Edmund Burke's Prose style

 

Question: Write on Edmund Burke's prose style.

Ans.

Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797) was on Irish

statesman and philosopher, historian, and political writer. He served as a member of parliament  between 1766 and 1794 in the House of Commons of Great Britain with the Whig Party after moving to London in 1750. His prose style is characterized by proportion, dignity, and harmony.

By reading through his prose, we find the following stream of concern in his writing :-

Image and Symbol

  Most of his writing contain image with vivid symbol. The symbolic presentation helps us to find the realistic subject matter of his writing. 

Spontaneous expression: 

Burke uses spontaneous expression to explain any topic.  This type of spontaneous expression of his speech makes suitable amplification to the audience. For example:-

"Our enquiries are now come to their final issue:—It is now to be determined whether the three years of laborious parliament  research, whether the twenty years of patient Indian suffering, are to produce a substantial reform in our Eastern administration______"

Careful arrangement & balance part. 

When we read through the Burke's prose, we notice a careful arrangement to explain a specific subject matter containing a good balance with rhythmical expression. For example:-

"I THANK you for pointing to me. I really wished much to engage your attention in an early stage of the debate. "

Longest period followed by short sentence.

Burke's use of language is marked by both long and short sentence. In his speech on East Indian Bill, longest period are both preceded followed by sort sentence to relive the monotony. 

A part from this, Burke's writings bear a specific literature device and rhetorical device to conduct the reader attention and his thinking power to a higher level which has made his easy more unique and something more interesting. 

Here some of the literature and rhetoric device used in Burke's prose:-

Amplification

In literature, amplification means the writer is adding more information to a sentence. The hope is that the sentence will become stronger, louder, or more important. For example:-

 "I am however far from being persuaded that any such in∣compatibility of interest does at all exist. On the contrary I am certain that every means, effectual to preserve India from oppression, is a guard to pre∣serve the British constitution from its worst corruption."

Colloquialisms

A colloquialism is a word or expression that is commonplace within a specific language, geographic region, or historical era. 

In the writing of Burke's prose Colloquialisms indicated the setting of the prose in the context of time and place by establishing a historical era or geographic area.

Irony with sarcastic tone.

Burke is called the poet of Prose but in his Speech on the East India Bill, he uses some figures of speech Like sarcasm, oxymoron, simile, irony and so on, This is indicating Burke as a high quality of prose writer. For example :-

"We sold, I admit, all that we had to sell: that is our authority not our control. We had not a right to make a market of our duties."

  This is presenting the dilemma of irony with sarcastic tone in the ' East Indian Bill.' by Edmund Burke. 

Use of rhetorical questions:

The rhetorical question means asking questions instead of providing answers in a literary work. This is also a feature of Burke's prose style. For example:

"Did he cite this culprit before his tribunal? Did he make a charge ? Did he produce a witnesses?

Classical allusion & historical illustration.

Edmund Burke was a learned person which is why he has been able to rife his Literary works with classical and rhetorical allusions, "Speech on the East India Bill" uses classical or historical allusion. He studies a lot of books as a result we get the standard quality writing with reference to historical personality or incident.

Inversion 

There are another use of rhetoric device in Burke's easy which is called inversion. Inversion, also called anastrophe, in literary style and rhetoric, the syntactic reversal of the normal order of the words and phrases in a sentence has a common style of his writing. 

Epigram 

Epigram is a rhetorical device that is a memorable, brief, interesting, and surprising satirical statement.  Often ingenious or witty statements made Burke's writing more interesting to the audience. 

  Reference - Study guide, Lecture series, PRC foundation and text book.

To read Edmund Burke's "Speech on East Indian bill-Main concept.  Click here

This note is prepared by MD. Nafiz karim.( Founder of Writers360 Blog)