"It would be Endless": A Word Cluster in Defoe. (8th June 2018) - Rogers, Pat
Abstract: Critics have long attempted to define the characteristics of the prose style of Daniel Defoe, generally placing emphasis on its plainness and closeness to common speech. However, very little work has been done to identify the precise constituents of his language. This article concerns one of his most widely used expressions, the phrase 'it would be endless', to effect transitions and define the course of an argument. The phrase is regularly followed by a group of words, verbs and nouns, which make up a cluster of key terms employed by Defoe in a variety of genres over more than 25 years. The combination is found 40 times in his books and 31 times in The Review, with close variants such as 'it would be needless' occurring 51 times, in books and periodicals. In Appendix I, a reference is supplied for each of these occurrences in both categories. Appendix II lists fifteen cases of the formula 'it would be endless' found in non-canonical items excluded from the Critical Bibliography of P. N. Furbank and W. R. Owens. Tests are applied to show that Defoe's usage is many times heavier than that of any other author of the era, as identified in scans of the ECCO and Burney newspaper databases. Five rhetorical purposes served by the device are described. It is concluded that in analysing the characteristics of an author's style, we need to give due weight to the incidence of stock expressions and seemingly commonplace formulas, and to trace any unusual cluster of words found in close proximity.