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see pistilpistil
, one of the four basic parts of a flower, the central structure around which are arranged the stamens, the petals, and the sepals. The pistil is usually called the female reproductive organ of a flowering plant, although the actual reproductive structures are microscopic.
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; romanticismromanticism,
term loosely applied to literary and artistic movements of the late 18th and 19th cent. Characteristics of Romanticism

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The overall appearance of the design of a building including form, space, scale, materials, including ornamentation; it may be either a unique individual expression or part of a broad cultural pattern.



in botany, the part of the pistil in the flower of angiosperms between the ovary and the stigma. The style is usually situated on the apex of the ovary, although it may be displaced with the ovary’s uneven proliferation. It contains vascular bundles, through which nutrient matter passes into the stigma, and loose vascular tissue, in which pollen tubes grow toward the ovules. Differences in the shapes and sizes of styles are associated with different methods of pollination.



in language. (1) A variant of a language used in such social situations as everyday and family life or in official and commercial affairs, and differing from other variants of the same language in lexicon, grammar, and phonetics.

Definitions of style are conditioned by the concepts of language and of linguistic norms. When the standard spoken language is accepted as the linguistic norm, style is defined as a variant of this language, and colloquial language as well is regarded as a style. However, when the norm has the more restricted meaning of correct literary speech, style is defined as a variant of the literary language. Classification of style varies accordingly.

When style refers to the standard spoken language, a neutral conversational style is identified, and other styles are marked, or colored, in relation to it. On the other hand, when style refers to the literary language, a linguistic fund common to all styles is considered to be the neutral layer of language, and marked stylistic devices combine with this common fund in varying proportions to form different styles.

Complex modern national languages have three major styles: a neutral conversational style (sometimes called a conversational style), a higher literary and formal style, and a lower familiar and colloquial style. Consequently, the same phenomenon can be named and described on various stylistic levels: compare Russian zhizn’, bytie, and zhit’e, three levels of the neutral word zhizn’ (“life”). This variety constitutes a great resource for the literary language.

Each style may also have narrower though less well-defined subdivisions. The literary style is used for official, commercial, scientific, scholarly, journalistic, and publicist writings, and the familiar colloquial style is used in informal language, student slang, and other types of speech. Each style is appropriate to certain social situations: the formal literary style to official contacts, the neutral conversational style to ordinary contacts at work and in everyday life, and the familiar colloquial style to informal and family contacts. In Soviet linguistics, all styles and stylistic subdivisions are sometimes called functional styles. Some linguists view literary speech—the normal speech of educated people—as a functional style and the style of literature as a whole.

The emotional and expressive shadings of language must be distinguished from stylistic divisions, although such shadings are sometimes termed stylistic as well. These shadings may occur within a single style and may elicit such value judgments as “lofty and elevated,” “solemn,” “neutral,” or “low,” as well as “coarse” or “ironic.” Owing to the historical development of languages, lofty terminology tends to be found in the formal literary style, and “low” and “coarse” terminology, in the informal and colloquial style.

Styles can exist only when a linguistic system permits a choice of linguistic means. Consequently, style is a historical category that originates together with the concept of a linguistic norm. The three basic styles have three distinct historical sources. The formal literary style generally originates in the literary written language of the preceding age, which is often different from the everyday language of the majority of the population. For example, in Russia, the formal literary language originated in Old Church Slavonic. In France, Italy, and Spain, it originated in Latin; and in the republics of Middle Asia, in the ancient Uighur language. The neutral conversational style originates in the popular language, and the informal colloquial style originates largely in urban colloquial language.

Individualized national traits in the origin and literary development of style are reflected in different interpretations of the concept of neutrality. In French, the neutral style has come close to the formal literary style. In Russian, on the other hand, the neutral style has come close to conversational colloquial speech. This is because the French literary language took form during the age of classicism (the 17th century), whereas the Russian literary language took form during the period of the establishment of realism (the age of Pushkin), at a time of differing attitudes toward the democratic elements of the language. In the development of languages, the breakup of stylistic boundaries is often an indication of a new literary or ideological trend.

The division of style into three levels existed in ancient Rome, where it was identified with specific literary genres and was used only in the formal literary language to designate actual objects. Examples in the high style were “warrior,” “steed,” and “sword”; in the middle style, “farmer,” “ox,” and “plow”; and in the low style, “lazy shepherd,” “sheep,” and “stick.” Generally a given object could be designated on only one stylistic level.

During ancient and medieval times, style was studied as part of rhetoric and poetics. In the 17th and 18th centuries, style was the subject of the three-style theory accepted in Europe and applied in Russia by M. V. Lomonosov.

In its modern meaning, the term “style” appeared in European languages in the first third of the 19th century owing to the development of the theory of historicism. The term was introduced toward the mid-19th century by H. Spencer and H. Steinthal. With the emergence of semiotics, such scholars as M. Foucault proved that style is important not only in literature but in every area in which language is used, including science.

(2) A manner of speaking or writing; an individual’s speech in a given social milieu or situation. The style of language is the aggregate of speech traits used in a given social situation, and the style of speech or of a written text results from the choice made by a speaker or writer from the stylistic means available in a given language. Consequently, the styles of language and of speech are the same phenomenon—style—studied from different standpoints by means of stylistics.

(3) The secondary level of any linguistic system, including that of an artificial language. This level arises when a purposeful choice is made among the system’s available means. The purpose of such a choice may be to provide information, evaluation, or instructions, within one of the three modes of language usage: semantic, syntactic, or pragmatic.


Zhirmunskii, V. M. Natsional’nyi iazyk i sotsial’nye dialekty. Leningrad, 1936.
Vinogradov, V. V. Ocherki po istorii russkogo literaturnogo iazyka XVU-XIX vv., 2nd ed. Moscow, 1938.
Stepanov, Iu. S. Frantsuzskaia stilistika. Moscow, 1965.
Budagov, R. A. Literaturnye iazyki i iazykovyestili. Moscow, 1967.
Vomperskii, V. P. Stilisticheskoe uchenie M. V. Lomonosova i teoriia trekh stilei. Moscow [1970].
Guiraud, P. La Stylistique, 6th ed. Paris, 1970.
Foucault, M. Les Mots et les choses. Paris, 1971.
Morris, C. Writings on the General Theory of Signs. The Hague-Paris, 1971.




in literature and art, the totality or unifying nature of the system of imagery, means of artistic expressiveness, and figurative devices characterizing a work of art or the aggregate of such works. Style also refers to the common set of features identifying this totality.

Modern theorists of style differ in their opinions concerning the scope of style, sometimes viewing style as the entire complex of phenomena of content and form, but more commonly regarding style as only a structure of images and form. Stylistics, or the study of style, emphasizes the profound dependence of form on the social, cultural, and historical content of art, on artistic methods, and on the artist’s world view. This dependence is not spontaneous or mechanical and is related to the relative independence of the development of style: as trends in art succeed one another, stylistic signs may be retained even when the content of art becomes altered, as may be seen particularly in the case of such styles as the Gothic and the classic, which developed over the course of centuries. Styles that had profound content during their development and maturity, such as the baroque or classical styles, may become antagonistic to artistic truth during their periods of crisis and decline.

The concept of style has several levels. Derived from the Latin stilus (“stylus”), an ancient writing instrument, the term, even in ancient times, came to designate literary style and an individual manner. Today as well, the term “style” refers to the aggregate of individual features in the works of a writer, artist, or musician; examples are the style of Michelangelo or of Pushkin. The term may even refer to a specific creative period, for example, Rembrandt’s late style.

The concept of style is also widely used to define the complex artistic and literary trends typical of various epochs. The nature, boundaries, and nomenclature of such styles (stylistic trends) vary greatly. A severe style typifies the representational art of ancient Greek classicism, and a flexible style, that of the late Gothic period. An affected style was typical of 17th-century French literature; and a pseudo-Russian style, of 19th-century Russian architecture. Also regarded as styles are those enduring features of architecture and representational art that are later imitated, for example, ancient Egyptian style and Chinese style.

Finally, the concept of style refers to periods in the history of art (historical styles). Examples are the Romanesque, Gothic, and baroque styles, whose imagery and structure have similar manifestations in different branches of art. The history of styles has both chronological and territorial boundaries. The styles of Europe have been studied most thoroughly, but the styles of Asia, Africa, and other regions are also of great importance.

The relationships among individual styles, stylistic trends, and historical styles have developed in diverse ways in different epochs. As a rule, during the early development of the arts, style was uniform, all-embracing, and strictly subordinated to religion and ideology. Within general styles, local schools may be identified, as well as such major cultural levels as formal and folkloric art. However, trends and individual styles are not always distinguishable during the early period; isolated examples of individualized styles are the style of the ancient Egyptian sculptor Thut-mes and that of the Burgundian Gilbert, notable for his achievements in Romanesque sculpture.

The individual element in style has developed immeasurably since the Renaissance. The styles of Michelangelo, Titian, and Shakespeare are as important as the predominant styles of their epochs, since the highest manifestations of style are not limited to its general characteristics during a given period. In addition, each new style loses some of its universality in comparison with earlier styles. The initial integrity of a style becomes diffused and fragmented. The style of the Hellenistic period was highly multifa-ceted and diverse in comparison to ancient Egyptian or archaic Greek art. An even more striking difference separates the style of the Middle Ages from that of later periods, during which the art of such masters as Molière, Bach, Mozart, Hogarth, and Goya cannot be placed within any particular style. In addition, contradictions within styles increase; for example, classical tendencies increase within the baroque, and romantic tendencies, within classicism. Such contradictions intensify the instability and mobility of stylistic boundaries.

In the 19th century, the clarity of individual styles and stylistic trends had a negative consequence: the decline of unifying stylistic elements in the arts. The tendency during the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century toward a new synthesis of the arts and the formation of an integrated style on a new foundation had only limited manifestations: the musical drama of Wagner, modern architecture and decorative art, and constructivism.

The increased development of individual styles, which was related to the achievements of 19th- and 20th-century realistic art, confirmed the multiplicity of styles as a major law of artistic development. Modernism, in turn, with its abundant and diverse tendencies, introduced an element of chaos into the stylistic configuration of contemporary art.

In socialist society, style appears in two aspects. Ideological unity and the unity of the method of socialist realism in Soviet art are combined with a diversity of freely developing artistic styles. This opens broad perspectives for a wealth of individual creativity and of national cultures. In addition, the need for artistic synthesis and for a stylistically integrated and aesthetically meaningful environment is increasing. This stimulates diverse quests for style and for unity.

Styles have varied manifestations in different historical periods and in different art forms. The Renaissance and classicism were clearly reflected in many art forms, but the baroque and rococo were most distinctly manifested in the plastic arts. The last two styles were the first for which a general theory of historical styles was developed. Such concepts as the baroque theater or rococo music have arisen by analogy to the plastic arts and are not universally accepted. The stylistic theories developed by a number of scholars have not been as widely applied to music and the theater as to the plastic arts, owing to the particular characteristics of music and the theater. Literary style occupies a distinct position, since the basic structural material of literature—the word—has itself a stylistic aspect belonging to a linguistic stratum.

Of central importance in the plastic arts is the concept of historical style as a stage in the history of art, occurring when an integral artistic system is developed with an inner (content-related) and outer (form-related) unity. Examples are the archaic and classical ancient Greek styles, the Hellenistic style, the Romanesque and Gothic styles in the Middle Ages, and the more recent Renaissance, baroque, rococo, and classical styles.

Until the mid-19th century, the concept of style as a diversified phenomenon was not accorded great importance in art studies. For example, the German art historian J. J. Winckelmann gave names to various ancient Greek styles according to their external traits, calling them the severe, high, and elegant styles. In the aesthetics of classicism, correctness of style meant strict compliance with a standardized ideal of beauty.

In opposition to this interpretation, cultivated by academism in the 19th century, the discipline of art studies, which had become an independent discipline in the 18th century, advanced the concept of styles as stages in the historically conditioned evolution of art. This was the view of the German scholar K. Schnaase, who was influenced by Hegel’s aesthetics. The German theorist G. Semper maintained that styles originated from historical conditions, predominantly material conditions. As a consequence, style was regarded as an expression of artistic thought or vision. and art history was interpreted as a regular alternation or succession of styles.

The Swiss art historian H. Wölfflin and the Austrian art historian A. Riegl asserted that style was the main principle in the historical study of art. However, the limitations in the methodology of these two scholars resulted in a concept of style as a formal structure devoid of clearly expressed thought content. This approach led to a schematized concept of style, which was expressed in numerous attempts to create an antihistorical contrast between two or more basic styles. Wölfflin sought to contrast the Renaissance and baroque styles; Riegl, the tactile (haptic) and optic styles; and the German theorist E. Cohn-Wiener, the constructive, destructive, and decorative styles. In reaction to such theories, some scholars have maintained that all definitions of style are unnecessary.

Marxist-Leninist art historians view styles as artistic expressions of historically conditioned types of aesthetic consciousness. In contrast to vulgar sociologism, which regards style as a reflection of a certain class ideology, modern Soviet art historians view style as a broad historical and artistic category, pointing out that diametrically opposed social and aesthetic concepts may be expressed in the same style at different times. For example, progressive emancipatory ideas as well as authoritarian and conservative views coexisted within classicism. But this does not mean that styles are not influenced by social currents. The major issues of a given epoch find varied expression in the major historical styles and depend on the artist’s social stand. Therefore, Marxist-Leninist art studies treats style as an objective category expressed through a set of formal features but having profound social and historical bases. Marxist-Leninist art studies counters the denial of typological structures with a practical analysis of the objective laws of artistic development. Under appropriate conditions, cultural manifestations acquire the distinct outlines of style as an ideological and artistic whole.

Art does not always develop a distinct style with a consistent inner content and a clear and pronounced formal structure. Therefore, the concept of historical style is most applicable to those periods and forms of art (architecture and decorative art) in which the regularity of formal devices and of means of expressiveness are most consistently revealed. Stylistic unity in the past, for example, in classical and medieval art, generally fulfilled one of the preconditions for the synthesizing of the arts—the predominance of tendencies toward the coalescence of various arts into a whole. An example is the medieval cathedral, which comprehended sculpture, painting, and other plastic arts as well as music, literature, and the theater.

The conflict of varying trends and the development of creative individuality that led to major cultural advances between the 16th and 20th centuries resulted in the destruction of unity in style. This encouraged many theorists of the romantic school to criticize the creative atomization of bourgeois culture that was expressed in the absence of style in 19th-century art. They contrasted this absence of style with the grand style, which was based on a total and integrated aesthetic perception of reality.

At the turn of the 20th century, the quest for a new integrity in artistic consciousness was largely influenced by an impassioned striving for a new type of style. Attempts were made to create stylistic unity in modernist art and later in constructivist architecture and design, which strongly influenced the style of architecture and art in the 20th century.

In literature, style refers to the distinctness of artistic speech in a work of art, an author, a trend, or a national literature. In a broad sense, style is the structural principle of the artistic creation that imparts to it a perceptible integrity and a uniform tone and quality. During the classical period, the word “style” referred to the manner of speech and the aggregate of lexical and phraseological criteria that were considered appropriate for each type of rhetorical expression. This was the early form of the three-style theory, later modified by classicism. In the 17th century, the study of poetic style became a distinct philological discipline, and in the 18th century, the term “style” was adopted by aesthetics. Goethe and Hegel related style to artistic realization and to the concretization of the basic principles of existence. Goethe asserted that “style is based on the most profound foundations of cognition, on the very essence of things insofar as we may discern this essence in visible and tangible images” (J. W. von Goethe, “Iz moei zhizhni: Poesiia i pravda,” in Sobr. soch., vol. 10, Moscow, 1937, p. 401).

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, style was viewed as the central aesthetic category by Wölfflin and by the German scholar O. Walzel, and was often interpreted very broadly as the artistic aspect of a cultural epoch. In addition, in the 1920’s there was a tendency in literary criticism to reduce style to the speech structure of a work, studied by means of linguistic stylistics. Soviet literary theory and criticism were initially influenced by both these tendencies, but in this case modern concepts of style were preceded by the development of the concepts of the creative method.

By the 1970’s, three views on style had become most prevalent. The first asserted that style as a manifestation of art should be distinguished from style as a manifestation of language; linguistic stylistics and poetics are different subjects of study. According to the second view, style is a category of form, whereas method is related to the thought and content of a work of art. Style is the aesthetic integrity of a content-bearing form and also the unity of the principles giving rise to form. These principles include relationship of the objective and subjective and the extent and nature of the standards used. Artistic speech, detail, and composition are formal components or bearers of style. The third view maintains that there is no real correlation between style and artistic method: some methods tend toward a certain style or even toward standardization, whereas other methods, primarily realism, have a stylistic diversity.

Of major importance in the historical study of literary style are the complex and shifting relations between the longevity of a style and the spiritual content that gave rise to the style. It is obvious that these relations are modified and weakened as a style becomes increasingly complex and formalized. For example, enlightened classicism used the stylistic principles of 17th-century classicism, which was already ideologically foreign.

From a certain viewpoint, literary development may be regarded as an increase in stylistic freedom, although this process is not consistent and is marked by shifts in the opposite direction. The grand styles (canons) of past epochs constitute a fixed pattern of universally meaningful principles of form and of the comprehension of reality; an example is the symbolic ritualism of ancient cult-oriented art. The poetics of ancient Greece, which created a literature distinct from cult-oriented, didactic, and learned literatures, assumed, although it did not demand, the existence of individual style as a literary norm. This corresponds to the concept of individuality, first formulated in Greek cultural thought. Typologically, this phenomenon, intermediate between a canon and an individual style in the modern sense of the word, is close to the degree of stylistic variety permitted in the modern European trends predominating before the advent of realism.

During the secularization of European literature, the medieval canonical styles were displaced by normative individualistic styles. This process took place after the Renaissance, a period when a tendency toward lower, colloquial styles hindered the formation of norms. The strong tendency toward a norm was retained even in the style of romanticism. The very uniqueness of the romantic personality demanded a uniform stylistic expression. Only in realist art did style appear in a barely perceptible outline, emerging from lifelike forms through a variety of details that dominated the object being depicted. This internalization of style and its oblique manifestation in realism were related to the unusual scope of realist art and to an enthusiasm for continually encompassing and comprehending more new areas and aspects of life. Inasmuch as the desire for unlimited comprehension was inseparable from the desire for a personal and relative outlook—a debatable desire—the artist’s efforts to free himself from canons became important for the first time. This was not only a spiritual and creative development, as in romanticism, but itself became a factor in the formation of style. Realist styles were primarily individualistic.

The development of the realist novel led to a revolution in style. The strong centrifugal forces in the structure of the novel demanded the regulating influence of an unprecedented variety of styles. Among these forces were the wide variety of character types, each of which required its own style. These characters, which could not be completely objectivized, escaped from the control of the author’s style. According to the Russian scholar M. M Bakhtin, the novel became the fulcrum of style-generating sources that were contrasted in terms of dialogue. The styles of poetry and drama were strongly influenced by the multiplicity of voices and styles in the prose novel.

Beginning in the mid-19th century, and particularly toward the end of that century, a certain stabilization of styles took place. It seemed that these styles had developed completely and that there was a total correlation between the author’s personal viewpoint and real life. Examples were the late works of L. N. Tolstoy and Chekhov, and particularly the works of Flaubert and I. A. Bunin.

Amid the complex atmosphere engendered by the crisis of realism and the emergence of the opposing trends of decadence and modernism, the great individualistic styles were displaced by subjective manners (in the Hegelian sense of the term). These subjective styles were devoid of selfless concern and faith in life and were preoccupied with their own originality. At the same time, the representatives of these styles, in the name of their respective trends, proposed to an epoch “that had no language” a single appropriate style that would be above individualism. In the theory of symbolism and later of futurism, an archaic idea arose concerning a special poetic language that would become the language of universal triumphs and actions. In reality, each of these trends succeeded only in developing one or two significant personal styles.

The revolutionary period in Russia, with its stylistic ferment that went beyond the boundaries of personal experimentation, engendered change, conflicting trends, and continuous polemics. This process was evident in Soviet literature of the 1920’s. At that time, the stylistic concept of assembling fragments momentarily snatched from an ocean of boundless reality was used both by such avant-gardists as B. Pil’niak and by great artists, as seen in M. Gorky’s sketches and in A. A. Blok’s The Twelve. The efforts of writers to explore the “exotic” linguistic viewpoints of displaced social strata led to the flowering of such peripheral narrative forms as skaz (seeSKAZ).

Twentieth-century realism assimilates and subordinates to its criteria the results of the stylistic explosion of a period of great change. In Soviet literature, epic narration of the classical type was based on a new social foundation, wherein an author’s style is enriched with a newly formed set of social, ethnographic, and publicistic styles, for example, in the works of M. A. Sholokhov. Realistic styles in Western literature selectively adapt certain abstract principles of the modernist schools; examples are T. Mann’s intellectualistic stylization, the stream of consciousness of Hemingway and Faulkner, and new first-person narrative forms.

Contemporary modernism is marked not by syncretism but by an extreme stylistic polarization. Highly refined styles that reduce the inexhaustibility of life to abstractions are countered by consciously incomplete styles that seek passively to reflect the spontaneity and chaotic fragmentation of existence. Resistance to change and a resulting stylistic breakup are increasingly characteristic of Western literature with its multiplicity of styles. Styles that are highly original but narrow in terms of their world view are painfully defenseless before parody and current fashion and before their own vulgarization. From their inception, new styles are accompanied by fear of stagnation and by attempts to surmount stylistic inertia. This engenders an atmosphere of agitated instability and impermanence. In a period of accelerated change, contemporary literature seeks to find and to consolidate by means of style the new relationships between the individual and the universal in art.

An important aspect of the stylistic development of prose is the constant interaction of prose with colloquial speech and slang. In other periods, the orientation toward oral speech was more marked. Thus, in the earliest period after the Revolution, a strong need to democratize the literary language was felt. Literary vocabulary and the syntax of the sentence and the paragraph underwent a rapid renewal. By the late 1920’s, a large body of prose had been produced in a language markedly different from the language that had developed over a long, diversified period in unhurried, detailed descriptions by authors certain of the conscientious and extended attention of their readers. In the new prose, the narration proceeded at a rapid tempo, abruptly, without modifying transitions from object to object and from impression to impression. The brief phrase, which appeared in various ways in the prose of the most disparate authors of the 1920’s, strongly influenced the prose of later decades as well as all written genres: it influenced the language of the newspaper feature and satire and that of the scientific and scholarly article. Linguists observed a return to these forms in literature “after a certain hiatus dominated mainly by calm, smooth, and correct prose in the 1950’s and 1960’s.”

New stylistic tendencies were related to a renewal of the narrative form itself. The third-person narrative form, which had become firmly established in the prose of the preceding period, was less frequently used. The impersonal author was replaced by a living, involved narrator; a great deal of the new prose was written in the first person. The critics saw in this trend a striving toward authenticity and a desire on the part of young prose writers to give the impression’of their personal participation in the events being depicted. Another development in prose has been a strengthening of the role of dialogue, which uses new words, primarily contemporary colloquialisms; examples are found in the works of V. M. Shukshin. However, a break soon became evident between the new lexicon in dialogue and traditional authorial speech. The reconciliation of these two trends is a vital requirement of contemporary stylistic development.


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Kantor, A. M. O stiliakh. Moscow, 1962.
Renessans, Barokko, Klassitsizm: Problema stilei v zapadnoevropeis-kom iskusstve XV-XVII vekov. Moscow, 1966.
Schapiro, M. “Style.” In the collection Anthropology Today. Chicago, 1953. Pages 287–312.
Kroeber, A. L. Style and Civilizations. New York, 1957.
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Problemy literaturnoi formy: Sb. st. Leningrad, 1928.
Wehrli, M. Obshchee literaturovedenie. Moscow, 1957. (Translated from German.)
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Teoriia literatury [book 3]. Moscow, 1965.
Likhachev. D. S. Poetika drevnerusskoi litratury. Leningrad, 1967.
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Sokolov, A. N. Teoriia stilia. Moscow, 1968.
Pospelov, G. N. Problemy literaturnogo stilia. Moscow, 1970.
Khrapchenko, M. B. Tvorcheskaia individual’nost’ pisatelia i razvitie literatury. Moscow, 1970.
Averintsev, S. S. “Grecheskaia ‘literatura’ i blizhnevostochnaia ‘slovesnost’.’ “In the collection Tipologiia i vzaimosviazi literalur drevnego mira. Moscow, 1971.
Problemy khudozhestvennoi formy sotsialislicheskogo realizma, vols. 1–2. Moscow, 1971.
Smena literaturnykh stilei. Moscow, 1974.
Walzel, O. Gehalt und Gestalt im Kunstwerk des Dichters. Darmstadt, 1957.
Seidler, H. Allgemeine Stilistik, 2nd ed. Göttingen, 1963.
Staiger, E. Die Kunst der Interpretation. Zürich, 1955.
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Wellek, R., and A. Warren. Theory of Literature, 3rd ed. New York, 1963.
Wilpert, G. von. Sachwörterbuch der Literatur. 3rd ed. Stuttgart, 1961. (Contains a survey of the history of the concept of style.)

G. A. NEDOSHIVIN (plastic arts), A. M. CHERNYKH and M. O. CHUDAKOVA (literature), and A. M. KANTOR


The portion of a pistil connecting the stigma and ovary.
A slender elongated process on an animal.

architectural style

A classification characterizing buildings that share many common attributes, including similarity in general appearance, in the arrangement of major design elements in ornamentation, in the use of materials, and in form, scale, and structure. Such styles are often related to a particular period of time, geographical region, country of origin, or religious tradition, or to the architecture of an earlier period. Often, a term that includes the word style (such as Santa Fe style) is an architectural mode rather than an architectural style.


1. a distinctive, formal, or characteristic manner of expression in words, music, painting, etc.
2. Botany the stalk of a carpel, bearing the stigma
3. Zoology a slender pointed structure, such as the piercing mouthparts of certain insects
4. a method of expressing or calculating dates
5. another word for stylus (sense 1)