Cultural Climate and Linguistic Style

This book explores the relation between culture and syntax at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. It acknowledges a shift of sensibility during the period from the sureness of empiricism to the doubt and uncertainty of idealism. Added to this, there was also a transfer from a pragmatic and extrovert "Weltanschauung" to a syntax characterized by a subjective appeal to the imagination. The analysis of particular syntactic features in a random selection of novels of the time shows, through comparisons between authors, clear differences of usage which may be seen to reflect current social upheaval.