“Her approach (to text analysis) marks her out as someone who believed firmly that there needed to be a recognition within intrinsic criticism that linguistic analysis of literary text was a necessity and not simply an aberration“ (Nowottny,1962).In the light of this excerpt, we have chosen and analysed three literary texts. The study includes both linguistic and literary analysis, with greater emphasis on the linguistic aspect of the analysis so as to give credence to this view by Nowottny. Indeed, good stylistic analysis of literary texts should include linguistic analysis if the analysis is to be standard and is targeted to unveil the ‘full style’ of an author .Three literary texts are used in this study: The Hollow Men (T.S. Elliot).The Beatitudes (Jesus Christ) and (listen) (E.E. Cummings).
Keywords: Aberration, Intrinsic Criticism, Literary Text, Stylistic Analysis, linguistic analysis