Periodic sentence

Characteristics

A periodic sentence unfolds gradually, so that the thought contained in the subject/verb group only emerges at the sentence's conclusion. It is the opposite of the loose sentence, also continuous or running style, where the subject and verb are introduced at the beginning of the sentence. Periodic sentences often rely on hypotaxis, whereas running sentences are typified by parataxis. Cicero is generally considered to be the master of the periodic sentence.

In English literature, Jane Austen provides perhaps the finest examples of periodic sentences. The opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice - "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife" - pierces to the heart of Mrs Bennet's character as well as the very difficult social circumstances of her daughters on which the story is founded. And the opening sentence of Emma - "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her" - similarly encapsulates the essence of the protagonist's character which drives the plot.

Decline

In English literature, the decline of the periodic sentence's popularity as identifiably grand style goes hand in hand with the development toward a less formal style, which some authors date to the beginning of the Romantic period, specifically the 1798 publication of the Lyrical Ballads, and the prevalence in twentieth-century literature of spoken language over written language.

Rhetorical and literary usage

Periodic sentences are rooted in the rhetorical techniques of Isocrates, who focused on a natural style that imitated how people speak. According to William Harmon, the periodic sentence is used "to arouse interest and curiosity, to hold an idea in suspense before its final revelation."

In his Handbook to Literature, Harmon offers an early example in American literature found in Longfellow’s "Snowflakes":

:Out of the bosom of the Air, :Out of the cloud-folds of her garment shaken, :Over the woodlands brown and bare, :Over the harvest-fields forsaken, :Silent and soft, and slow, :Descends the snow.

Starting with a succession of parallel adverbial phrases ("Out of the bosom," "Out of the cloud-folds," "Over the woodlands," "Over the harvest-fields"), each followed by parallel modification ("of the air," "of her garment shaken," "brown and bare," "forsaken"), the sentence is left grammatically incomplete until the subject/verb group "Descends the snow". A particularly long example is the opening stanza (lines 1-22) of Walt Whitman's "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking"; another is the opening sentence of Milton's Paradise Lost.

A well-known example of a periodic sentence occurs in Nikolai Gogol's short story "The Overcoat": :Even at those hours when the gray Petersburg sky is completely overcast and the whole population of clerks have dined and eaten their fill, each as best he can, according to the salary he receives and his personal tastes; when they are all resting after the scratching of pens and bustle of the office, their own necessary work and other people's, and all the tasks that an overzealous man voluntarily sets himself even beyond what is necessary; when the clerks are hastening to devote what is left of their time to pleasure; some more enterprising are flying to the theater, others to the street to spend their leisure staring at women's hats, some to spend the evening paying compliments to some attractive girl, the star of a little official circle, while some—and this is the most frequent of all—go simply to a fellow clerk's apartment on the third or fourth story, two little rooms with a hall or a kitchen, with some pretensions to style, with a lamp or some such article that has cost many sacrifices of dinners and excursions—at the time when all the clerks are scattered about the apartments of their friends, playing a stormy game of whist, sipping tea out of glasses, eating cheap biscuits, sucking in smoke from long pipes, telling, as the cards are dealt, some scandal that has floated down from higher circles, a pleasure which the Russian do never by any possibility deny himself, or, when there is nothing better to talk about, repeating the everlasting anecdote of the commanding officer who was told that the tail had been cut off the horse on the Falconet monument—in short, even when everyone, was eagerly seeking entertainment, Akaky Akakievich did not indulge in any amusement.

References

References

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2. Baldwin, Charles Sears. (1909). "Composition, Oral and Written". Longmans, Green and Co..
3. "periodic sentence". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary.
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5. Cicero, Marcus Tullius. (1993). "Cicero's Caesarian speeches: a stylistic commentary". UNC Press.
6. Harmon, William. (2006). "A handbook to literature". Pearson/Prentice Hall.
7. (2001). "The Routledge history of literature in English: Britain and Ireland". Routledge.
8. Chevalier, Tracy. (1997). "Encyclopedia of the essay". Taylor & Francis.
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12. McFarlin, Harold A.. (1979). "'The Overcoat' As a Civil Service Episode". [[Canadian-American Slavic Studies]].
13. (2006). "The Norton Anthology of Western Literature". Norton.