Chapter X: Book III: is baffling. But the actual development of the book is quite

clear: chapters i-xii on λέξις, diction, or, in the widest sense, style; chapters xiii-xix, on τάξις, or arrangement.

Delivery, after declaring it to have the greatest force (δύναμιν ... μεγίστην), he dismisses in a few sentences. Tantalizing in its brevity, this passage is nevertheless suggestive; for it sketches an analytic division of delivery into voice-placing and volume, pitch, and rhythm; it points to the value for public speaking of the arts of dramatic recital; and, most important of all, it relates delivery to the whole idea of style as concrete presentation _versus_ abstract formulation.

In thus uniting delivery and diction as alike means of effective utterance Aristotle has seemed to some readers to disparage both. He has seemed to express, as in a similar passage of Book I,[40] a philosophic contempt for style. But this impression is not confirmed by scrutiny. Not only can he hardly be thought to despise that to which he devotes himself cordially throughout a large part of his treatise, but his words here hardly yield the inference that has been drawn from prejudicial translation. They may be rendered more precisely as follows:

An art [of delivery] is not yet settled; for even that of
diction emerged but late and seems a bore when regarded
ideally. But[41] since the whole practise of rhetoric is gauged
to actual effect upon hearers (πρὸς δόξαν), we must give
delivery our care, not of [abstract] right, but of necessity.
[Abstract] justice, indeed, demands of our speech nothing
more than that it should neither offend nor propitiate. For
[abstractly] just [method] is so to make one’s plea with
the facts that everything beyond exposition is superfluous.
Nevertheless [delivery] is of great importance, as I have
said, because of the human frailty of the hearer. Indeed, the
consideration of the hearer is in a degree necessary in all
teaching; for even in explanation it makes some difference
whether we speak thus or thus—not so much, however [as in
active persuasion], all these things [i.e., of diction and
delivery] being means of suggesting images[42] and gauged to
the hearer. Therefore no one thus teaches geometry.

That art, then [of delivery], when it comes, will produce the
same effects as acting; and some authors, as Thrasymachus on
the pathetic, have made a slight attempt at it. Acting is both
a natural gift and less reducible to art; but diction has its
technic. That is why those who have mastered it take prizes
regularly, as do the histrionic orators;[43] for written
speeches prevail more by diction than by thought.

“No one thus teaches geometry” cannot be taken as a slur on style. It simply reminds us, by applying to diction a distinction made with great fulness in the first two chapters of Book I, that rhetoric is not geometry. Formulation, as in geometry, is colorless because it is abstract; but any actual presentation, even mere information (ἐν πάσῃ διδασκαλίᾳ), demands style, whether concreteness or the arts of delivery, for mere lucidity (πρὸς τὸ δηλῶσαι), much more for any sort of appeal. For any sort of presentation, Aristotle is saying, we must study style; and we must include the study of delivery except in those written addresses which depend on style even more than on thought.

The appeal of style, Aristotle says in this same first chapter,[44] was first discerned by the poets. The method of suggestion, in other words, belongs to poetic. This is more than a critical distinction; it has an application directly pedagogical. The teaching of style, always delicate and difficult, may well begin through poetry, which in descriptive heightening and in harmony of sound with sense, especially of pace with mood, most plainly exhibits style as adaptation. The connection of this with delivery, both with reading aloud and with dramatic recital, though obvious, is often neglected. Elocution in our modern sense may, if rightly related, be one of the gateways to appreciation of style.[45]

Chapter ii,[46] after glancing at the fundamental virtue of lucidity, considers the choice of words for appropriateness and for suggestiveness, i.e., for their connotation, and especially for the descriptive vividness of the concrete, as in metaphors. Chapter iii[47] deals with the inappropriateness arising from bad taste;[48] Chapter iv,[49] with the extension of metaphor into simile. Chapter v[50] passes from single words and phrases to their combination in clauses and sentences. The distinction is important, and is kept throughout the classical rhetoric from Aristotle down. The choice of words is ἐκλογή (_electio_); the shaping of clauses and sentences is σύνθεσις (_compositio_). Frequent translation of the latter by our English word _composition_, which has a meaning so much wider as to be quite different, misses the specific point of technic, and often makes the ancient writers say what they did not mean.[51]

As the primary virtue in the choice of words is precision, so the first consideration in their combination, says Aristotle, is purity, idiom, conformity to usage. This assured, the next considerations of movement in detail are dignity,[52] which he presents as mainly amplification, and appropriateness.[53] Appropriateness here is not merely of the single word, as in Chapters ii and iii, but of the movement, or pace. It is gauged both to the moral habit (ἦθος) of the audience and to the emotion (πάθος) of the occasion.

From this general idea of appropriate movement Aristotle passes[54] to specific consideration of rhythm with his oft-quoted dictum:

The order[55] of the diction must be neither metrical
nor unrhythmical. The former, by seeming artificial, is
unpersuasive and at the same time distracting. For it
makes us think of recurrences and wait for them to come, as
children anticipate the answer to the heralds’ “Whom does the
freedman choose as his attorney? Cleon.” On the other hand,
the unrhythmical is immeasurable, and a measure we must have,
though not by metrical recurrence; for the boundless can be
grasped neither by the ear nor by the mind. Now measure in the
most general sense is number;[56] and number as applied to the
order of the diction is rhythm, of which meters are sections.
Rhythm, therefore, the speech must have, but not meter, or it
will be a poem—rhythm not too nice, that is, not carried too
far.

Of the three rhythms the heroic is solemn and lacking in prose
harmony.[57] The iambic is the very diction of the crowd; i.e.,
it is heard oftener than any other measure in speech, and
it lacks capacity to lift and startle. The trochaic[58] is
too suggestive of comic dancing, as is evident in trochaic
tetrameters, which are a skipping rhythm. There remains the
pæan.

Having laid down the principle that prose movement should be rhythmical, but not metrical, why does Aristotle proceed immediately to discuss it in terms of meters? Simply, perhaps, because these terms are familiar and definite. How else, indeed, shall we speak of a particular movement specifically? Perhaps also because the consideration of the larger, freer rhythms of prose is best opened through the fixed rhythms of verse, i.e., because meter is the gateway to appreciation of rhythm, as poetry in a wider sense (see page 24) is the gateway to style in a wider sense. For us moderns it is the more significant that the classical doctrine of clauses and sentences deals so largely with rhythm, since our doctrine throws the emphasis on logic. That the σύνθεσις, or _compositio_, should be idiomatic, dignified, appropriate, Aristotle has urged briefly; that it should be rhythmical he proceeds to set forth in detail, consecutively showing how.[59]

Thus that the diction should be rhythmical, not unrhythmical,
what rhythms make it rhythmical, and in what modes, has been
set forth.

Now diction[60] [in its sentence-movement] is connected
either loosely and only by conjunctions, as the preludes in
the dithyrambs, or compactly, as the antistrophes of the old
poets. The former movement is the old one, as in Herodotus;
for, though once universal, it is now exceptional. By calling
it loose I mean that it has no end in itself except as its
subject-matter runs out. It is unsatisfying to the ear by its
indefiniteness, since we all wish to glimpse the end. That
[natural desire] is why [runners] lose wind and heart only at
the goal. They do not give out before because they are looking
ahead to the finish.

The loose movement, then, of diction is this; the compact, on
the other hand, is the one by periods [or definite units].
By _period_ I mean a diction having a beginning and an
end in itself and a length to be grasped as a whole. Such
sentence-movement is both satisfying to the ear and easily
followed by the mind;[61] _satisfying_ as being the opposite
of endless and as giving the hearer the sense of always
having hold of something, because something has always been
ended by itself, whereas the unsatisfying is neither to see
ahead nor to get through; _easily followed_, as being easily
held in mind, and that because periodic diction has number,
which is the chief aid to memory. That is why verses are more
easily remembered than loose prose, because verse has number to
measure it. The period should also be completed with the sense,
not broken off....

A period[62] is either in members or simple. Composed in
members, it is such a diction as makes a rounded whole and yet
is distinct in its parts, and such as the breath will carry
easily, not by [arbitrary] division, but as a whole. A member
is one of its parts; and by simple period I mean a period of
one member. Both members and periods should be neither curt[63]
nor long. For short [members] often make the hearer stumble,
since while he is still surging ahead, if he is pulled up by
the stopping of the measure that he carries in his head as
a guide, he must stumble as in a collision. Long [members]
on the other hand make the hearer feel himself left behind,
as by walking companions making the turn beyond the usual
stretch.... Over-use of short members, since it precludes the
periodic form, drags the hearer headlong.

In other words, the period is a sentence movement forecast and fulfilled by the speaker, divined and held by the hearer, as a definite rhythmical and logical unit. Its characteristic is that conclusiveness which satisfies at once ear and mind. In sound and in syntax it is the opposite of formless aggregation, of the addition of clause to clause as by afterthoughts. Forethought, indeed, is its very note. Thus its typical advantages are rather for oratory than for narrative. Oratory moves by grouping around ideas; narrative, by adding image to image. The style of Herodotus is in this sense aggregative. Its aim being to proceed not from idea to idea in thought, but from fact to fact in time, it is “loosely joined,” “running on,” without other rhythmical value than fluency. That Aristotle means to disparage Herodotus when he calls this movement old and unsatisfying need hardly be inferred. Old it is typically, the movement of all early prose, of Herodotus no more than of Froissart and Villani. Unsatisfying, unpleasing to the ear (ἀηδές) it is not—in its place; but its place is not in oratory, which demands definite measures to mark definite stages of thought. Otherwise the audience is frustrated and loses the way.

What Aristotle means by his comparison of the two movements is that the former is unsatisfying, not absolutely, but for the purposes of the latter, i.e., for oratory. This interpretation is confirmed by what he adds concerning the length of members, or clauses. That staccato habit of short statements which in oratory “drags the hearer headlong,”[64] unsatisfied and uncomprehending, may in narrative be actually superior. To drag the hearer headlong is sometimes precisely what a story-teller desires. Examples abound, for instance, in Victor Hugo, for whom this movement became a mannerism. Neither of the two sentence movements, which from the point of view of Aristotle’s time we may call the historical and the oratorical, has remained through the long development of prose quite the same. Narrative has developed in modern times a movement more and more consciously poetic, while history in our special modern sense has turned more and more to the conscious group-movement which he associated with oratory. To-day we see much the same difference between our prose fiction and our expository history that he saw between Herodotus and Demosthenes. But the change is in application, not in the movements themselves. It remains true, and important, that there is on the one hand a prose movement rhythmically and intellectually loose, indefinite, and current, and on the other hand a prose movement compact, conscious, concluded point by point. The latter, the periodic, remains the typical movement of public address; for the audience, in order to follow, in order “to have hold of something[65] and to get something done,” demands definite measures.[66]

Having laid down as fundamental the distinction between the two typical prose movements, Aristotle proceeds to details: the balance of member against member,[67] and the heightening of the individual member[68] by visualizing metaphor. His recurrence here to metaphor is unexpected, since he has discussed this already in Chapter ii[69] under the choice of words; but here something is added. The connotation of figurative language is explored further as a means to make a whole statement telling. Aristotle is inquiring how such pithy sayings as he has just exemplified in balance and antithesis are made forcible[70] by other means; and he implies that the process is essentially poetic, as being imaginative first in realization and secondly[71] in movement.

Imaginative realization in metaphor and simile is considered here as intellectual suggestion. As enthymemes, so metaphors and similes must steer between the obvious and the subtle. The best images, like the best enthymemes, stimulate the hearer to coöperate, to see the relation for himself.

As to sense such are the popular enthymemes; as to style [they
are popular] if the order, or movement[72] is antithetical....
So for the terms; if metaphorical, they must be neither
far-fetched, for then they are hard to grasp, nor trite, for
then they stir no emotion; and besides [as to movement] they
must put [the thing] before our eyes; for we must see it in
action rather than in intention (happening rather than about to
happen, present rather than future). The essential elements,
then, are three: metaphor, antithesis, actuality.[73]

Numerous examples follow[74] of ἀστεῖα, or pithy sayings, and Chapter xi[75] expands

what is meant by “before our eyes” and how this is to be done.
I mean that those passages put the thing before our eyes which
show it in action.[76] For instance, to say that a good man is
“square” is metaphor ... but it does not show him in action,
whereas “in flowering vigor” does, and so does “at large.” And
in “Straightway the Greeks with bounding feet” the “bounding”
is at once actuality and metaphor.... In all these [instances
from Homer] by being alive (living, organic) [the subject]
seems to be in action.... They all make the subject moving and
living; and actuality is movement.[77]

Aristotle’s recurrence, then, to metaphor in the midst of his doctrine of sentence movement is because metaphor has the wider implication. It may be more than a single vivid word; it should extend to a whole habit of realizing a thing in action; and this involves expression in a sentence movement that shall heighten the suggestion by its pace.

In like manner the recurrence to aptness, or adaptation, is not repetition. Chapters ii[78] and iii[79] deal with aptness of single words; chapter xii,[80] with aptness of sentence movement. From the general definition[81] of apt movement as adaptation both to the moral habit of the audience (ἦθος) and to the emotion of the occasion (πάθος) Chapter xii now proceeds to the typical adaptations offered by the several fields of oratory: the deliberative, the forensic, and the occasional.[82]

It must not be forgotten that one style is appropriate to one
kind [of oratory], another style to another. Style for writing
is not the same as style for debate, nor style for public
debate the same as style for legal pleading. Both [style for
writing and style for debate] have to be known: the latter,
as command of correct (or idiomatic) utterance; the former,
as deliverance from the necessity of keeping silence when one
wishes to communicate—[an inhibition] which those suffer who do
not know how to write. Style for writing is the most precise;
style for debate, the most histrionic (the best adapted to
delivery). The latter is [adaptation] of two sorts: expression
of character, and expression of emotion. This is why actors
also seek such plays, and dramatists such personæ [as give
expression to character and emotion].

The distinction here between style for writing (to be read aloud) and style for speaking (for immediate utterance) is general, as appears in the following reference to asyndeton and in the comparison of public speaking to the broad brush work of fresco; but it is also particular. It distinguishes occasional, or panegyric oratory as demanding a style more literary. “Style for writing,” above, must from its context refer to panegyric; and below Aristotle adds: “The style of occasional oratory is best suited to writing; for its function is to be read.”[83]

The final section[84] of Book III deals with the larger parts of a speech: exordium, statement of facts, proof, peroration. This discussion of τάξις (_dispositio_) is both meager and perfunctory, hardly more than a rehearsal of those definitions and counsels which were already familiar in teaching and apparently in manuals,[85] and which were to be handed on by later tradition. Its importance is therefore primarily historical. It has little other significance, little of the Aristotelian discernment and suggestiveness. What the modern teacher of rhetoric misses, both here and throughout the later classical discussions of _dispositio_, is some definite inculcation of consecutiveness. That consecutiveness was achieved in the best practise there can be no doubt; how it was taught we are left to guess. As to movement in this larger sense, what we commonly mean by composition, Aristotle’s _Poetic_ is more definite and more suggestive than his _Rhetoric_.

He begins[86] by saying that the only essential parts of a speech are proposition and proof. It is presently apparent that by “parts” here he means components, or elements, of any and every sort of speech. The statement of facts, for instance, is not a part in the sense of a distinct division except in forensic; and Aristotle rightly objects[87] to subdivisions by “parts” which are neither distinct nor applicable generally. Even refutation, as he shows later,[88] is not a distinct part, either in function or in method or in place. The most that can be allowed are four: proposition and proof as essential, exordium and peroration as usual.

With the same common sense he shows that the first function of the exordium[89] is to put the hearers in a position to understand; its second, to win their sympathy.[90] Chapter xvi[91] passes to the recital of facts (διήγησις). The common rendering of this term by _narrative_ has been widely misleading. True, the corresponding Latin term is _narratio_, and the thing is narrative in the sense of being sometimes, though not always, chronological; but _narrative_ in our modern use, and especially in our modern text-books, is associated with objects and methods which Aristotle is not here considering at all, and which he rightly relegated to poetic. The Greek term διήγησις and the corresponding Latin _narratio_ mean exactly what is called in a modern lawyer’s brief the “statement of facts,” as distinct from the following “argument.” It therefore belongs properly, as a distinct part having a distinct place, to forensic. When used in occasional oratory,[92] it should on the contrary be broken up, not as in forensic continuous. In deliberative oratory[93] it has least scope, i.e., it hardly appears as a separable part.

But the recital of facts, though it corresponds to the “statement” of a brief in substance, need not be so limited in style. A speech is not a brief; and the pleader, ancient or modern, must make his facts live.[94]

Speak also from the emotions, reciting what goes with them
(i.e., their physical expression), both what is familiar and
what is characteristic of yourself or your opponent: “He left
me with a scowl”; or, as Æschines said of Cratylus, “hissing
and shaking his fists.” [Such descriptive suggestions are
really] elements of persuasion; for the familiar images become
tokens of what you are trying to impress. Many such expressions
are to be had from Homer: “So she spoke, and the old woman
covered her face with her hands,” as we commonly put our hands
to our eyes when we begin to weep.

As to persuasion by argument[95] Aristotle begins with a mere hint of that determination of the main issue and character of the case which was afterward elaborated into the classified doctrine of the στάσις (_status_).

Examples [παραδείγματα, he goes on] are more suited to
deliberative oratory; enthymemes, to forensic.[96]... Do not
speak in enthymemes seriatim, but mix them in [with other means
of persuasion]; or they will impair one another. There is a
quantitative limit.... Do not seek an enthymeme for everything;
or you will write like some philosophers; ... and do not speak
in enthymeme when your immediate aim is emotional ... or
ethical.

The peroration[97] consists: (1) of disposing the hearer well
toward oneself and ill toward one’s adversary; (2) of enhancing
and disparaging; (3) of stirring the hearer to emotion; (4)
and of recapitulation.... [For this last function] the primary
idea is that what was promised has been given in full, so
that we must tell both what [we have said] and why. This is
told by comparison [of our own case] with our opponent’s....
Asyndeton[98] befits the final words, that they may be
peroration, not oration: “I have spoken; you have heard; you
have it; judge.”

With no less abruptness Aristotle’s _Rhetoric_ stops. It can hardly be said to conclude; and certainly it has no peroration.

FOOT-NOTES:

[1] _Text_, edited with notes, commentary, and index, COPE, E. M., and SANDYS, J. E., 3 volumes, Cambridge, 1877.

_Translations_ (the best recent ones in English), WELLDON, J. E. C., with analysis and critical notes, London, 1886; JEBB, R. C., edited with introduction and supplementary notes by SANDYS, J. E., Cambridge, 1909. Welldon’s tabular view is valuable. Jebb’s rendering of technical terms is generally more discerning.

_Criticism._ Aristotle having engaged the attention of nearly every important writer on rhetoric—and of many quite unimportant—for over two thousand years, a list of the commentaries and criticisms would be endless and bewildering. Nor would any addition here to the bibliographies already available be especially suggestive. The history of Aristotle’s _Rhetoric_ will emerge incidentally throughout this work. The best single exegesis in English, especially of the relations of the _Rhetoric_ to the Aristotelian philosophy, remains E. M. Cope’s _Introduction to Aristotle’s Rhetoric_, London, 1867.

[2] Quoted from the author’s article on Aristotle in the _Cyclopedia of Education_.

[3] 1354 a.

[4] 1355 a.

[5] 1355 b.

[6] 1355 b τὸ ἐνδεχόμενον πιθανόν, or, as the preceding context puts it, τὰ ὑπάρχοντα πιθανά.

[7] αἳ μὲν ἄτεχνοί εἰσιν αἳ δ’ ἔντεχνοι. Cope, _Introduction_, page 150, translates “unscientific and scientific”; Welldon, “inartistic or artistic”; Jebb, “inartificial or artificial.” None of these translations is satisfactory in connotation. _Scientific_, or _artistic_, or _artificial_ suggests associations not borne out by the context and ultimately misleading. Aristotle says simply “means that lie outside of the art and means that lie within it.” The means that lie within are hardly, in fact or in his intention, _scientific_. They are _artistic_ in the broadest sense of being attainable by art, not in the narrower sense of belonging to fine art, nor in the colloquial sense of being pretty. _Artificial_ they are not at all, except when they are misapplied.

[8] 1356 a.

[9] 1356 a.

[10] 1357 a.

[11] 1356 a.

[12] 1358 a.

[13] 1358 b.

[14] Of the various translations of Aristotle’s ἐπιδεικτικός, “demonstrative” is flatly a mistranslation, “oratory of display” is quite too narrow a translation, and “epideictic” is not a translation at all. The nearest word in current use is “_panegyric_,” which is right as far as it goes. But English use, though it lacks a single equivalent word, is none the less familiar with the thing. The kind of oratory that Aristotle means is the oratory of the Gettysburg Address, of most other commemorative addresses, and of many sermons. The French equivalent is _discours de circonstance_.

[15] Chapter iv. 1359 a.

[16] 1359 b-1360 a.

[17] 1360 b-1361 b.

[18] Chapter vi. 1362 a-1363 b.

[19] Chapter vii. 1363 b.

[20] Chapter viii. 1366 a.

[21] Chapter ix. 1366 a-1368 a.

[22] τὸ καλόν, treated again in Book II from the point of view of the audience.

[23] Chapters x-xv. 1368 b-1377 b.

[24] Chapter i. 1377 b. “In regard to πάθη and ἤθη, which move juries, the most important part is to know how these emotions are aroused and allayed. This alone, judging that it is none of their business, the rhetors have not borrowed from Aristotle, though they have borrowed everything else.” Philodemus, _Rhetorica_, trans. Hubbell, Transactions of the Connecticut Academy, vol. 23 (September, 1920), page 338.

[25] “The import of these ‘characters,’ as of the ἤθη τῶν πολιτειῶν in I. 8. 6, and the use to which they are to be applied, may be thus expressed in other words. Certain ages and conditions of men are marked by different and peculiar characteristics. A speaker is always liable to be confronted with an audience in which one or other of these classes forms the preponderating element. In order to make a favorable impression upon them, he must necessarily adapt his tone and language [Aristotle means rather his method and arguments] to the sentiments and habits of thought prevailing amongst them, and the feelings and motives by which they are usually influenced. And for this purpose he must study their characters, and make himself acquainted with their ordinary motives and feelings and opinions. And the following analysis will supply him with topics for this purpose.” Cope, _Introduction_, foot-note to page 248.

[26] Certain difficulties here in the text, with the principal emendations proposed, are discussed by Cope in his _Introduction_, and more largely in the Cope and Sandys edition. Vahlen was so convinced of an error in transmission that he proposed to restore what he considered the original order by transposing bodily Chapters xviii-end and Chapters i-xvii. But in spite of difficulties of detail, the present order shows sufficiently clear progress if we remember that these latter chapters (xviii-end) are written, as all the rest of the book is written, from the point of view of the audience. So viewed, what has seemed repetition and expansion of Book I is seen to be distinct, and not merely additional, but progressive.

[27] 1391 b.

[28] τὸ δυνατόν. Chapter xix.

[29] παράδειγμα. Chapter xx.

[30] πράγματα προγεγενημένα.

[31] γνῶμαι. Chapter xxi.

[32] 1395 b.

[33] Chapters xxii-xxiv.

[34] Opening of Chapter xxiii.

[35] Chapters xxv-xxvi.

[36] 1403 b.

[37] λέξις. It should be observed that Aristotle is not here divorcing “manner” from “matter.” Book III opens a third approach, which presupposes the preceding approaches. This seems to be insufficiently considered by H. P. Breitenbach (The _De compositione of Dionysius of Halicarnassus considered with reference to the Rhetoric of Aristotle_), who regards Book III as a deviation from the philosophic position of the preceding books.

[38] τάξαι.

[39] The fifth traditional item, memory, he omits altogether.

[40] Chapter i, 1354.

[41] 1404 a.

[42] φαντασία.

[43] Welldon’s translation “rhetorical actors” can hardly stand. The phrase τοῖς κατὰ τὴν ὑπόκρισιν ῥήτορσιν means rather _acting orators_, or, more exactly, orators who practise the art of the actor, who are skilled in delivery. Their advantage appears in their winning prizes for written speeches, which can be memorized and declaimed and which are sometimes _tours de force_, showing more style than thought. Such speeches—I think Aristotle cites them as an extreme case—show the separable value of style, including delivery.

[44] 1404 a.

[45] At the close of this first chapter Welldon’s translation “rhetorical style” is misleading. Aristotle says, as Jebb correctly translates, “that style of which we are speaking,” i.e., prose style, the style of public address. “The other style,” he adds, “has been treated in the _Poetic_.”

[46] 1404 b.

[47] 1406 a.

[48] τὰ ψυχρά.

[49] 1406 b.

[50] 1407 a.

[51] Style (λέξις, _elocutio_) consists of:

(1) choice of the right word (ἐκλογή, _electio_);

(2) the movement, rhythm, or pace of sentences and clauses (σύνθεσις, _compositio_). Chapters v-xii deal with (2).

[52] ὄγκος. Chapter vi, 1407 b.

[53] Chapter vii, 1408 a.

[54] Chapter viii, 1408 b.

[55] The Greek word σχῆμα is quite general, applicable to any sort of guiding principle, outline, system, or plan. Our English words _outline_, _plan_, etc., though otherwise fairly equivalent, have visual, graphic, static associations quite foreign to the context. Aristotle’s images for style are drawn not from architecture or painting, but from music and other modes of movement. By _the_ diction he means—indeed, he says later—prose diction.

[56] Literally, “all things are measured by number.”

[57] λεκτικῆς ἁρμονίας. Cope and Welldon translate “conversational harmony.” The literal sense of the phrase is “speech harmony,” “harmony of diction, or of style”; but since Aristotle can hardly mean to say that the heroic measure lacks harmony of diction _in verse_, and since he is talking of prose, I translate “prose harmony.” Ἁρμονία may be taken either in the general or in the particular (musical) sense of harmony; but in the latter sense its application is restricted to melody.

[58] 1409 a.

[59] For a modern scientific discussion of prose rhythm see W. M. Patterson, _The Rhythm of Prose_, New York, Columbia University Press, 1916. See also Morris W. Croll, _The cadence of English oratorical prose_. Studies in Philology, 16:1, University of North Carolina, January, 1919.

[60] Chapter ix, 1409 a.

[61] 1409 b, ἡδεῖα δ’ ἡ τοιαύτη καὶ εὐμαθής. The translation of Cope and of Welldon, “easily learnt” is amiss; and Welldon’s foot-note thereon about learning speeches by heart is still more misleading. The εὐσύνοπτον (end of 1409 a), “easily grasped as a whole,” of the preceding sentence does not imply writing and reading; and there is no other word in the context even to suggest this except the reference to memory, which in the classical rhetoric is rarely applied to memorizing. The translation “easily learnt” is precluded both by the general trend of the passage and by the specific figures of walking, running, and breathing. Here, as throughout the _Rhetoric_ and the _Poetic_, Aristotle avoids speaking of style in the visual terms common to modern generations of writers and readers. His terms, whether literal or figurative, are generally auditory and motor. When he uses others, it is to distinguish something special, as in Chapter xii (below) the exceptional, literary opportunity of such compositions as those of Isocrates. Not only does his _Rhetoric_ deal primarily and generally with oral composition, but in particular this section on σύνθεσις (_compositio_) deals with movement almost exclusively. Not until he has explained the period rhythmically does he add our modern definition that it should _also_ be concluded with the sense, i.e., with the syntax. Meantime he finds the period superior to the loose sentence—for oratory—first because it satisfies the ear by being heard as a definite rhythm, and secondly because it satisfies the mind by being intended and apprehended as a definite unit of thought.

[62] 1409 b.

[63] The admirable rendering of Jebb.

[64] 1409 b (toward end).

[65] 1409 b.

[66] For the contrast between the two movements in modern prose, see my _College Composition_, pages 184-188; for the effect of a passage of short sentences vs. that of a passage of long sentences, pages 69-71. Though the sentence unit, in our modern logical sense, is not always clear from the punctuation of even modern editions of ancient texts, it will usually be clear from the conclusion of the rhythm. In the earlier stages of modern prose, on the other hand, it is sometimes so dubious as to suggest that it was not always felt distinctly. The artistic development of modern prose, in other words, is partly the progressive distinction of periods.

[67] Chapter ix, 1410 a.

[68] Chapter x, 1410 b.

[69] 1404 b.

[70] τὰ ἀστεῖα καὶ τὰ εὐδοκιμοῦντα, lively and pleasing, smart and popular.

[71] Chapter xi, below.

[72] σχῆμα.

[73] ἐνέργεια.

[74] 1411 a.

[75] 1411 b.

[76] ἐνεργοῦντα. Here, perhaps, is the suggestion for Lessing’s famous doctrine in the _Laokoön_ as to Homeric description.

[77] 1412 a.

[78] 1404 b.

[79] 1406 a.

[80] 1413 b.

[81] Chapter vii, 1408 a.

[82] For this division see Book I, Chapter iii, 1358 b.

[83] ἡ μὲν οὖν ἐπιδεικτικὴ λέξις γραφικωτάτη· τὸ γὰρ ἔργον αὐτῆς ἀνάγνωσις (1414 a). The intervening reference to Chæremon, a poet said to have been better to read than to hear, as “precise as a professional speech-writer,” should not deviate us here into consideration of speeches written out to be memorized. For a full discussion of the professional speech-writer (λογογράφος) see Cope and Sandys on Book II. xi. 7. Here Aristotle is discussing something different, the adaptation of occasional oratory as nicer and more literary in sentence movement. Perhaps he implies too that such speeches had better be composed, as well as elaborated, in writing. Certainly this kind of oratory, from Isocrates down, regularly included many compositions which we should call essays and which were not even intended to be spoken.

[84] Chapters xiii-xix.

[85] τέχναι. See Cope, _Introduction_, page 331.

[86] Chapter xiii, 1414 a.

[87] 1414 b.

[88] 1418 b.

[89] Chapter xiv, 1415 a.

[90] 1415 b-1416 b.

[91] 1416 b.

[92] Chapter xvi, 1416 b. The counsel is too often forgotten by panegyrists in Congress, perhaps because they are lawyers.

[93] 1417 b.

[94] See above on style in general (1404 a), on the vividness of the concrete (1404 b), on visualizing metaphor (1410 b), and on describing in action (1411 b).

[95] Chapter xvii, 1417 b. For the place of Chapters xvii and xviii in relation to the whole work see foot-note 5 to page 197 of Jebb’s translation.

[96] 1418 a.

[97] ἐπίλογος. Chapter xix, 1419 b.

[98] 1420 a.