This essay offers a new interpretation of a longstanding and unresolved controversy concerning the origins of modern prose style. Setting aside causal explanations proposed for the marked changes in prose style during the later seventeenth century, I argue that what emerges in urgent polemics for the “plain style” is a recognition of prose itself as a medium of composition. This intuition about the nature of prose had the unintended effect of liberating prose from its immemorial subordination to the system of rhetoric and opening up new possibilities for its exploitation as a means of communication.

中文翻译：

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水星的话

本文对有关现代散文风格起源的长期未解决争议提供了新的解释。撇开对十七世纪后期散文风格的显着变化提出的因果解释，我认为，在“朴素风格”的紧急辩论中出现的是对散文本身作为一种构成媒介的认识。这种关于散文本质的直觉产生了意料之外的效果，即将散文从其不朽的从属地位解放到修辞体系，并为将其用于交流手段开辟了新的可能性。