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BERTRAND RUSSELL’S PROSE STYLE

Russell was a great thinker, philosopher, mathematician, logician and above all a great literary
figure. He is one of the greatest masters of English prose. He possessed multidimensional
qualities and many-sided intellect. He revolutionized not only the subject matter but also the
mode of expression. He has in him a happy blend of a great philosopher and a great writer. His
encyclopedic range of subjects brought him high laurels and he was awarded Nobel Prize for
literature in 1950. The subject may be very difficult but his manner of expression is so lucid and
simple that even a lay man can understand him without any special difficulty. It is a rare
privilege which only a few prose masters enjoy; otherwise writers like Lamb and Ruskin remain
incomprehensible to a vast majority of readers.

In ‘Skeptical Essays’, Russell describes different facts about social problems and analyses the
complex questions of society. His style is quite pleasant, convincing, appealing, striking, forceful
and persuasive.

Lucidity

The first salient feature of Russell’s style is its lucidity. The author is direct, simple and clear. He
opens even a most complex issue with clarity. He is a reformer thinker and so clarity pays him
most. Complexity of expression leads to ambiguity and that defects the very aim of a writer like
him. Russell’s aim was to create a public opinion for breaking the demoniac designs of
ambitious men in political, economic and social spheres, so he presented his ideas with brilliant
clarity. He recorded his reactions and opinions without attempting literary flourishes.

Terseness

In style, Russell shares a few qualities with Bacon but despite the fact there are a number of
differences between them. Both are thinkers, philosophers, and logicians. Bacon uses pithy and
short sentences which are considered to be the capsules of wisdom. Russell uses long
sentences like Coleridge. Many sentences of Russell, too, are read like epigrams and proverbs
full of deep meanings. His sentences are pregnant with thoughts like those of Bacon. Russell
has one advantage over Bacon. The sentences of Bacon are small epigrams and as such they
have no link with each other. They suffer from abruptness and discontinuity of thought. But
Russell’s essays are well-knit and systematic. They have a continuity of thought.

Resource Person: MUHAMMAD MUSSAWAR (M.A English; M.A TEFL) 03032461219

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Allusiveness

Another remarkable feature of Russell’s prose is its allusiveness. He quotes from the Bible,
Shakespeare, Roman and Greek writers. This he does to make his ironical overwhelming force
more effective. His quotations are harmoniously woven into the texture of his thoughts. The
Biblical phrases and quotations lend sublimity to his prose and make his style scholarly.

Irony and Sarcasm

Russell makes frequent uses of wit and humour. It may be remembered that Russell’s humour
is generally not pure fun. It is ironical. Irony is a principal instrument of his style. He ironises the
so-called modern-minded people in “The belief that fashion alone should dominate opinion has
great advantages. It makes thought unnecessary and puts the highest intelligence within the
reach of every one.”

Analytical and Rational

Russell was a profound thinker. His style is chiefly governed by his sense of reason and not by
his sense of emotions. This is precisely the reason that his prose resembles that of Bacon,
Dryden or Aldus Huxley and E.M. Forster. He never grows poetic like Milton. It is never
ornamental like Ruskin’s prose. His chief concern is to convey his ideas to his readers. That is
why his prose style exhibits his balanced personality. He writes chaste prose and there is a
rationalistic approach to life.

Long sentences

Like Ruskin, Russell also frames long sentences, but there is great difference in their
approaches. In Russell, the analytical effect is more pronounced. He thinks deeply and
expresses the matter in a logical manner. This tendency to be rational towards a problem is the
cause of the formation of a sentence running into many lines.

Use of Rhetoric, Metaphors and Similes

Russell makes a great use of the art of rhetoric to emphasize his point, but he differs from
Burke or Carlyle in this respect. He does not make his rhetoric pompous and exaggerated. He is
up to the point and very subtle. He predicts the fate of mankind in the event of a Third World
War.

To conclude, C.E.M. Joad writes that Russell’s prose has “clarity, grace, poise, lucidity; the
pleasure of watching the operation of mind so completely master of its subject that it can
afford to be at play with it.”

Resource Person: MUHAMMAD MUSSAWAR (M.A English; M.A TEFL) 03032461219