Stylistic Analysis of Krapf's 'I Came. I Saw. I Spun' Essay

This essay provides a stylistic analysis of Jason Krapf's prose piece, "I Came. I Saw. I Spun." It delves into the elements of style, including sentence structure, diction, and the use of figurative language to convey meaning, mood, and imagery. The essay examines how the author's linguistic choices contribute to the tone and characterization within the text, specifically focusing on the historical context of Julius Caesar. The analysis considers the writer's use of language, word choice, and parallelism to maintain a formal tone and chronological narrative. The essay also references other literary and stylistic theories to support its analysis, offering a comprehensive understanding of Krapf's writing style and its impact on the reader. The document analyzes the choice of words and the overall construction of the text to draw conclusions about the author's intent and the impact of the piece.

Running head: STYLISTICS IN KRAPF
STYLISTICS IN KRAPF
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1STYLISTICS IN KRAPF
In the field of literature, style refers to that element of literature which describes the
processes in which the author utilizes and plays with his words. It deals with the structure and
arrangement of sentences, the figurative use of language. In the essay that follows, an attempt is
made to conduct an assessment of the style of the prose piece “I Came. I Saw. I Spun” by Jason
Karpf. The essay looks into the style and diction used in the document in discussion.
The style of a document helps sharpen both the expressive and the referential meanings
of the writing. The elements analyzed during attempting a stylistic analysis of a provided
document are the compositional organization of the document on the whole, developments of
paragraphs, structure and rhythm of the sentences, punctuation and diction used by the writer
(Wales; Litosseliti).
All the elements dealt with in the study of style work in combination to establish the
concepts of meaning, mood and imagery of a given text. The main function of the style of a text
is to help in characterizing the speaker. The writer of the concerned text is termed good or bad on
the basis of his usage of associations or connotations to distinguish the concerned character from
the other characters in the piece of literature (Toolan). The style of the document concerned with
the tone of the text. It conveys the judgement made by the author on the character. The frequent
usage of the linguistic choices helps them to be wide ranged thereby aiding the writer to express
unique feelings and thoughts in a more precise manner.
In the given document, “I Came. I Saw. I Spun” by Jason Krapf, is found the use of the
literal style of writing (Karpf, 18-19). In this document, is discussed the history of the well-
known Roman dictator, Julius Caesar. The document is written using a lucid language to
describe the ascent of the political and military career of Julius Caesar. The article focusses on
the ways and methods use by the Roman emperor to gain the highest post in the Roman

2STYLISTICS IN KRAPF
government, the post of the dictator of Rome. The emperor claimed popularity among the Roman
citizens and used this very influence to climb northwards on the ladder of his political career.
The document discusses the fact that the path followed by Caesar to attain the position of the
supreme position of the Roman Empire.
According to the famous novelist Mark Twain, the writer should choose his words very
carefully so as to present the reader with the correct expression for his feelings. Words may be
interpreted in a number of ways and thus can be said to control the tone of the writing. The
words and their synonyms may be used in a variety of contexts and may hold different meanings
in different contexts (Singh; Konurbaev 67-75). The effect of a single word may be positive,
neutral or negative based on the context in which the word is used. The given passage uses the
dogmatic style of writing and contains words that bring out the positive tone of the writing. The
mood of writing in the given document to be discussed is serious. The document deals with a
part of the history of the Roman Empire when the Empire was under the dictatorship of Julius
Caesar. The matters dealt in this assignment are factual and historical.
The paragraphs in the document in discussion is sequentially arranged. The passage in
discussion has well-defined and chronologically arranged paragraphs. The writer had maintained
the chronology of events while narrating the life events of the Roman dictator. The sentences of
the passage are characterized by the log sentences. The writer uses parallelism to maintain the
rhythmicity of the sentences. The passage describes the policies that the dictator had adopted in
order to gain the acceptance of the masses of Roman citizens. The author draws a parallel
between the ways used by Caesar to gain the throne of Rome and those used by the military
heroes to claim the post of the president of America for Dwight Eisenhower from Andrew
Jackson. The words used in the composition are generally polysyllabic and thereby ensures the

3STYLISTICS IN KRAPF
retention of the formal tone all throughout the passage. The style of the author may also depend
on the use of punctuations. In the passage in discussion, the punctuations used emphasize on the
historical and political aspects of the concerned topic of discussion in the passage.
Therefore, in conclusion to the above, it may be said that style is the resultant of the
linguistic choices made by the writer. The analysis of the use of a language of a writer for a clear
and sorted effect and purpose may be defined as the study of the diction of a language. This
study of the use of language is inclusive of the word choice and the figures of speech.

4STYLISTICS IN KRAPF
References
Karpf, Jason. "I came. I saw. I spun." Military History 24.10 (2008): 18-19.
Konurbaev, Marklen E. "Neutrality in Language vs Neutrality in Speech." The Style and
Timbre of English Speech and Literature. Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2016. 67-75.
Litosseliti, Lia. Research methods in linguistics. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017.
Singh, Raj Kıshor. "Humour, irony and satire in literature." Internatıonal Journal of
English and Literature (IJEL) 3.4 (2012): 65-72.
Toolan, Michael, ed. Language, text and context: essays in stylistics. Routledge, 2016.
Wales, Katie. A dictionary of stylistics. Routledge, 2014.