Style

style: the consideration of style has two purposes: (1) An evaluation of the sum of the choices an author makes in blending diction, syntax, figurative language, and other literary devices. Some author's styles are so idiosyncratic that we can quickly recognize works bythe same author (or a writer emulating that author's style). We can analyze and describe an author's personal style and make judgements on how appropriate it is to the author's purpose. (2) Classification of authors to a group and comparison of an author to similar authors. By means of such classification and comparison, one can see how an author's style reflects and helps to define a historical period, such as the Renaissance or Victorian period, or a literary movement such as the Romantic, transcendental, or realist movement

"They were called Alice's Posies. The tradition was, that a certain Alice Pyncheon had flung up the seeds, in sport, and that the dust of the street and the decay of the roof gradually formed a kind of soil for them, out of which they grew, when Alice had long been in her grave. However the flowers might have come there, it was both sad and sweet to observe how Nature adopted to herself this desolate, decaying, gusty, rusty old house of the Pyncheon Family; and how the ever-returning summer did her best to gladden it with tender beauty, and grew melancholy in the effort."
                                                                                  -The House of the Seven Gables
                                                                                          by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hawthorne's style is that of a romantic. His novel, The House of the Seven Gables, is a classic example of romance, which Hawthorne reminds us of throughout the novel. His heavy use of imagery, figurative language, and descriptions creates the grotesque and almost fantasy-like qualities needed in a romance. Also Hawthorne's love for nature and his portrayal of it as good is characteristic of a romance. Hawthorne's style consists of these qualities; an exaltation of nature, much description and imagery, and  figurative language. Hawthorne also uses very long complex sentences frequently.