Stylistics and Literary Criticism

This paper argues that the fullest and most convincing analysis of literary texts is informed by bottom up stylistics.Stylistics is a way to begin to tackle the large issues literary texts raise but without jumping to premature or incomplete conclusions.It is also argued after Short(1996)and others that stylistics offers valuable apprenticeship and access to otherwise difficult areas of literary criticism for those new to the field.Stylistics and literary criticism are seen not as exclusive or necessarily contradictory approaches but rather as benefiting each other.Stylistics for example needs to be unafraid of the large and genuinely interesting questions as well as to read with more of a sense of the history of the texts it reads.At the same time literary critics need to avoid repetitive generalisations about gender,power and the rest.Examples of best practice in bringing literary criticism into dialogue with stylistics are offered from the work of Sotirova(2011) and Gavins(2012).