ABSTRACT
Despite the etymological origins of the word, most philosophical contributions on style are not primarily focused on literary style—typically they are more likely to discuss pictorial style. Style has been defined as choice. Where there is more than one way of performing an action or achieving a certain goal, style consists in choosing to do so consistently in a specific manner. The definition of style as choice presupposes that one and the same goal can, in fact, be achieved in more than one way. In the case of literary works of art this presupposes that the medium, language, does actually offer a choice between different formulations that convey the same literary meaning. Style has been defined as signature. The conception of style as signature rests on the idea that in each period some formulations or linguistic variants are more common than in others and that each author uses language in her own particular way.
