Emotive Prose

The sub-style of emotive prose has the same common features as have been mentioned for the belles-lettres style in general. These features are, however, correlated differently in emotive prose:

• The imagery is no so rich as in poetry.

• The percentage of words with contextual meaning is not so high as in poetry.

• Emotive prose is a combination of literary and colloquial variant of the language that distinguishes emotive prose both in words and syntax.

• The language of the writer conforms (соответствует) or is expected to conform to the literary norms of the given period in the development of the English literary standard. The colloquial language in belles-lettres style is not a pure and simple reproduction of the natural speech of living people (gra’phon, for e.g.). If the writer sticks to the norms of colloquial language, he does it for stylistic effect.

• Emotive prose allows the use of elements of other styles as well: newspaper and publicist style, scientific prose style.

The Language of Drama

Unlike poetry, which, except for ballads, in essence excludes direct speech and therefore dialogue, and unlike emotive prose, which is a combination of monologue (the author’s speech), dialogue (the characters’ speech) and represented speech, the language of plays is entirely dialogue (except for playwright’s remarks and stage directions).

The language of characters is in no way the exact reproduction of the norms of colloquial language. A genuine work of art will never go beyond the permissible boundaries of the norms, lest the aesthetic aspect of the work should be lost. Thus, the language of plays is always stylized i.e. it strives to retain the modus of literary English, unless the playwright aims at using non-literary forms and expressions. Even in this case, however, a good playwright will use them sparingly.