic traits in several areas and to offer quantitative support for my conclusions.