18th cent--emerged an individualistic-psychological view on style and stylistics. According to that, style bears the stamps of individual usage: every writer has a unique pattern of habits and abilities that form his style. Fr. Poet Buffon: "Style is the man himself." Late 19th, early 20th century--appeared a utilitarian approach to style remotely linked with ancient rhetoric. It became important to improve the style of a text and show the author how better express his thoughts. (Vallins, Lucas) There was also another tendency in that time--to regard style as a study of form separated from content. (Saintsbury, Bally, Marouseau, Aronstein, Deutchbein) 50s, 60s--rapid growth of interest in stylistics. Various conferences--USA 1958, Poland 1960 70s, 80s--methods of structural linguistics became very popular (counting words etc.) Present day--the use of computers has given stylistics a more exact basis. It seems quite
(pragmatic) approach to stylistics: the tendency to regard stylistics as an applied science it has been particularly strong in the English speaking countries. It was believed that the chief aim of the stylistics is to improve the style of the reader, to teach him to express his thoughts better (e.g. FGI 1081 Stylistics (I. Ladusseva) 4 G. H. Vallins books: "Good English", "Better English", "Best English"). The other prominent trend was to regard style as pure form divorced from thought (ideas, message). Speaking of foreign linguists it is the French Ch. Bally and J. Marouseau who have in th 20 century made a definite contribution, this was due to old tradition of interest in style in France. The classical words of classic stylistics are those by German scholars Ph. Aronstein and W
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