Aldous Huxley: Prose Style

Huxley writes in a style wonderfully suited to purposes of exposition and discussion. It is a lucid style,
forceful and yet elegant. It is free from all kinds of obscurity. It is not too learned but is demands close
attention to be understood. The theme is developed in a logical manner. He makes no digressions.
Huxley is a persuasive writer with a style that is very useful to a propagandist. His style combines his
intellectuality with intelligibility. Nor is it a bare style. It is a sumptuous style and free from what
“surplusage”. Huxley often gives us crisp sentences and shows himself a master of the condensed
statement. Here are a few examples to show.

“Recognizableness is an artistic quality which most people find profoundly thrilling.”

“Hence the affirmations of the great obvious truths have been in general incompetent and therefore
odious.”

“It is extraordinary to what lengths a panic fear can drive its victims.”

Huxley’s style shows a capacity to write both seriously and sarcastically. He can wrote in a tone of mild
disapproval and he can wrote in a denunciatory tone, he can wrote in matter-of-fact style and he can
become forceful, even aggressive. He can say many things in passing, though he never loses sight of the
main idea. It is a style which the discriminating reader with any literary background not only likes but
enjoys. His style is distinguished by his intense concern for the plight of mankind and his zeal for reform.

Huxley’s style covers an enormous range not of form but of subject-matter. Apart from his purely
creative work, he has written learnedly of painting, music, science, philosophy, religion and a dozen
other topics. Yet, considering the breath of his interests and the magnitude of his output, his examined
as a whole shows a surprising homogeneity.

Huxley’s style did not make use of the autobiographical material on any big scale but it does make its
appearance and lends grace to his essay. Huxley had an intelligence and vast knowledge gained from
much traveling, immense-reading and constant meeting with intelligent people. He had a full mind and
an unquenchable spirit of inquiry. His essays are relevant to the situation in his time and ours. So his
style gives us a real view of the intellectual life of the western man.
Huxley’s style shows his discursive quality which is native to the essay from. In writing his essays he
could begin anywhere; anything stated him off, and he proceeded without any jerks or jumps to a
serious consideration of one of the many subjects which absorbed him. The word-management and
shaping of his material gives us most pleasure.

Huxley’s style is vigorous and economical. His style nearly always makes him easy to read he is never
trivial.

Huxley’s style as a life-worshipper urges the reader to explore all possible worlds of experience. He
believes that only a new religion can save mankind from the peril into which modern civilization is
leading it. This new religion must be one with the aim should be the enhancement of life.

Huxley’s style had matured his world outlook; he was seeking a unitive knowledge of God serenely; his
prose technique was not only adequate to the demand he made on it, but he exploited it with a
masterly skill.

Huxley’s style awakens our interest and sustains it so easily and imperceptibly that we get lost in his
meditations which mostly discuss the dual nature of man, man in society and man in solitude, the nature
of ultimate reality and the possibility of our becoming aware of it in our existential condition.

Huxley’s style in “Adonis and Alphabet” urges us not to take language too seriously. Nature presents us
with a complexity of material to express which words and sentences are inadequate. Language is serious
as in instrument, but it is a crude interpreter of direct experience. So his style rejected abstraction in art
as much as in science.

Huxley’s style when dealing with the various subjects does not take just a surface view. He goes deep
into every matter. He does not speak just like an amateur; he speaks with authority and seems to know
his subject almost like a specialist. He has a highly analytical mind and approach.

The range of Huxley's style is very wide as it attempts to evolve some kind of synthesis from the political,
ethical and religious confusions of modern times. As a humanist he had strong belief in the individual
but was obsessed with the evil of materialism.
Huxley’s gives evidence of what may be called encyclopedic knowledge. From the very outset he gave
evidence of his well-developed interests in philosophy, biology, sociology, economics, religion,
anthropology, politics, literature – ancient as well as modern – eugenics, painting, music, sculpture,
architecture and metaphysics. Even this list cannot be said to be exhaustive. His fund of knowledge is
truly amazing. And, what is more, he writes on all these subjects with great confidence and competence.
His writings are both enlightening and provocative.

Download Aldous Huxley Study Guide

Subscribe Now

Introduction

(SHORT STORY CRITICISM)

print Print document PDF list Cite link Link

Aldous Huxley 1894–-1963

British-American novelist, short story writer, essayist, poet, and playwright. See also Aldous Huxley
Criticism (Volume 1), and Volumes 3, 4, 5, 8, 18.

Huxley's short stories, all written between 1920 and 1930, cover a relatively short period in his prolific
forty-seven-year writing career. The author celebrated for “novels of ideas,” in particular the
“dystopian” novel Brave New World, is little remembered today for his short fiction, but they do reflect
in less complex structure many of the concerns he developed in his mature works. These include the
search for order in chaos; the fragmentation, decay, and lack of wholeness and values in postwar
society; the hostility of a world that thwarts ambition and expectations; and the artist's quest for
identity. Most of the stories are witty and satirize modern values, particularly among the upper class,
and display a sometimes bitter skepticism at the meaningless of life. While they were received fairly well
during his life, later scholars of Huxley's work have generally ignored the stories, as it is agreed that the
author's important ideas and concerns are given a far more eloquent voice in his novels. However, the
stories continue to be appreciated for their wry humor, brilliant observation, sophisticated literary style,
and skeptical view of humanity in post-World War I England.

Biographical Information

Huxley was born in 1894 in Surrey, England, to an intellectually prominent family. His father, Leonard,
was a respected essayist and editor, and his grandfather, Thomas Henry Huxley, was a leading biologist
and proponent of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. He was also the great-nephew of the poet
Matthew Arnold, the grandson of the Reverend Thomas Arnold, and the nephew of the novelist Mrs.
Humphrey Ward. Huxley's brother, Julian, would eventually become a noted biologist and his half-
brother, Andrew, would win the 1963 Nobel Prize for his work in physiology. The early years in Huxley's
life were passed happily in a stimulating, intellectual household. He was known as a sensitive boy and
one who showed a mystical bent early on. But a series of tragedies befell Huxley in his teenage years. In
1908 his mother died of cancer, two years later he contracted an eye disease that permanently
damaged his sight, and in 1914 his brother Trevenen committed suicide. These events had a profound
effect on the concerns and mood of Huxley's writing.

While at Oxford from 1913 to 1916 Huxley started editing literary journals and began writing. In 1916,
he published his first volume of poetry. He married a young Belgian refugee, Maria Nys, in 1919, and a
year later his son, Matthew, was born. That year he also published his first volume of stories, Limbo to
mild critical acclaim; two years later he produced another volume, Mortal Coils. Huxley gained wider
recognition with his novel Crome Yellow; by 1923 his reputation was sufficiently secure that Chatto and
Windus agreed to publish two of his works of fiction each year for the next three years. In 1923 Huxley
and his wife moved to Italy, where they lived for four years. While abroad he wrote and published the
novels Antic Hay and Those Barren Leaves and two volumes of short fiction, Little Mexican and Other
Stories and Two or Three Graces and Other Stories. Huxley's volume of stories, Brief Candles, appeared
in 1930, two years after the release of his highly acclaimed novel of ideas, Point Counter Point, which
secured his reputation as one of the important literary figures of his day.

After 1930, Huxley's work began to reflect his increasing concern with humanistic ideas and ideals as
well as politics. This is most vividly shown in Brave New World, his ironic satire of a utopia, which warns
us against the dangers of political manipulation and technological development. In the late 1930s Huxley
moved to California, where he became a screenwriter and developed his interest in mysticism, Eastern
thought, and mind-altering drugs; he examines his...
(The entire section is 27,475 words.)

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Aldous Huxley Homework Help Questions

How do you pronounce Aldous Huxley's name?

Aldous Huxley was a respected author of science-fiction and other works. He was British, so his name
follows the conventions of British pronunciation instead of American pronunciation. His first...

What is a critical analysis of Aldous Huxley, who is he, etc.

Very much the icononclast, Aldous Huxley used his scientific nature to analyze sociological conditions.
His brother, the zoologist Julian Huxley, wrote that for Aldous mysticism and science...

Give a critical analysis of Aldous Huxley.

It is interesting to reflect that in spite of the way that Huxley is now so much a part of many curricula,
when his work was first published it was often banned from appearing in schools and also...

What does the following quotation mean:"There is only one corner of the universe that you can be...

So many of us focus on what we can change or improve in others. But too often, we fail to look within
to see what we might change or improve about ourselves. Can we truly change another person? ...

Help me analyze the following quote: "Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man...

One of the most powerful educators in a person's life is experience. When someone gives advice that
they stand firmly behind, they frequently say, "I speaketh from experience." Many people define...

VIEW MORE QUESTIONS »

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Ask a Question

Enter your question for Aldous Huxley

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After Many a Summer Dies the Swan

by Aldous Huxley
Ape and Essence

by Aldous Huxley

Brave New World

by Aldous Huxley

Crome Yellow

by Aldous Huxley

Eyeless in Gaza

by Aldous Huxley

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Introduction

(SHORT STORY CRITICISM)

print Print document PDF list Cite link Link

Aldous Huxley 1894–-1963

British-American novelist, short story writer, essayist, poet, and playwright. See also Aldous Huxley
Criticism (Volume 1), and Volumes 3, 4, 5, 8, 18.

Huxley's short stories, all written between 1920 and 1930, cover a relatively short period in his prolific
forty-seven-year writing career. The author celebrated for “novels of ideas,” in particular the
“dystopian” novel Brave New World, is little remembered today for his short fiction, but they do reflect
in less complex structure many of the concerns he developed in his mature works. These include the
search for order in chaos; the fragmentation, decay, and lack of wholeness and values in postwar
society; the hostility of a world that thwarts ambition and expectations; and the artist's quest for
identity. Most of the stories are witty and satirize modern values, particularly among the upper class,
and display a sometimes bitter skepticism at the meaningless of life. While they were received fairly well
during his life, later scholars of Huxley's work have generally ignored the stories, as it is agreed that the
author's important ideas and concerns are given a far more eloquent voice in his novels. However, the
stories continue to be appreciated for their wry humor, brilliant observation, sophisticated literary style,
and skeptical view of humanity in post-World War I England.

Biographical Information

Huxley was born in 1894 in Surrey, England, to an intellectually prominent family. His father, Leonard,
was a respected essayist and editor, and his grandfather, Thomas Henry Huxley, was a leading biologist
and proponent of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. He was also the great-nephew of the poet
Matthew Arnold, the grandson of the Reverend Thomas Arnold, and the nephew of the novelist Mrs.
Humphrey Ward. Huxley's brother, Julian, would eventually become a noted biologist and his half-
brother, Andrew, would win the 1963 Nobel Prize for his work in physiology. The early years in Huxley's
life were passed happily in a stimulating, intellectual household. He was known as a sensitive boy and
one who showed a mystical bent early on. But a series of tragedies befell Huxley in his teenage years. In
1908 his mother died of cancer, two years later he contracted an eye disease that permanently
damaged his sight, and in 1914 his brother Trevenen committed suicide. These events had a profound
effect on the concerns and mood of Huxley's writing.

While at Oxford from 1913 to 1916 Huxley started editing literary journals and began writing. In 1916,
he published his first volume of poetry. He married a young Belgian refugee, Maria Nys, in 1919, and a
year later his son, Matthew, was born. That year he also published his first volume of stories, Limbo to
mild critical acclaim; two years later he produced another volume, Mortal Coils. Huxley gained wider
recognition with his novel Crome Yellow; by 1923 his reputation was sufficiently secure that Chatto and
Windus agreed to publish two of his works of fiction each year for the next three years. In 1923 Huxley
and his wife moved to Italy, where they lived for four years. While abroad he wrote and published the
novels Antic Hay and Those Barren Leaves and two volumes of short fiction, Little Mexican and Other
Stories and Two or Three Graces and Other Stories. Huxley's volume of stories, Brief Candles, appeared
in 1930, two years after the release of his highly acclaimed novel of ideas, Point Counter Point, which
secured his reputation as one of the important literary figures of his day.

After 1930, Huxley's work began to reflect his increasing concern with humanistic ideas and ideals as
well as politics. This is most vividly shown in Brave New World, his ironic satire of a utopia, which warns
us against the dangers of political manipulation and technological development. In the late 1930s Huxley
moved to California, where he became a screenwriter and developed his interest in mysticism, Eastern
thought, and mind-altering drugs; he examines his...

(The entire section is 27,475 words.)

Aldous Huxley: Prose Style

Huxley writes in a style wonderfully suited to purposes of exposition and discussion. It is a lucid style,
forceful and yet elegant. It is free from all kinds of obscurity. It is not too learned but is demands close
attention to be understood. The theme is developed in a logical manner. He makes no digressions.
Huxley is a persuasive writer with a style that is very useful to a propagandist. His style combines his
intellectuality with intelligibility. Nor is it a bare style. It is a sumptuous style and free from what
“surplusage”. Huxley often gives us crisp sentences and shows himself a master of the condensed
statement. Here are a few examples to show.
“Recognizableness is an artistic quality which most people find profoundly thrilling.”

“Hence the affirmations of the great obvious truths have been in general incompetent and therefore
odious.”

“It is extraordinary to what lengths a panic fear can drive its victims.”

Huxley’s style shows a capacity to write both seriously and sarcastically. He can wrote in a tone of mild
disapproval and he can wrote in a denunciatory tone, he can wrote in matter-of-fact style and he can
become forceful, even aggressive. He can say many things in passing, though he never loses sight of the
main idea. It is a style which the discriminating reader with any literary background not only likes but
enjoys. His style is distinguished by his intense concern for the plight of mankind and his zeal for reform.

Huxley’s style covers an enormous range not of form but of subject-matter. Apart from his purely
creative work, he has written learnedly of painting, music, science, philosophy, religion and a dozen
other topics. Yet, considering the breath of his interests and the magnitude of his output, his examined
as a whole shows a surprising homogeneity.

Huxley’s style did not make use of the autobiographical material on any big scale but it does make its
appearance and lends grace to his essay. Huxley had an intelligence and vast knowledge gained from
much traveling, immense-reading and constant meeting with intelligent people. He had a full mind and
an unquenchable spirit of inquiry. His essays are relevant to the situation in his time and ours. So his
style gives us a real view of the intellectual life of the western man.

Huxley’s style shows his discursive quality which is native to the essay from. In writing his essays he
could begin anywhere; anything stated him off, and he proceeded without any jerks or jumps to a
serious consideration of one of the many subjects which absorbed him. The word-management and
shaping of his material gives us most pleasure.

Huxley’s style is vigorous and economical. His style nearly always makes him easy to read he is never
trivial.
Huxley’s style as a life-worshipper urges the reader to explore all possible worlds of experience. He
believes that only a new religion can save mankind from the peril into which modern civilization is
leading it. This new religion must be one with the aim should be the enhancement of life.

Huxley’s style had matured his world outlook; he was seeking a unitive knowledge of God serenely; his
prose technique was not only adequate to the demand he made on it, but he exploited it with a
masterly skill.

Huxley’s style awakens our interest and sustains it so easily and imperceptibly that we get lost in his
meditations which mostly discuss the dual nature of man, man in society and man in solitude, the nature
of ultimate reality and the possibility of our becoming aware of it in our existential condition.

Huxley’s style in “Adonis and Alphabet” urges us not to take language too seriously. Nature presents us
with a complexity of material to express which words and sentences are inadequate. Language is serious
as in instrument, but it is a crude interpreter of direct experience. So his style rejected abstraction in art
as much as in science.

Huxley’s style when dealing with the various subjects does not take just a surface view. He goes deep
into every matter. He does not speak just like an amateur; he speaks with authority and seems to know
his subject almost like a specialist. He has a highly analytical mind and approach.

The range of Huxley's style is very wide as it attempts to evolve some kind of synthesis from the political,
ethical and religious confusions of modern times. As a humanist he had strong belief in the individual
but was obsessed with the evil of materialism.

Huxley’s gives evidence of what may be called encyclopedic knowledge. From the very outset he gave
evidence of his well-developed interests in philosophy, biology, sociology, economics, religion,
anthropology, politics, literature – ancient as well as modern – eugenics, painting, music, sculpture,
architecture and metaphysics. Even this list cannot be said to be exhaustive. His fund of knowledge is
truly amazing. And, what is more, he writes on all these subjects with great confidence and competence.
His writings are both enlightening and provocative.
Download Aldous Huxley Study Guide

Subscribe Now

Introduction

(SHORT STORY CRITICISM)

print Print document PDF list Cite link Link

Aldous Huxley 1894–-1963

British-American novelist, short story writer, essayist, poet, and playwright. See also Aldous Huxley
Criticism (Volume 1), and Volumes 3, 4, 5, 8, 18.

Huxley's short stories, all written between 1920 and 1930, cover a relatively short period in his prolific
forty-seven-year writing career. The author celebrated for “novels of ideas,” in particular the
“dystopian” novel Brave New World, is little remembered today for his short fiction, but they do reflect
in less complex structure many of the concerns he developed in his mature works. These include the
search for order in chaos; the fragmentation, decay, and lack of wholeness and values in postwar
society; the hostility of a world that thwarts ambition and expectations; and the artist's quest for
identity. Most of the stories are witty and satirize modern values, particularly among the upper class,
and display a sometimes bitter skepticism at the meaningless of life. While they were received fairly well
during his life, later scholars of Huxley's work have generally ignored the stories, as it is agreed that the
author's important ideas and concerns are given a far more eloquent voice in his novels. However, the
stories continue to be appreciated for their wry humor, brilliant observation, sophisticated literary style,
and skeptical view of humanity in post-World War I England.

Biographical Information

Huxley was born in 1894 in Surrey, England, to an intellectually prominent family. His father, Leonard,
was a respected essayist and editor, and his grandfather, Thomas Henry Huxley, was a leading biologist
and proponent of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. He was also the great-nephew of the poet
Matthew Arnold, the grandson of the Reverend Thomas Arnold, and the nephew of the novelist Mrs.
Humphrey Ward. Huxley's brother, Julian, would eventually become a noted biologist and his half-
brother, Andrew, would win the 1963 Nobel Prize for his work in physiology. The early years in Huxley's
life were passed happily in a stimulating, intellectual household. He was known as a sensitive boy and
one who showed a mystical bent early on. But a series of tragedies befell Huxley in his teenage years. In
1908 his mother died of cancer, two years later he contracted an eye disease that permanently
damaged his sight, and in 1914 his brother Trevenen committed suicide. These events had a profound
effect on the concerns and mood of Huxley's writing.

While at Oxford from 1913 to 1916 Huxley started editing literary journals and began writing. In 1916,
he published his first volume of poetry. He married a young Belgian refugee, Maria Nys, in 1919, and a
year later his son, Matthew, was born. That year he also published his first volume of stories, Limbo to
mild critical acclaim; two years later he produced another volume, Mortal Coils. Huxley gained wider
recognition with his novel Crome Yellow; by 1923 his reputation was sufficiently secure that Chatto and
Windus agreed to publish two of his works of fiction each year for the next three years. In 1923 Huxley
and his wife moved to Italy, where they lived for four years. While abroad he wrote and published the
novels Antic Hay and Those Barren Leaves and two volumes of short fiction, Little Mexican and Other
Stories and Two or Three Graces and Other Stories. Huxley's volume of stories, Brief Candles, appeared
in 1930, two years after the release of his highly acclaimed novel of ideas, Point Counter Point, which
secured his reputation as one of the important literary figures of his day.

After 1930, Huxley's work began to reflect his increasing concern with humanistic ideas and ideals as
well as politics. This is most vividly shown in Brave New World, his ironic satire of a utopia, which warns
us against the dangers of political manipulation and technological development. In the late 1930s Huxley
moved to California, where he became a screenwriter and developed his interest in mysticism, Eastern
thought, and mind-altering drugs; he examines his...

(The entire section is 27,475 words.)

Unlock This Study Guide Now

Start your 48-hour free trial to unlock this Aldous Huxley study guide and get instant access to the
following:

Biography
Critical Essays

Analysis

9 Homework Help Questions with Expert Answers

You'll also get access to more than 30,000 additional guides and 300,000 Homework Help questions
answered by our experts.

Start 48-Hour Free Trial to Unlock

Already a member? Log in here.

NEXT:

Huxley, Aldous (Vol. 1)

PREVIOUS:

Aldous Huxley World Li...

Aldous Huxley Homework Help Questions

How do you pronounce Aldous Huxley's name?

Aldous Huxley was a respected author of science-fiction and other works. He was British, so his name
follows the conventions of British pronunciation instead of American pronunciation. His first...

What is a critical analysis of Aldous Huxley, who is he, etc.

Very much the icononclast, Aldous Huxley used his scientific nature to analyze sociological conditions.
His brother, the zoologist Julian Huxley, wrote that for Aldous mysticism and science...

Give a critical analysis of Aldous Huxley.

It is interesting to reflect that in spite of the way that Huxley is now so much a part of many curricula,
when his work was first published it was often banned from appearing in schools and also...
What does the following quotation mean:"There is only one corner of the universe that you can be...

So many of us focus on what we can change or improve in others. But too often, we fail to look within
to see what we might change or improve about ourselves. Can we truly change another person? ...

Help me analyze the following quote: "Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man...

One of the most powerful educators in a person's life is experience. When someone gives advice that
they stand firmly behind, they frequently say, "I speaketh from experience." Many people define...

VIEW MORE QUESTIONS »

Ask a question

Ask a Question

Enter your question for Aldous Huxley

Related Study Guides

After Many a Summer Dies the Swan

by Aldous Huxley

Ape and Essence

by Aldous Huxley

Brave New World

by Aldous Huxley
Crome Yellow

by Aldous Huxley

Eyeless in Gaza

by Aldous Huxley

eNotes Home

Homework Help

Study Guides

Texts

Teachers▻

Sign In

Join

rowseNotessearch

Search for any book or any question

Aldous Huxley Huxley, Aldous

Aldous Huxley book cover

MENU

Download Aldous Huxley Study Guide

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Introduction

(SHORT STORY CRITICISM)

print Print document PDF list Cite link Link

Aldous Huxley 1894–-1963

British-American novelist, short story writer, essayist, poet, and playwright. See also Aldous Huxley
Criticism (Volume 1), and Volumes 3, 4, 5, 8, 18.

Huxley's short stories, all written between 1920 and 1930, cover a relatively short period in his prolific
forty-seven-year writing career. The author celebrated for “novels of ideas,” in particular the
“dystopian” novel Brave New World, is little remembered today for his short fiction, but they do reflect
in less complex structure many of the concerns he developed in his mature works. These include the
search for order in chaos; the fragmentation, decay, and lack of wholeness and values in postwar
society; the hostility of a world that thwarts ambition and expectations; and the artist's quest for
identity. Most of the stories are witty and satirize modern values, particularly among the upper class,
and display a sometimes bitter skepticism at the meaningless of life. While they were received fairly well
during his life, later scholars of Huxley's work have generally ignored the stories, as it is agreed that the
author's important ideas and concerns are given a far more eloquent voice in his novels. However, the
stories continue to be appreciated for their wry humor, brilliant observation, sophisticated literary style,
and skeptical view of humanity in post-World War I England.

Biographical Information

Huxley was born in 1894 in Surrey, England, to an intellectually prominent family. His father, Leonard,
was a respected essayist and editor, and his grandfather, Thomas Henry Huxley, was a leading biologist
and proponent of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. He was also the great-nephew of the poet
Matthew Arnold, the grandson of the Reverend Thomas Arnold, and the nephew of the novelist Mrs.
Humphrey Ward. Huxley's brother, Julian, would eventually become a noted biologist and his half-
brother, Andrew, would win the 1963 Nobel Prize for his work in physiology. The early years in Huxley's
life were passed happily in a stimulating, intellectual household. He was known as a sensitive boy and
one who showed a mystical bent early on. But a series of tragedies befell Huxley in his teenage years. In
1908 his mother died of cancer, two years later he contracted an eye disease that permanently
damaged his sight, and in 1914 his brother Trevenen committed suicide. These events had a profound
effect on the concerns and mood of Huxley's writing.
While at Oxford from 1913 to 1916 Huxley started editing literary journals and began writing. In 1916,
he published his first volume of poetry. He married a young Belgian refugee, Maria Nys, in 1919, and a
year later his son, Matthew, was born. That year he also published his first volume of stories, Limbo to
mild critical acclaim; two years later he produced another volume, Mortal Coils. Huxley gained wider
recognition with his novel Crome Yellow; by 1923 his reputation was sufficiently secure that Chatto and
Windus agreed to publish two of his works of fiction each year for the next three years. In 1923 Huxley
and his wife moved to Italy, where they lived for four years. While abroad he wrote and published the
novels Antic Hay and Those Barren Leaves and two volumes of short fiction, Little Mexican and Other
Stories and Two or Three Graces and Other Stories. Huxley's volume of stories, Brief Candles, appeared
in 1930, two years after the release of his highly acclaimed novel of ideas, Point Counter Point, which
secured his reputation as one of the important literary figures of his day.

After 1930, Huxley's work began to reflect his increasing concern with humanistic ideas and ideals as
well as politics. This is most vividly shown in Brave New World, his ironic satire of a utopia, which warns
us against the dangers of political manipulation and technological development. In the late 1930s Huxley
moved to California, where he became a screenwriter and developed his interest in mysticism, Eastern
thought, and mind-altering drugs; he examines his...

(The entire section is 27,475 words.)

Aldous Huxley: Prose Style

Huxley writes in a style wonderfully suited to purposes of exposition and discussion. It is a lucid style,
forceful and yet elegant. It is free from all kinds of obscurity. It is not too learned but is demands close
attention to be understood. The theme is developed in a logical manner. He makes no digressions.
Huxley is a persuasive writer with a style that is very useful to a propagandist. His style combines his
intellectuality with intelligibility. Nor is it a bare style. It is a sumptuous style and free from what
“surplusage”. Huxley often gives us crisp sentences and shows himself a master of the condensed
statement. Here are a few examples to show.

“Recognizableness is an artistic quality which most people find profoundly thrilling.”

“Hence the affirmations of the great obvious truths have been in general incompetent and therefore
odious.”

“It is extraordinary to what lengths a panic fear can drive its victims.”
Huxley’s style shows a capacity to write both seriously and sarcastically. He can wrote in a tone of mild
disapproval and he can wrote in a denunciatory tone, he can wrote in matter-of-fact style and he can
become forceful, even aggressive. He can say many things in passing, though he never loses sight of the
main idea. It is a style which the discriminating reader with any literary background not only likes but
enjoys. His style is distinguished by his intense concern for the plight of mankind and his zeal for reform.

Huxley’s style covers an enormous range not of form but of subject-matter. Apart from his purely
creative work, he has written learnedly of painting, music, science, philosophy, religion and a dozen
other topics. Yet, considering the breath of his interests and the magnitude of his output, his examined
as a whole shows a surprising homogeneity.

Huxley’s style did not make use of the autobiographical material on any big scale but it does make its
appearance and lends grace to his essay. Huxley had an intelligence and vast knowledge gained from
much traveling, immense-reading and constant meeting with intelligent people. He had a full mind and
an unquenchable spirit of inquiry. His essays are relevant to the situation in his time and ours. So his
style gives us a real view of the intellectual life of the western man.

Huxley’s style shows his discursive quality which is native to the essay from. In writing his essays he
could begin anywhere; anything stated him off, and he proceeded without any jerks or jumps to a
serious consideration of one of the many subjects which absorbed him. The word-management and
shaping of his material gives us most pleasure.

Huxley’s style is vigorous and economical. His style nearly always makes him easy to read he is never
trivial.

Huxley’s style as a life-worshipper urges the reader to explore all possible worlds of experience. He
believes that only a new religion can save mankind from the peril into which modern civilization is
leading it. This new religion must be one with the aim should be the enhancement of life.

Huxley’s style had matured his world outlook; he was seeking a unitive knowledge of God serenely; his
prose technique was not only adequate to the demand he made on it, but he exploited it with a
masterly skill.
Huxley’s style awakens our interest and sustains it so easily and imperceptibly that we get lost in his
meditations which mostly discuss the dual nature of man, man in society and man in solitude, the nature
of ultimate reality and the possibility of our becoming aware of it in our existential condition.

Huxley’s style in “Adonis and Alphabet” urges us not to take language too seriously. Nature presents us
with a complexity of material to express which words and sentences are inadequate. Language is serious
as in instrument, but it is a crude interpreter of direct experience. So his style rejected abstraction in art
as much as in science.

Huxley’s style when dealing with the various subjects does not take just a surface view. He goes deep
into every matter. He does not speak just like an amateur; he speaks with authority and seems to know
his subject almost like a specialist. He has a highly analytical mind and approach.

The range of Huxley's style is very wide as it attempts to evolve some kind of synthesis from the political,
ethical and religious confusions of modern times. As a humanist he had strong belief in the individual
but was obsessed with the evil of materialism.

Huxley’s gives evidence of what may be called encyclopedic knowledge. From the very outset he gave
evidence of his well-developed interests in philosophy, biology, sociology, economics, religion,
anthropology, politics, literature – ancient as well as modern – eugenics, painting, music, sculpture,
architecture and metaphysics. Even this list cannot be said to be exhaustive. His fund of knowledge is
truly amazing. And, what is more, he writes on all these subjects with great confidence and competence.
His writings are both enlightening and provocative.

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Introduction
(SHORT STORY CRITICISM)

print Print document PDF list Cite link Link

Aldous Huxley 1894–-1963

British-American novelist, short story writer, essayist, poet, and playwright. See also Aldous Huxley
Criticism (Volume 1), and Volumes 3, 4, 5, 8, 18.

Huxley's short stories, all written between 1920 and 1930, cover a relatively short period in his prolific
forty-seven-year writing career. The author celebrated for “novels of ideas,” in particular the
“dystopian” novel Brave New World, is little remembered today for his short fiction, but they do reflect
in less complex structure many of the concerns he developed in his mature works. These include the
search for order in chaos; the fragmentation, decay, and lack of wholeness and values in postwar
society; the hostility of a world that thwarts ambition and expectations; and the artist's quest for
identity. Most of the stories are witty and satirize modern values, particularly among the upper class,
and display a sometimes bitter skepticism at the meaningless of life. While they were received fairly well
during his life, later scholars of Huxley's work have generally ignored the stories, as it is agreed that the
author's important ideas and concerns are given a far more eloquent voice in his novels. However, the
stories continue to be appreciated for their wry humor, brilliant observation, sophisticated literary style,
and skeptical view of humanity in post-World War I England.

Biographical Information

Huxley was born in 1894 in Surrey, England, to an intellectually prominent family. His father, Leonard,
was a respected essayist and editor, and his grandfather, Thomas Henry Huxley, was a leading biologist
and proponent of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. He was also the great-nephew of the poet
Matthew Arnold, the grandson of the Reverend Thomas Arnold, and the nephew of the novelist Mrs.
Humphrey Ward. Huxley's brother, Julian, would eventually become a noted biologist and his half-
brother, Andrew, would win the 1963 Nobel Prize for his work in physiology. The early years in Huxley's
life were passed happily in a stimulating, intellectual household. He was known as a sensitive boy and
one who showed a mystical bent early on. But a series of tragedies befell Huxley in his teenage years. In
1908 his mother died of cancer, two years later he contracted an eye disease that permanently
damaged his sight, and in 1914 his brother Trevenen committed suicide. These events had a profound
effect on the concerns and mood of Huxley's writing.
While at Oxford from 1913 to 1916 Huxley started editing literary journals and began writing. In 1916,
he published his first volume of poetry. He married a young Belgian refugee, Maria Nys, in 1919, and a
year later his son, Matthew, was born. That year he also published his first volume of stories, Limbo to
mild critical acclaim; two years later he produced another volume, Mortal Coils. Huxley gained wider
recognition with his novel Crome Yellow; by 1923 his reputation was sufficiently secure that Chatto and
Windus agreed to publish two of his works of fiction each year for the next three years. In 1923 Huxley
and his wife moved to Italy, where they lived for four years. While abroad he wrote and published the
novels Antic Hay and Those Barren Leaves and two volumes of short fiction, Little Mexican and Other
Stories and Two or Three Graces and Other Stories. Huxley's volume of stories, Brief Candles, appeared
in 1930, two years after the release of his highly acclaimed novel of ideas, Point Counter Point, which
secured his reputation as one of the important literary figures of his day.

After 1930, Huxley's work began to reflect his increasing concern with humanistic ideas and ideals as
well as politics. This is most vividly shown in Brave New World, his ironic satire of a utopia, which warns
us against the dangers of political manipulation and technological development. In the late 1930s Huxley
moved to California, where he became a screenwriter and developed his interest in mysticism, Eastern
thought, and mind-altering drugs; he examines his...

(The entire section is 27,475 words.)

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Introduction

(SHORT STORY CRITICISM)

print Print document PDF list Cite link Link

Aldous Huxley 1894–-1963

British-American novelist, short story writer, essayist, poet, and playwright. See also Aldous Huxley
Criticism (Volume 1), and Volumes 3, 4, 5, 8, 18.
Huxley's short stories, all written between 1920 and 1930, cover a relatively short period in his prolific
forty-seven-year writing career. The author celebrated for “novels of ideas,” in particular the
“dystopian” novel Brave New World, is little remembered today for his short fiction, but they do reflect
in less complex structure many of the concerns he developed in his mature works. These include the
search for order in chaos; the fragmentation, decay, and lack of wholeness and values in postwar
society; the hostility of a world that thwarts ambition and expectations; and the artist's quest for
identity. Most of the stories are witty and satirize modern values, particularly among the upper class,
and display a sometimes bitter skepticism at the meaningless of life. While they were received fairly well
during his life, later scholars of Huxley's work have generally ignored the stories, as it is agreed that the
author's important ideas and concerns are given a far more eloquent voice in his novels. However, the
stories continue to be appreciated for their wry humor, brilliant observation, sophisticated literary style,
and skeptical view of humanity in post-World War I England.

Biographical Information

Huxley was born in 1894 in Surrey, England, to an intellectually prominent family. His father, Leonard,
was a respected essayist and editor, and his grandfather, Thomas Henry Huxley, was a leading biologist
and proponent of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. He was also the great-nephew of the poet
Matthew Arnold, the grandson of the Reverend Thomas Arnold, and the nephew of the novelist Mrs.
Humphrey Ward. Huxley's brother, Julian, would eventually become a noted biologist and his half-
brother, Andrew, would win the 1963 Nobel Prize for his work in physiology. The early years in Huxley's
life were passed happily in a stimulating, intellectual household. He was known as a sensitive boy and
one who showed a mystical bent early on. But a series of tragedies befell Huxley in his teenage years. In
1908 his mother died of cancer, two years later he contracted an eye disease that permanently
damaged his sight, and in 1914 his brother Trevenen committed suicide. These events had a profound
effect on the concerns and mood of Huxley's writing.

While at Oxford from 1913 to 1916 Huxley started editing literary journals and began writing. In 1916,
he published his first volume of poetry. He married a young Belgian refugee, Maria Nys, in 1919, and a
year later his son, Matthew, was born. That year he also published his first volume of stories, Limbo to
mild critical acclaim; two years later he produced another volume, Mortal Coils. Huxley gained wider
recognition with his novel Crome Yellow; by 1923 his reputation was sufficiently secure that Chatto and
Windus agreed to publish two of his works of fiction each year for the next three years. In 1923 Huxley
and his wife moved to Italy, where they lived for four years. While abroad he wrote and published the
novels Antic Hay and Those Barren Leaves and two volumes of short fiction, Little Mexican and Other
Stories and Two or Three Graces and Other Stories. Huxley's volume of stories, Brief Candles, appeared
in 1930, two years after the release of his highly acclaimed novel of ideas, Point Counter Point, which
secured his reputation as one of the important literary figures of his day.
After 1930, Huxley's work began to reflect his increasing concern with humanistic ideas and ideals as
well as politics. This is most vividly shown in Brave New World, his ironic satire of a utopia, which warns
us against the dangers of political manipulation and technological development. In the late 1930s Huxley
moved to California, where he became a screenwriter and developed his interest in mysticism, Eastern
thought, and mind-altering drugs; he examines his...

(The entire section is 27,475 words.)