Note 129 — Chapter VI · MILTON’S HEROIC PROSE

Some correlation appears to exist between the mentality of an era and the average length of sentence in use. The seventeenth century, the most introspective, philosophical, and “revolutionary” era of English history, wrote the longest sentence in English literature. The next era, broadly recognized as the eighteenth century, swung in the opposite direction, with a shorter and much more modelled or contrived sentence. The nineteenth century, again turned a little solemn and introspective, wrote a somewhat long and loose one. Now comes the twentieth century, with its journalism and its syncopated tempo, to write the shortest sentence of all.