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Title: Ancient rhetoric and poetic
Interpreted from representative works
Author: Charles Sears Baldwin
Release date: August 19, 2025 [eBook #76707]
Language: English
Original publication: Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1924
Credits: Tor Martin Kristiansen, Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANCIENT RHETORIC AND POETIC ***
ANCIENT RHETORIC AND POETIC
ANCIENT
RHETORIC AND POETIC
INTERPRETED FROM REPRESENTATIVE
WORKS
BY
CHARLES SEARS BALDWIN
PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
ΤΟ ΜΕΝ ΔΗ ΠΟΙΗΤΙΚΟΝ ΦΥΛΟΝ ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΟΝ
_Lucian_
GLOUCESTER, MASS.
PETER SMITH
1959
COPYRIGHT, 1924
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
REPRINTED, 1959
BY PERMISSION OF
MARSHALL W. BALDWIN
NELSON GLENN MCCREA
ARTIS VTRIVSQVE
LITTERATE PERITO
HVNC LIBRVM
COLLEGA AMICVS
D. D. D.
PREFACE
To interpret ancient rhetoric and poetic afresh from typical theory
and practise is the first step toward interpreting those traditions
of criticism which were most influential in the middle age. Medieval
rhetoric and poetic in turn, besides illuminating medieval literature,
prepare for clearer comprehension of the Renaissance renewal of
allegiance to antiquity. Thus the historical survey needed to focus
many important detached studies itself needs a preliminary volume of
exposition. The influences of ancient oratory, drama, and story cannot
be measured surely without more specific knowledge of ancient precept
and practise, firmer grasp of ancient conceptions, than has been offered
by any synthesis in English. Even in other languages the available
compends are generally rather digests, or dictionaries of terms, than
interpretations of leading ideas. Instead of risking once more the
inadequacy and the forced emphasis that beset such a method, I have tried
to make the most representative ancients speak for themselves.
Though the very choice of spokesmen interposes the chooser, scholars
generally, I hope, will accept Aristotle for the theory of rhetoric as
the energizing of knowledge, Cicero for its scope and skill in practise,
Quintilian for its teaching, and so on through a list chosen for
representative significances. Nor does the plan of spokesmen preclude
sufficient indications of general theory and practise. It shows in
Cicero the influence not only of Aristotle, but of Isocrates. In poetic,
ancient epic art is revealed most definitely and most largely in the
_Æneid_ because Vergil, besides being one of the greatest of poets, was
so studious a craftsman as to choose from all the ancient experience
the most vital ways of narrative. Historically the New Comedy seems
more significant than the Old; and the same consideration has included
not only Ovid, but even Seneca. These analyses of ancient achievement
are made complementary to ancient theory by being strictly limited to
composition.
All the authors chosen have been already expounded and translated, some
of them again and again, but rather as philosophers, or as orators, or
as men of letters, or simply as Greeks or Romans, than as writers on
composition. Yet composition was not only one of the greatest ancient
achievements; it was a constant preoccupation and a consistent technic.
No other body of technic is more thorough and comprehensive than ancient
rhetoric; and few have been so generally recognized. Every writer had it
in mind; and since commentators have often had in mind something else, I
have felt myself bound always to explore the technical connotations of
the originals, and usually to retranslate. Verification is facilitated
by exact citation, and comparative study by the indexes. What may thus
serve incidentally as a book of reference is primarily, however, a
progressive exposition from ideas through principles to details. The
Greek philosophy of rhetoric is confirmed and applied in the great period
of Rome by the most influential orator of history. Aristotle’s theory
and Cicero’s vindication put us in the best position to comprehend the
method and the detail of Quintilian. This in turn guides appreciation
of that abundant study of style which is exemplified typically in
Dionysius of Halicarnassus and illuminated by the genius who wrote the
_De sublimitate_. Through such spokesmen, with complementary technical
analysis of ancient achievement, the way seems surest toward recovering
inductively the ancient artistic experience.
This experience has remained too long in abeyance for speakers, writers,
and teachers of English. In the United States, though composition has
been studied during the past fifty years more generally, perhaps, than
in any other country except France, neither our theory nor our pedagogy
has applied very widely the ancient lore. Jesuit schools, indeed, have
maintained the tradition of rhetoric, as have some others teaching
composition consecutively through Latin; but in general the multitude
of modern text-books of English composition shows little use of ancient
experience. Thus it has been possible to propose as new, and even to try,
methods exploded in Rome two thousand years ago. There is no question of
reviving an equally exploded archaism. Nor need we fall again into the
Ciceronianism of the Renaissance. Ancient deviation, as I have tried to
show, is no less instructive than ancient progress. The point is so to
comprehend what the ancients learned in singularly fortunate conditions
as to guide our own theory away from vain repetition toward progressive
realization of our own opportunities.
Metric, except where it bears incidentally on prose rhythms, has
been deliberately excluded. In the present divergence of critical
interpretation an entire volume would hardly suffice for a really
contributory synthesis. The larger movements of poetic, dramaturgy and
the development of verse narrative, show a consistency that warrants a
synthesis of ancient poetic; and there is even greater consistency in
ancient rhetoric. But we may not lightly speak of ancient metric, as if
it were continuous from Greek through Latin. Nor is the metric of either
Greek or Latin, significant as it is incidentally, necessary to the
comprehension of ancient rhetoric or poetic.
The innovation of expounding rhetoric and poetic side by side was
suggested by the demands of that historical treatment which is proposed
for a later volume. But though it was designed for this larger purpose,
it has meantime facilitated the immediate task. Actually the experience
of the ancients seems to be best approached from their conception of
composition as twofold. Logical composition and imaginative composition
are, indeed, distinct; but each technic, defined within its own scope,
helps to define the other by contrast. Making each more distinct,
the contrast further exhibits interrelations and confusions highly
significant for the history of both pedagogy and criticism. Not merely as
archæology, then, ancient rhetoric and poetic demand reconsideration, but
as the theory of widely suggestive experiences in the progressive art of
words.
The bibliographies at the head of each chapter or section, and the notes,
are strictly selective. Enumeration of what I have read myself could only
embarrass the guidance of readers who wish to proceed from this book to
further study. Omitting, therefore, all mere acknowledgment of my long
and manifold indebtedness, omitting also the obvious books of reference,
whether histories or topical digests, the apparatus directs immediately
to interpretations either of the authors themselves or of those
principles and habits of ancient art which seem most significant for
the study, the practise, and the teaching of composition. For example,
the references are not to Volkmann and Christ-Schmid, but to Heinze,
Rhys Roberts, Hendrickson, Hubbell, to Sandys the editor rather than to
Sandys the historian; and preference has been given to works in English.
Personal indebtedness begins with a scholar who was professor of Greek
before he became professor of English. The late Thomas R. Price revealed
the study of composition as embracing all ordered expression from a
periodic sentence to a tragedy. The working out of that integrating
conception has been furthered by so many colleagues that specific
acknowledgment must perforce be limited to those interested immediately
in this volume. Professor LaRue VanHook read my translation of Dio
Chrysostom’s _Oratio LII_; Professor Nelson Glenn McCrea, the entire
manuscript and the proof. For criticism of the manuscript I am no less
deeply indebted to Professors Brander Matthews and Ashley H. Thorndike;
for valuable suggestions on the proofs, to Professors Edward D. Perry,
Frank G. Moore, and Donald L. Clark, and to the Rev. Professor Francis P.
Donnelly, S. J. In 1920 Professor Rhys Roberts, after sharing his acute
and sympathetic scholarship in conversation on the plan of both volumes,
did me the honor to read in manuscript the first draft of Chapter II.
High appreciation of all this generosity and a grateful sense of this
fellowship of letters at once acquit these scholars of all responsibility
for my interpretations and encourage my hope of contributing toward a
more fruitful criticism of ancient composition.
C. S. B.
BARNARD COLLEGE
MAY, 1924
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. RHETORIC AND POETIC 1
II. THE _RHETORIC_ OF ARISTOTLE 6
Book I 7
Book II 17
Book III 21
III. RHETORIC IN THE _DE ORATORE_ AND _ORATOR_ OF CICERO 37
_De Oratore_ 40
_Orator_ 56
IV. THE TEACHING OF RHETORIC 62
Quintilian on the Teaching of Rhetoric (_De institutione
oratoria_) 63
_Declamatio_ in Seneca, Tacitus, and Pliny 87
V. THE LITERARY CRITICISM OF RHETORIC 102
Dionysius of Halicarnassus on Sentences 103
The Great Unknown on Imaginative Diction (“Longinus on
the Sublime”) 122
VI. THE _POETIC_ OF ARISTOTLE 132
Tabular View 135
The Idea of Dramatic Movement 158
VII. POETIC IN ANCIENT DRAMA AND NARRATIVE 167
Drama 168
Greek Tragedy 168
Senecan Tragedy 186
Latin Comedy 188
Narrative 192
The _Æneid_ 192
The Narrative Poetry of Ovid 216
The _Metamorphoses_ of Apuleius 221
VIII. RHETORIC IN ANCIENT CRITICISM OF POETIC 224
The Pervasiveness of Rhetoric 224
Criticism from Grammarians 226
Criticism from Professional Public Speakers 229
Dio of Prusa 231
Plutarch’s _How Youth Should Read Poetry_ 239
Horace’s _Ars Poetica_ 242
TABULAR INDEX OF LATIN AND GREEK RHETORICAL TERMS 249
GENERAL INDEX 253
CHAPTER I
RHETORIC AND POETIC
The two great works of Aristotle on composition, the _Rhetoric_ and the
_Poetic_, presuppose an ancient division. That a philosopher should have
written either is itself significant; that he should have written both
implies his ratification of the ancient idea that the art of speaking
and writing is not throughout its various phases single and constant,
but distinctly twofold. On the one hand, the ancients discerned and
developed an art of daily communication, especially of public address,
τέχνη ῥητορική, _ars oratoria_, rhetoric; on the other hand, an art of
imaginative appeal, τέχνη ποιητική, _ars poetica_, poetic.
A distinction between the two in diction, the idea that the language of
poetic is more freely imaginative, is both commonplace and superficial.
The ancients, of course, were aware of it, and frequently thus contrasted
poetry with oratory[1] or with history. But the distinction between the
diction of public address and the diction of drama or epic, between prose
style and poetic style, was not in ancient thought fundamental. Rather
the ancients saw here common ground. Their discussions of prose style
freely draw examples from poetry; for their rhetoric, more explicitly
than most modern rhetoric, realized that the appeal of public address,
in so far as it is an appeal of style, is largely imaginative and
rhythmical.[2] Polybius, indeed, reproaches Phylarchus for his eagerness
to be pathetic and his habit of visualizing the terrible, “as do the
writers of tragedies”[3]; but as a restriction on style in history this
is quite exceptional and would involve disparaging Thucydides. The common
view of history is summed up playfully by Lucian: “Let the [historian’s]
thought, in so far as it too is high-sounding and uplifted, appropriate
and seize something of poetic, especially when it is involved in arrays
and battles by land or sea; for then there will be need of a poetic wind
to fill the sails and bear the tall ship over the waves.”[4] In oratory
the ancients specifically inculcated imaginative visualization, and
taught it from the poets. Their general distinction of style between
prose and verse was in the habit of rhythms. No, the ancient distinction
between rhetoric and poetic is far more than a differentiation of style.
The difference that Aristotle saw between history and poetry is far
deeper; and perhaps this was in the mind of Polybius when he went on to
say,[5] “the end of history is not the same as that of tragedy, but the
opposite,” and complained that Phylarchus was too fond of working up
crises (περιπέτειαι). Even the flippant Lucian may have meant to imply,
though he does not carry out, a deeper difference when he said:[6]
“the undertakings of the poetic art [in general] and of poems [in
particular], and the appropriate rules, are one thing; those of history,
quite another.” At any rate, the Aristotelian distinction of history from
poetry, repeated by Polybius in the second century B.C. and by Lucian
in the second century A.D., is not merely in diction, not in prose or
verse, but in composition.
So, even more evidently and pervasively, is the broader distinction
between oratory and poetry. Rhetoric and poetic connoted two fields
of composition, two habits of conceiving and ordering, two typical
movements. The movement of the one the ancients saw as primarily
intellectual, a progress from idea to idea determined logically; that
of the other, as primarily imaginative, a progress from image to image
determined emotionally. This distinction is more fundamental than
that of so-called literary forms. The ancients were well aware that a
particular composition might shift from one movement to the other, a
play of Euripides lean toward oratory, an oration of Isocrates move for
a while in the mode of poetry. What they contemplated in their division
was not primarily a composition, but composition as a general habit, the
predominant and determining way of composing, the difference between the
habitual movement of a Demosthenes and that of a Sophocles. Finding these
to be distinct essentially, as typical processes of conceiving, ordering,
and uttering, Aristotle treated them separately as two distinct technics,
rhetoric and poetic.[7]
That the distinction between the habitual composition, or movement, of
rhetoric and that of poetic is not oftener made explicitly by ancient
critics need cause little surprise. The distinction may have been
familiar enough to be tacitly assumed. It is, in fact, often assumed; it
was quite clear in the mind of whoever wrote the _De sublimitate_; but
it is sharply defined and fully carried out only by Aristotle. We must
remember that ancient criticism had no second Aristotle, that it was
preoccupied with rhetoric, and that it usually discussed speaking and
writing, as modern criticism does no less usually, in terms of style.
The long history of criticism shows few outstanding works on composition
in the large. None the less for the meagerness of criticism, the active
presence of the distinction is seen in the greatest works of antiquity.
Nor is the distinction unknown to modern criticism. It is misinterpreted,
for instance, at the beginning of Blair’s Lecture XXXVIII, confirmed
by De Quincey’s distinction[8] between literature of knowledge and
literature of power, and revived in the division, cited by Renard[9] from
H. Balzac, into “_écrivains d’idées_ and _écrivains d’images_.” But in
spite of significant occurrences and recurrences, it seems not to have
controlled any consecutive movement of modern criticism.
Again, the four “forms of discourse” widely accepted by American
text-books naturally combine into exposition and argument under rhetoric
on the one hand and, on the other, description and narrative under
poetic. But obvious as this seems, the older, simpler, more fundamental
division does not widely control modern pedagogy. None the less its
pedagogical aspect, in either ancient or modern times, is more important
than that of many more current critical distinctions. For learning to
write, the distinction between rhetoric and poetic is more directive
than the distinction, for instance, of literary forms. It is also more
supported and interpreted by psychology; for it divides not merely what
is composed, but the typical habits of composing.
Thus the experience of the ancients with composition, an experience
so prolonged and so progressive as to constitute a full and distinct
chapter in the history of art, may be approached first by dividing as
they divided. Each technic, defined within its own scope, helps to define
the other by contrast. Making each more distinct, the contrast further
exhibits interrelations and confusions highly significant for the history
of both pedagogy and criticism.
Rhetoric in the philosophy of Aristotle is essentially the art of giving
effectiveness to truth. Accepting this theory, Cicero nevertheless feels
rather the tradition of rhetoric as the art of giving effectiveness to
the speaker. The constructive review of a great orator exploring his art
is thus complementary to the analysis of the philosopher. Even after
Aristotle and Cicero there was room for a third survey. Quintilian showed
how rhetoric pervaded and largely directed ancient education. For that
ancient art which was at once useful and fine, an education and a career,
had great spokesmen. We shall begin best, and go on most surely, by
letting them speak: Aristotle for the function and scope of rhetoric,
Cicero for its pursuit and achievements, Quintilian for its method.
FOOT-NOTES:
[1] Quintilian, for instance, appreciates Lucan as “ardens et concitatus
et sententiis clarissimus, et, ut dicam quod sentio, magis oratoribus
quam poetis imitandus.” _Inst. Or._ X. i. 90.
[2] Typical of this habit of thought is: “Exigitur enim iam ab oratore
etiam poeticus decor ... ex Horatii et Vergilii et Lucani sacrario
prolatus.” Tacitus, _Dialogus, 20_.
[3] Polybius, II. 56.
[4] Lucian, _Quomodo historia_, 45.
[5] Polybius, II. 56.
[6] Lucian, _Quomodo historia_, 8.
[7] The terms _rhetoric_ and _poetic_ are contrasted in Lucian,
_Demosthenis encomium_, 5-8, 17-18; Strabo, I. ii. 6 (C. 17, end).
[8] Essay on Pope.
[9] G. Renard, _La méthode scientifique de l’histoire littéraire_, page
385.
CHAPTER II
THE _RHETORIC_ OF ARISTOTLE
The only art of composition that concerns the mass of mankind, and is
therefore universal in both educational practise and critical theory,
is the art of effective communication by speaking and writing. This is
what the ancients and most moderns call rhetoric. More ample and exact
definition, though unnecessary for elementary practise, is demanded
for fruitful theory; and the theory of rhetoric has always concerned
so many more people than the theory of any other art as to be part of
every pedagogy. Here the practise of education not only may be guided by
philosophy; it must be. For any coherence in its teaching, rhetoric must
be comprehended not only in its immediate functions, but in its pervasive
relations to other studies. It is at once the constant in educational
schemes and the art among sciences. How we are in a given time and place
to learn or teach rhetoric depends on how we understand its function and
scope in specific relations.
The importance of a theory of rhetoric in this aspect was discerned by
the greatest philosopher of antiquity. In Aristotle’s comprehensive
survey of thought and action rhetoric is not merely included; it has
substantive place. Aristotle’s _Rhetoric_,[1] though professedly more
analytical than constructive, has a consecutive development. Neither his
ethics nor his politics receives more scrutiny or shows more penetration
and grasp. As if he dared not slight it, he shows in this work,
comparatively brief though it is, the full reach of his intelligence. In
detail it has been questioned; but in conception and plan, in direction
of thought and order of presentation, it has remained fruitful.
BOOK I
Book I _surveys by definition and division the opportunity
of the public speaker_. (i) Rhetoric is the complement of
logic (dialectic). It is the art of persuasion formulated
by investigating the methods of successful address; and
its object is to promote a habit of discerning what in any
given case is essentially persuasive. Proof as contemplated
by rhetoric proceeds by such means as may be used in public
address. Instead of the syllogism, which is proper to
abstract logic, rhetoric typically uses the enthymeme, that
approximate syllogism which is proper and necessary to the
actual concrete discussion of public questions. Thus rhetoric
serves as a general public means (1) of maintaining truth
and justice against falsehood and wrong, (2) of advancing
public discussion where absolute proof is impossible, (3) of
cultivating the habit of seeing both sides and of exposing
sophistries and fallacies, and (4) of self-defense. (ii) The
means of persuasion outside of rhetoric (πίστεις ἄτεχνοι) are
witnesses, documents, and other evidence; the means within
the art of rhetoric (ἔντεχνοι) are the moral force of the
speaker, his adaptation to the disposition of the audience,
and his arguments. (iii) The three fields of rhetoric are: (1)
deliberative address to a popular assembly, discussing the
expediency of a proposal for the future; (2) forensic address
to a court, discussing the justice of a deed in the past; and
(3) panegyric, commemorating the significance of a present
occasion. The eleven remaining chapters of this book analyze
each of these fields in its main aspects, or fundamental
topics, _e.g._, wealth, happiness, government, crime, virtue,
etc.[2]
The bare digest will show that Aristotle’s _Rhetoric_ is hardly a manual.
In fact, it is rather less a manual than is his _Poetic_. It is a
philosophical survey. The scope of rhetoric is measured not by any scheme
of education, but by the relations of knowledge to conduct and affairs.
To be comprehended, this great work should be read consecutively, for
it is not merely systematic; in spite of parts undeveloped, it is
progressive, and its chief significance, perhaps, is from its total
development. The following discussion presupposes a fresh and consecutive
reading.
About rhetoric Aristotle would first of all have right thinking,
conceptions large enough to be suggestive and distinct enough to be true.
So the definition in his first chapter is slowly inductive. First we
are to distinguish rhetoric from logic.[3] As modes of thought the two
are alike general, both applicable universally, neither having its own
subject-matter. As modes of utterance they differ typically in that while
logic is abstract, rhetoric is concrete; while the one is analytic, the
other is synthetic; while the one is a method of study, the other is a
method of communication.
Rhetoric, no less than logic, has subject-matter in every given case.
Only its perverters teach it as merely an art of dealing with persons,
of reaching an audience. No less than logic, it is a means of bringing
out truth, of making people see what is true and fitting. But rhetoric
contemplates having truth embraced. It is the application of proof to
people. Its distinction from logic is here, in the typical mode of proof.
The type in logic is the syllogism; the type in rhetoric Aristotle calls
the enthymeme.[4] By this he means concrete proof, proof applicable
to human affairs, such argument as is actually available in current
discussion. The enthymeme is not inferior to the syllogism; it is merely
different. Actually, public address on current public questions cannot be
carried on by syllogisms or by final inductions. That by which it can be
carried on, the strongest proof possible to actual discussion, Aristotle
calls enthymeme.
From this typical mode of rhetoric Aristotle gathers its fourfold
function: first and foremost, to make truth prevail by presenting it
effectively in the conditions of actual communication, to move; second,
to advance inquiry by such methods as are open to men generally, to
teach; third, to cultivate the habit of seeing both sides and of
analyzing sophistries and fallacies, to debate; and finally to defend
oneself and one’s cause. That truth does not always prevail shows the
need of effective presentation. The first function, then, of rhetoric
is to make truth prevail among men as they are. Truth cannot be learned
by the mass of men through scientific investigation; for that demands
special training. A second direction, then, of rhetoric is to make the
results of investigation generally available, to teach truth in general
human terms. Debate, Aristotle’s third item, which is one whole field of
rhetoric, may indeed be mere logical fence, using terms and propositions
as mere counters; but real skill in debate, the habit of seeing both
sides and of analyzing sophistries and fallacies, tends to make truth
emerge from current discussion. The fourth use of rhetoric, for
self-defense, seems added merely for completeness and to rebut the common
objection that rhetoric is abused. That, says Aristotle, is no argument
against it.[5]
The definition implied and sketched in Chapter I and formulated in
Chapter II, may be summed up in the word persuasion, if we are careful
to speak of persuasion not as achievement, but as method. Just as we ask
of medicine, not that it shall infallibly heal—a degree of achievement
impossible in human affairs—but that it shall discern and use all the
means of healing available in the given case, so the true end of rhetoric
is to induce such habitual skill as shall _discern in any given case the
available means of persuasion_.[6]
As means of persuasion we must include both those that are extrinsic and
those that are intrinsic,[7] those that lie outside the art of rhetoric
in the domains of subject-matter and those that lie within, the facts
of the case and the technic of making them tell. For rhetoric has to
include subject-matter, the forces of knowledge. Though this is extrinsic
in the sense of lying outside the art of rhetoric, it is essential.
Rhetoric is an art, as Aristotle is careful to show; but it differs from
other arts in the degree of importance it must always attach to its
subject-matter. The division here into extrinsic means and intrinsic
means as both necessary to persuasion is not merely the obvious one into
matter and manner, substance and style; it is a division of the springs
of composition, the sources of effectiveness, into those that lie outside
and those that lie inside of utterance, or presentation. It frankly
accepts rhetoric as more than artistic, as never self-sufficient and
absolute, as always relating presentation to investigation.
Equally philosophical is the following division[8] of the intrinsic
means of persuasion into: (1) those inherent in the character or moral
potentiality (ἦθος) of the speaker, (2) those inherent in his actual
moving of the audience, and (3) those inherent in the form and phrase of
the speech itself. That the three are not mutually exclusive is evident
and must have been deliberate. Aristotle is telling us that rhetoric
as an art is to be approached from these three directions and in this
order. The division is comprehensive not only as being satisfying
psychologically, but as constituting an outline for the whole work,
the headings of the development in three books: first, the speaker
himself; secondly, the audience; and finally, in the light of these
two, and as the bringing of the one to bear on the other, the speech.
Book I deals with the speaker as himself the prime means of persuasion.
Rhetoric, Aristotle implies, is necessarily ethical in that everything
consecutively imparted or communicated, as distinct from the abstractions
of geometry or logic, is subjective. Moreover, in making the speaker
the point of departure Aristotle admits that other trend of classical
pedagogy which made rhetoric a cultivation of personality. Book II,
proceeding to the second item of the division above, deals with the
audience, with knowledge of human nature, especially of typical habits
of mind; for rhetoric in this aspect too is ethical. It deals with the
interaction of moral forces in speaker and audience, and also with the
direct arousing of emotion. The speech itself, the final utterance,
which is the subject of Book III, has thus been approached as the art of
adjusting the subject-matter of a given case through the intelligence and
emotion of the speaker to the intelligence and emotion of the audience.
This is the only book of very specific technic; and it comes last
psychologically.
Aristotle’s division and its order are the division and the order
not merely of analysis, but of much the same synthesis as underlies
the actual processes of composition. I begin with myself; for the
subject-matter else is dead, remaining abstract. It begins to live,
to become persuasive, when it becomes my message. Then only have I
really a subject for presentation. A subject, for purposes of address
as distinct from purposes of investigation, must include the speaker.
It is mine if it arouses me. I consider next the audience, not for
concession or compromise, but for adaptation. What is mine must become
theirs. Therefore I must know them, their ἦθος and their πάθος. My
address becomes concrete through my effort to bring it home. The truth
must prevail—through what? Against what? Not only through or against
reasoning, but through or against complexes of general moral habit and
the emotions of the occasion. I must establish sympathy, win openness of
mind, instruct in such wise as to please and awaken, rouse to action.
My speech is for these people now. Only thus am I ready to consider
composition; for only thus can I know what arguments are available, or
what order will be effective, or what style will tell.
This is the philosophy of presentation. What is its practise? Rhetoric
ranges for subject-matter most often in the fields of social ethics and
politics, tempting its professors, Aristotle adds acutely, to assume the
mask of politics.[9] It deals with “the ordinary and recognized subjects
of deliberation,”[10] with matters still in dispute and doubt. Thus
dealing with social and political conduct, it can neither proceed, as
logic does, by absolute propositions nor arrive at logical demonstration.
Its premises are not universals, but generally accepted probabilities.
That is, to resume his previous distinction, the mode of rhetoric is
not the syllogism or induction proper to logical formulation, but the
enthymeme or instances proper to actual presentation. The mode of
scientific induction emerges to-day in the “gas laws” or the formula
of the velocity of light; the mode of rhetoric emerges in Huxley’s
“Piece of Chalk.” Abstract deduction is summed up in the syllogism;[11]
concrete deduction, in the enthymeme. By enthymeme, as Aristotle has
now made fully clear, is meant a “rhetorical syllogism” in the sense of
a deduction available concretely for presentation, as distinct from a
deduction formulated abstractly for analysis. His enthymeme is deductive
method used constructively. It is not mere popular reasoning, logic
modified for popular consumption, but public reasoning, such reasoning
as is available with the public for building up public opinion and policy.
Therefore the headings, or “topics,” of rhetoric are not peculiar to a
particular field of investigation, but general or “common topics” such as
justice or expediency, which express common human relations. To deviate
from these into the method peculiar to a given subject-matter, physics
for example, is to pass[12] from rhetorical method for presentation over
to scientific method for analysis; and this, of course, the speaker must
do to the extent of mastering his subject-matter before he presents it.
Though he must not forget that his ultimate task is to present to an
audience and therefore concretely, neither can he forget that what is
to be presented must be acquired. In so far as he investigates he will
follow scientific method, the analysis proper to the field, the “special
topics.” Thus for his education he needs some study of the “special
topics” of those sciences that furnish most of his subject-matter, the
“special topics” of ethics and politics. Of these he must have, as
part of his equipment, a practical or working knowledge, the orator’s
equipment for considering each case within its own field as well as in
its general relations to human nature. Aristotle’s distinction here
between general and special “topics” coincides with his earlier division
(page 10) of the means of persuasion into intrinsic and extrinsic. The
extrinsic means are knowledge, to be got by the methods of getting; the
intrinsic means are utterance, to be given by the methods of giving.
At this point, the opening of Chapter iii,[13] Aristotle makes his
scientific division of rhetoric by its fields. The three fields of
rhetoric are: (1) the _deliberative_, persuasion in public assemblies
as to matters of current discussion, looking to the future, urging
expediency: (2) the _forensic_, accusation and defense in courts, looking
to the past, urging justice; and (3) the _occasional_,[14] praise or
blame, looking to the present, urging honor. The underlying, general,
or “final topics” of rhetoric, as distinct from the special topics that
it uses from other studies, are thus seen to be expediency (including
practicability), justice, honor, and their opposites; and the special
topics drawn by rhetoric from philosophy, ethics, and politics may be
grouped in a speaker’s compend of these studies according as they apply
to the deliberative, the forensic, or the occasional field.
In deliberative oratory[15] the speaker deals with good and bad, not in
the abstract as the philosopher contemplates virtue or happiness, but
in concrete matters of doubt and dispute. So his topic of possibility
is not abstract, as in mathematics, but concrete, in relation to human
will. So in general Aristotle disclaims for his classification of the
ordinary subjects of deliberative oratory any attempt at scientific
division or scientific method of investigation. Those he follows in his
other works; here the analysis that he provides is avowedly practical.
Since in politics,[16] for example, the public speaker needs to know
something of finance, war, commerce, legislation, Aristotle gives him a
suggestive summary of what he should learn. In our modern educational
systems such a summary has far less importance; but the correlation
remains vital. Pedagogically as well as philosophically, deliberative
oratory must be correlated with its natural subject-matter. So to-day
college courses in rhetoric demand correlation with college courses in
history, sociology, economics, and politics. The professors of these
subjects train for investigation, teaching the scientific method proper
to each; the professor of rhetoric trains for presentation, teaching
general methods, Aristotle’s general or “final topics,” for handling all
such material. But unless each method of training can make use of the
other, both will suffer. Rhetoric must lean upon such real knowledge of
a given subject-matter as is furnished by the studies dealing with that
subject-matter scientifically, i.e., by its “special topics.” Meantime
Aristotle’s summary is intended not to explore these special topics, but
to show what they are.
Similarly the student of deliberative oratory needs such a survey of
philosophy[17] as will acquaint him with current ideas concerning
happiness, whether of rank, offspring, wealth, honor, health, beauty,
or strength, and concerning a good old age, friendship, fortune, and
virtue. Therefore Aristotle, summarizing these conceptions, supplies[18]
a cursory examination of good in general and of goods, or good things,
in particular, proceeding[19] both by definition and by comparison, and
not limiting his discussion to the deliberative field. To the latter, and
to politics, he reverts in the concluding chapter[20] of this section by
enumerating briefly the common forms of polity: democracy, oligarchy,
aristocracy, and monarchy.
Since occasional oratory[21] demands an equipment primarily ethical,
Aristotle provides a summary of moral nobility[22] by definition and
comparison. This is applied more specifically than the preceding section
to rhetorical method, in this case to the method of enhancing or
heightening and to the method of comparison.
For forensic oratory[23] Aristotle provides as a speaker’s compend of
philosophy a survey of the objects and conditions of crime. He makes
no specific mention of what we now call criminal tendencies; and
his division of “extrinsic proofs,” i.e., of legal evidence (laws,
witnesses, contracts, tortures, the oath) is for the modern lawyer
neither scientific nor significant.
BOOK II
As Book I is the book of the speaker, Book II is the book of the
audience. The audience is not merely discussed; it furnishes the point
of view. As Book I considers the necessities and opportunities of the
speaker, so Book II considers the attitude of the audience. Book I is
rhetoric as conceived; Book II is rhetoric as received.
Since rhetoric is for judgment—for even deliberative speeches
are judged, and forensic is [concerned entirely with]
judgment—we must see to it not only that the speech shall be
convincing and persuasive, but also that the judge shall be in
the right frame of mind. For it makes a great difference to
persuasion, especially in deliberative speeches, but also in
forensic, how the speaker strikes the audience—both how the
hearers think he regards them, and in addition how they are
disposed toward him. How the speaker strikes the audience is
of more practical concern for deliberative speeches; how the
hearer is disposed, for forensic. The effect is not the same
on a friendly audience as on a hostile one, on the angry as on
the tranquil, but either different altogether or different in
degree.... Three [impressions] constitute persuasiveness—three,
that is, outside of the arguments used: wisdom, virtue, and
good will [i.e., a speaker’s persuasiveness, in the sense of
his personal effect on his hearers, depends on their believing
him to be wise, upright, and interested in them].... From
what sources [in moral habits, ἦθος], then, the speaker may
strike his hearers as wise and earnest we must gather from
the analysis of the virtues, whether his immediate purpose
be to make his audience feel thus and so or to appear thus
and so himself; but good will and affection we must discuss
now under the head of the emotions (πάθη). By emotions I
mean any changes, attended by pain or pleasure, that make a
difference to men’s judgment [of a speech]; e.g., anger, pity,
fear, etc., and their opposites. The consideration of each
emotion—anger, for instance—must have a threefold division: (1)
how people are angry, (2) what they are angry at, and (3) why;
for if we should know only one or two of these, not all three,
it would be impossible to excite anger, and so with the other
emotions.[24]
In this way Aristotle proceeds to analyze, in Chapters ii-xi, the common
emotions: anger, love, fear, shame, benevolence, pity, envy, emulation,
and their opposites. The relation of these to the formation of character
leads to six chapters on character in youth, in age, in the prime of
life, and on the typical dominant traits of character seen respectively
in persons of social rank, of wealth, of power, and of good fortune.[25]
The classification here will be more satisfying as psychology if we
remember that it analyzes the common types of character and emotion in a
crowd. Aristotle is attempting neither an analysis of mental operations
nor a science of human nature, but such a practical classification as may
inculcate the habit of adaptation to the feelings of an audience.
The psychological analysis of the audience concluded with Chapter xvii,
Aristotle returns to rhetoric in our ordinary sense at Chapter xviii
with a recapitulation.[26] “The use of persuasive discourse,” he says,
resuming the language of the opening of this book, “is for judgment,” or
decision; i.e., persuasion connotes an audience to be persuaded. After
showing that this is true in all cases, and summarizing briefly the
main aspects of Books I and II, he concludes his transition by saying:
“it remains for us to go on with the common topics.”[27] With these he
actually goes on, not merely extending the treatment of them in Book
I (see page 14), but considering them now as to their availability,
their effect upon hearers. More explicit statement, however, of this
distinction might well have made the bearing of these latter chapters
clearer. The topic of possibility[28] implies the range of the argument
from antecedent probability (_a priori_). Example[29] includes analogy,
both from history[30] and from fiction, with specific mention of fables.
In this wide sense, including mere illustration, it means little more
than vividness of presentation through the concrete and specific; but
that its persuasive value far exceeds its logical cogency no one doubts
who knows audiences. This is the angle, too, from which Aristotle
discusses maxims.[31] “They have great service for speeches because
audiences are commonplace. People are pleased when a speaker hits on
a wide general statement of opinions that they hold in some partial
or fragmentary form.”[32] The same point of view controls the further
discussion of enthymemes,[33] which includes a hint of something like
Mill’s Canon of Concomitant Variations,[34] directions for logical
exclusion, for analysis demanding particulars, for dilemma, and for
_reductio ad absurdum_. Remarking the popularity of the refutative, or
destructive enthymeme over the constructive, and touching the fallacies
of _petitio principii_ and _post hoc_, the book concludes[35] with
methods of refutation (λύσις).
BOOK III
Book III studies the speech itself. Book I having presented rhetoric from
the view of the speaker, and Book II from the view of the audience, Book
III now applies it directly to the speech.[36]
Since rhetoric must treat systematically three things: (1) what
the means of persuasion are to be, (2) the diction,[37] (3)
how to arrange[38] the parts of the speech, ... [the first has
been discussed]. We have next to speak of the diction. For it
is not enough to know what we ought to say; we must also know
how we ought to say it, and this contributes much to the effect
of the speech. The first subject of our inquiry [(1) above]
was naturally that which comes first by nature, the facts
themselves—in what aspects they are persuasive. The second is
the expression of these in the diction. The third [_not_ (3)
above], which is of very great importance, is the delivery.
The threefold division sketched here seems at first sight to coincide,
so far as it goes, with the one that afterward became traditional.
Classical rhetoric as a whole assumes a fivefold division: (1) εὕρεσις,
_inventio_, the gathering and analysis of the material; (2) τάξις,
_dispositio_, _collocatio_, the arrangement, sequence, or movement in
the large; (3) λέξις, _elocutio_, the diction, or the choice of words
and their combination in phrases, clauses, and sentences, the movement
in detail; (4) ὑπόκρισις, _pronuntiatio_, delivery, or “elocution”; (5)
μνήμη, _memoria_, memory. But Aristotle’s division neither corresponds
to this nor is consistent with itself. The first item is the same in
both. Aristotle’s second item is clearly the same as the later third,
and has the same name (λέξις, diction). The third item of his opening
sentence seems equivalent to the traditional second (τάξις), and uses the
corresponding verb (τάξαι); but below he makes his third item instead
delivery (ὑπόκρισις), which is the fourth item of the traditional
division, and then proceeds in the same chapter to include delivery,
by implication, under diction.[39] In a word, the opening division of
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.
CHAPTER III
RHETORIC IN THE _DE ORATORE_ AND _ORATOR_ OF CICERO[1]
Cicero remains after two thousand years the typical orator writing on
oratory. The most eminent orator of Roman civilization, he wrote more
than any other orator has ever written on rhetoric; and historically he
has been more than any other an ideal and model. Conscious of his own
range and of the narrowness and low esteem that seem from the beginning
to have cursed teachers and especially manuals of rhetoric, he is anxious
in his greater works, _De oratore_ and _Orator_, to appear not as a
rhetorician, but as a philosopher. Though no treatment could well be more
different from Aristotle’s, he is at pains to urge the Academic theory
that rhetoric is a branch of philosophy, and to avoid the technical terms
of the art while keeping its traditional categories. In this attitude he
is but the more typically the artist discussing his own art. He writes as
the man of letters in any age writes on literary composition. We may be
annoyed at a certain condescension toward teachers—as if they might think
themselves able to impart anything like his skill! We may be baffled in
trying to reduce some of his elaborations to specific terms. But rather
we should be grateful to find rhetoric presented, for once at least,
pleasantly as well as suggestively, and still more to find the orator
insisting that it must have the same large scope as is claimed for it by
the philosopher. Where Aristotle and Cicero agree, we may feel sure.
Cicero has been disparaged as a maker of phrases. That he is certainly.
“They write Latin,” says Newman[2] of other great authors; “Cicero
writes Roman.” His own style is the final answer to his detractors. He
is evidently, indeed, a very conscious man of letters, and filed his
speeches for publication; but can we deny vigor of thought to the maker
of such vigorous phrase without lapsing into the separation of style from
substance? Mere style is incredible—unless, as no one pretends of Cicero,
the style is bad. So much _a priori_; and in fact his works will bear
analysis. But he is not creative. He clarifies the thoughts of others
and brings them to bear. His habit and skill are not at all scientific.
His achievement is of style to the extent that it is an achievement of
presentation. What he says of rhetoric, for instance, others have said
before him; he says it better, more clearly, more vividly. He says it so
much better, indeed, that his phrase has a certain finality. It witnesses
not only his extraordinary command of diction, but also his constant
awareness of human implications. His very diffuseness springs from his
constant sense of how people think and feel while they hear and read. In
all this he is typically the orator.
_DE ORATORE_
The title _De oratore_ exactly expresses the subject. Cicero is
discussing rhetoric, indeed; he is writing _de arte oratoria_; but
always, as Aristotle in his first book, from the point of view of the
speaker. It is worth insisting on that the practitioner here coincides
with the philosopher, and both with the theory and practise of rhetoric
in the best days of the ancient tradition. The training of the public
speaker, this tradition consistently repeats, must focus the whole
training of the man. The vice of the teaching of rhetoric in its
decadence under the Empire[3] was so to pervert this principle as to
make all training subordinate to technical skill in rhetoric; and indeed
the principle has this danger of making the whole man serve rhetoric,
instead of making rhetoric bring out the whole man. None the less the
principle rightly conceived is fruitful; and no one has shown this more
persuasively than Cicero.
The form is obviously the Platonic dialogue. The protagonists are the
famous orators Crassus and Antonius, with Scævola, Cotta, Catulus, and
Sulpicius as minor interlocutors. Whatever basis there may have been in
the actual conversations of these historical persons,[4] the work, like
its model, is fiction. It is dramatic in representing the speakers as
_personæ_; but its imaginative realization goes no further. The literary
device of the dialogue is used only to add concreteness to the discussion
of what is always dry when it is abstract. The object is the discussion,
not even incidentally the men who discuss. They talk always as orators
and to promote oratory; and as orators they proceed from point to point.
Plato’s _personæ_ are realized more dramatically. Though only Socrates
is created fully, the others emerge as individuals. The movement of a
Platonic dialogue is far more conversational. Not only does its form give
the illusion of actual talk; its thought moves hither and yon, suggesting
rather than concluding, seeking yet other approaches and departures, not
marching but questing. Cicero raises questions, indeed, but as they are
raised by the public speaker who has predetermined the answer and the
stages by which we are to reach it. For all the ease and skill of its
dialogue, _De oratore_ proceeds by paragraphs as definitely as _De lege
Manilia_.
Though rhetoric is necessary to every educated man for
effective communication, and especially to every aspiring youth
(_laudis cupidus_), how rare are good orators! The reason is
the wide scope. Oratory demands knowledge not only as eruditio,
but also in relation to human will (_animorum motus_). It
demands expressiveness in a wide range of style and delivery.
What more noble? The orator is a principal supporter of the
State. So begins Crassus (I. i-viii); but Scævola demurs,
unwilling to grant either that states have been established and
maintained by orators or that the orator is accomplished in
every sort of utterance and of culture.[5] Here the question
is posed, Is oratory a special art or a comprehensive study?
Though abstractly it may be both, though the one view does not
exclude the other absolutely, practically the emphasis of the
training will be determined by a choice between the two.
As if to forestall restriction, Crassus begins with the widest
extension. He will not agree to exclude[6] from the scope of
oratory public management, instruction, even research. Of the
Greeks who urge this, he says, Plato is a refutation of his
own doctrine, being himself an orator. Democritus, Aristotle,
Theophrastus, Carneades, show the force of oratory; Chrysippus,
the lack of it. Sound without substance is folly.[7] Even legal
pleading demands more than is taught by the rhetoricians. The
orator’s effectiveness depends on knowledge of human emotions;
and they are a field of philosophy. Though he may leave it to
the philosophers as _cognitio_, he must know it[8] as applied
to presentation. To make philosophy effective, you must have
rhetoric. [Does this finally leave the point, which is that
rhetoric needs philosophy?] “What the philosophers dispute in
their corners without any urgency of application, and so in
thin and feeble talk, the orator will set forth in such a way
as to please and move.”[9] Socrates used to say[10] ‘Everybody
is eloquent enough on what he knows’; but the truth is rather
that neither can any one be eloquent on what he does not know,
nor can he be eloquent on what he does know unless he know also
the art of rhetoric.
“Therefore,[11] if we seek to define and embrace the force of
oratory as both general and special, he methinks is an orator,
worthy of so responsible a title, who will say whatever falls
to him for presentation with wise forecast of the whole, order,
style, memory, and a certain dignity of delivery.”
It is disconcerting to arrive, after all, at the traditional parts of
rhetoric. For the definition resolves itself into this:
1. _prudenter_, with wise forecast of the whole = _inventio_;
2. _composite_,[12] with skill in arrangement = _dispositio_;
3. _ornate_, with command of enhancing words = _elocutio_;
4. _memoriter_, with sure memory = _memoria_;
5. _cum actionis dignitate_, with dignity of delivery = _actio_.
But the traditional five parts of rhetoric are more than the table of
contents of the manuals (_artes_). They constitute what we now call in
college schedules a group of studies; and Crassus is contending for the
group as a whole. What he has been insisting on is the importance and
the scope of that first part which, in the long history of rhetoric,
teachers have most often and most dangerously neglected, _inventio_, the
investigation, analysis, and grasp of the subject-matter. He adds[13]
that the orator, though in any given case he may gather his information
from authorities, will express this information as no expert can express
it; and he repeats that in one branch of knowledge he must himself be an
expert, namely in human nature.
The practical difficulty of such a conception of oratory,
rejoins Antonius,[14] is that we have not leisure to realize
it. And if we had, should we not better spend our time on
the practise of speaking? The manuals,[15] he adds somewhat
evasively, have nothing to say about justice, temperance, etc.;
they talk of introductions and perorations. The main thing[16]
is that the orator should appear to his auditory to be the
sort of man that he wishes to appear. That is the result of
dignity of life, about which theories of rhetoric have no more
to say than about the means by which men are moved [Crassus
might have retorted by citing Aristotle’s whole second book].
No rhetorician[17] was ever even a tolerable orator; many
orators have never studied rhetoric. The materials of rhetoric
[in the large sense of material urged by Crassus] are too
indeterminate[18] for an art.
“I call him a master[19] who can speak keenly and clearly to an
average audience from the average point of view; but I call him
eloquent[20] who more wondrously and largely can enhance and
adorn what he will, and hold in mind and memory all the sources
of all things that pertain to public speaking.”
But what pertains to public speaking? How widely should the training
for it range? The definition of Antonius obviously stresses _elocutio_.
Whether he means to make this the main concern of the orator depends
on whether he includes among his “sources” the fund of knowledge urged
by Crassus. The context seems to show that he does not. To put his
definition beside that of Crassus above is to see that its intention is
narrower. It specifies no more than style, first as the amplitude and
vividness that enhance a particular passage, and secondly as the orator’s
general virtuosity.
Crassus returns to the charge with a summary[21] of the actual
training. The student should practise[22] not only extempore
speaking from outline, but also writing. The writing that he
advises here is not for the casting of a given speech in a
particular form, but for education in range and control of
expression. To this end he recommends also wide reading. The
study of law, he adds,[23] should be both of technical detail
and also of larger aspects and relations.
Antonius stands his ground. His second definition of the orator
is substantially a repetition of his first, merely sharpening
the contrast.
“But the orator[24]—and he is the subject of our inquiry—I do
not define as does Crassus, who has seemed to me to include
knowledge of all sciences and arts within the orator’s single
function and name. I think him an orator who can use words
agreeable to hear and thoughts (_sententiis_) adapted to prove
in cases both forensic and deliberative; ... and I would have
him also skilled in voice, gesture, and manner.”
Lest there should seem to be a begging of the question in the
word _sententiis_, which means thoughts and therefore may seem
to imply the studies urged by Crassus, _sententia_ should be
understood rather of the brilliant expression of a single idea
than of a line of thought or of intellectual grasp in general.
That neither of the latter is intended here is shown by the
context.
Because certain orators, Antonius resumes, have been masters of
other things than oratory it does not follow that these other
things belong to oratory. The most that can be said is that, to
attain eminence in oratory, one must have heard, seen, and read
much. Neither an orator’s knowledge of human nature nor his
use of this knowledge in speaking is scientific. Nor must the
orator be a lawyer any more than he must be an actor. Mastery
of law, of acting, of history, of other things, is, indeed, an
advantage; but it is not a necessity to oratory. If the orator
is to be, as Crassus has described him,[25] one who can speak
in ways adapted to persuade, he must sacrifice many other
studies in order to master his own proper art.
One closes the first book with the idea that both Crassus and Antonius
are right. The two men, even more than the two views, are complementary.
The views are irreconcilable only when pushed to the extreme; and in
extreme form either the extensiveness of Crassus or the intensiveness
of Antonius may become a _reductio ad absurdum_. Normally rhetoric is
both extensive and intensive, both a comprehensive study of life and a
specific art, even as the means of persuasion are both extrinsic and
intrinsic. Doubtless Cicero meant to leave this impression; for he gives
full weight to the theory of Antonius here, makes him the mouthpiece
in Book II for the specific lore of _inventio_, which corresponds to
the knowledge urged in Book I by Crassus, and makes Crassus in Book III
the spokesman for style. But certainly Cicero sympathizes, and wishes
us to sympathize, with Crassus. It is Cicero, not merely Crassus, who
pleads that the teaching of the orator be not the imparting of tricks,
nor mainly of technic in a wider and worthier sense, but the gradual
bringing to bear of the whole man. He saw in the focusing of rhetoric on
style a typical danger for teaching. The danger was present, apparently,
in the teaching of his own day; it was serious in the time of Tacitus;
it was epidemic in the schools of _declamatio_ that spread along the
Mediterranean and taught some of the fathers of the Church. The view of
Antonius, uncorrected by the view of Crassus, is imperfect theoretically;
practically it leads to the typical vices of the teaching of composition:
historically it has branded a stigma on the word Rhetoric and all its
derivatives.
The view of Crassus, too, has its dangers: the danger of vagueness and
dissipation, the danger of pretentiousness and sometimes of sciolism.
But apparently these dangers can more readily be met and counteracted,
and must be risked; for the history of rhetoric seems to show that his
is the right emphasis and the more fruitful idea. Speaking and writing
are less a profession even for orators and men of letters, much less for
educated mankind in general, than a life. Though the same may be said of
engineering, though all technical education involves general education,
yet in learning to speak and write the technic is smaller in proportion
to the general training. The training of Roman youth in oratory was at
its best education for leadership. In this education composition was both
end and means. It has been so always, it is so to-day, in the hands of
its best teachers. The specific application is to open in the teaching
of composition manifold relations. It thrives on what we now call
correlation; it dwindles in segregation. For we may learn from Cicero to
give rhetoric the same abundant relations to human affairs as he urges
his orator to seek in all his oratory.
Because it has most of the Ciceronian message Book I has been the most
studied and probably the most fruitful. The division of Book II is
conventional. After glancing at the fields of oratory and the component
parts of a speech and urging imitation, it treats _inventio_[26]
and _dispositio_[27] under the usual heads and briefly summarizes
_memoria_.[28]
Oratory, says Antonius, is essentially either deliberative or
forensic; for Aristotle’s third division, occasional oratory,
is not so much a separate field as a particular direction and
a fundamental habit of thought. Cicero is quite unconvincing
here. Perhaps his own habit of introducing into forensic the
ways of occasional oratory, as in his _Archias_, blinded him to
the significance of Aristotle’s third category.
The traditional _exordium_, _narratio_, etc., Antonius finds to
be rather elements than parts, since the particular function
of each is not confined to one place. From this perfunctory
rehearsal we are awakened by suggestive advice to teachers.[29]
Those who really teach rhetoric are engaged less in drill than
in promotion of the spirit that wins success.[30] “Therefore I
will train, if I can, so as first to discern what the pupil can
do. Let him be imbued with literature; let him have read and
heard something; let him have learned the rules; I will provoke
him so far as is feasible to his utmost in voice, force,
spirit. If I perceive that he can reach the heights, I will
beg him, and if he seems also a good man, I will conjure him,
to revise; so much social value do I attach to this technical
skill for both the outstanding orator and the good man. But if,
do what he will, he is going to remain mediocre, I will let him
do what he will, and especially not nag him; if he is going to
be positively offensive or ridiculous, I will tell him to close
his lips or try something else. For neither can we ever desert
the student of exceptional ability nor deter the one who has at
least some ability....
“To begin at home,[31] Catulus, I first heard Sulpicius here
in an unimportant case when he was a stripling. Though he
showed physical equipment of voice, presence, gesture, his
speech was rapid, hurried—a matter of temperament—and somewhat
effervescent and superabundant—a matter of youth. I did not
scorn him. I am glad to see youth exuberant. As with vines,
it is easier to prune than to cultivate. You should have seen
the change in him when next I heard him after he had studied
Crassus.”
The first specific counsel, then, is for the teacher promotion; for the
student it is imitation, such as Sulpicius’s of Crassus, not mere copying
of mannerisms, but such as produces[32] schools of eloquence from the
example of great orators.[33]
Under _inventio_ the first task is the investigation of the facts.
“But finally[34] to bring the orator whom we are forming to
actual cases ... we will teach him first—laugh if you will—to
know them thoroughly and deeply. This is not taught in school;
for the cases assigned to boys are easy. For example: ‘The
statute forbids a stranger (_peregrinus_) to climb a wall;
[this man] climbed; he repulsed the enemy; he is brought to
trial.’ No labor to know a case of this sort; for rightly
nothing is taught [in school] about studying a case. But in
the forum one has to know documents, contracts and agreements,
decrees, the lives of the parties. Through carelessness in
getting such knowledge men who in their anxiety to appear much
in demand undertake too many cases often lose.[35] Not only so,
but they may be suspected of bad faith or of incompetence.
“For my part,[36] I take pains to learn the case from the
client himself, alone, that he may talk more freely, and to
debate against him, that he may defend himself and advance
whatever arguments he has thought out. When I have dismissed
him, I quite dispassionately take three parts: my own, my
opponent’s, the judge’s. Whatever arguments promise more help
than embarrassment I settle on, rejecting others in the same
way. By this plan I manage to think at one time and speak at
another.[37] Some speakers have the confidence to do both at
once; but I am sure that they too would speak somewhat better
if they recognized the advisability of setting aside one time
for thought, another for speech.”
Though this is a conventional topic, and though its application here is
legal, it is none the less instructive generally; and it might directly
improve the teaching of argument and the practise of debate in our
colleges.
The second heading under _inventio_ is also conventional, the _status_,
or determination of the main character of the case and the main issues.
The _status_ was determined in the classical system by applying certain
traditional questions. The _status legalis_ may be set aside as
applicable only to legal pleading. The _status rationalis_, or _status_
considered in the general aspects of reason as an affair of common
argument, was determined by asking oneself how far the debate hinged
(1) on fact, on whether such-and-such things had happened, or (2) on
definition, the facts being generally admitted, or (3) more broadly, on
the interpretation of admitted facts and definitions. Though most cases
need to be looked at from all these three points of view, in most there
will be found a decided predominance of one; and forecast of this will
direct the emphasis of the whole argument, will tell where to throw one’s
weight. This one is the _status_ of that case.
In the Latin terms:
(1) if the main question is _an sit_, the _status_ is
_coniectura_, or _status coniecturalis_;
(2) if it is _quid sit_, the _status_ is _finis_, or _status
definitivus_;
(3) if it is _quale sit_, the _status_ is _qualitas_, or
_status generalis_.
Though Cicero’s discussion[38] is necessarily conventional, he
has keen practical suggestions. As to (2), which in his order
is third, Antonius says:
“We are often advised to define the crucial term briefly;[39]
but that is puerile. What we need is not a brief or abstract
definition, as of terms like _law_ or _state_ defined according
to the rule of neither too little nor too much. In the case I
have mentioned neither Sulpicius nor I attempted definition
of that sort. Rather each of us dilated on treason with every
means of amplification. For mere definition, in the first
place, is often snatched out of your hands if a single word
be objected to or added or omitted; in the second place, by
its very nature it smacks of teaching (_doctrina_) and almost
childish practise; and finally, it cannot enter the perception
and mind of the judge, for before it is grasped it slips past.”
But the case must be surveyed also as to its ἦθος and its πάθος.
“Then I most carefully consider[40] both the appeal _of_ my
client’s character and my own and the appeal _to_ the feelings
of those whom I address. So every theory of speaking seeks
persuasion[41] through (1) establishing the facts, (2) winning
the sympathy of the audience, and (3) arousing those of whom
the case demands action....”
“Teachers,[42] indeed, have divided cases into several kinds
and have provided a fund of arguments for each kind. This is
adapted to the education of the young; for as soon as a case is
posed, they know where to find arguments for it. Nevertheless
not only is it slow-witted to pursue rivulets, not discerning
the fount, but it is becoming to our age and habit to summon
what we wish from the source whence all things flow.”
The lore of preliminary analysis is concluded with a brilliant summary
under three questions of Cicero’s own:[43] (1) what kind of case is it in
general (_naturam causæ_), i.e., of fact or of interpretation? (2) on
what does it turn, i.e., what is the point but for which there would be
no debate? _(quid faciat causam; id est, quo sublato controversia stare
non possit)?_ (3) why is it disputed? how does the dispute arise (_quid
veniat in iudicium_)?
The transition from argument to the other means of persuasion, from
_probare_ or _docere_ to _conciliare_ and _movere_, is the caveat
of Antonius against the current division of cases into general and
particular[44] as a capital error. Theoretically every particular case
must have general relations; practically, if oratory is not to lapse into
mere accumulation of details, the orator must have the habit of bringing
these general relations to bear. Antonius adds the further caveat that
the whole system of the _status_ is merely analytical. It is logical;
and logic shows only how to judge arguments, not how to find them.[45]
The sources of arguments (_sedes argumentorum_)[46] are therefore more
important.
As to _conciliare_ and _movere_[47] Cicero says only the usual things,
perhaps because _inventio_ in these aspects is rather to be promoted by
exhortation than imparted by new categories.
Men take a decision oftener through feeling than through fact
or law.[48] They are moved by evidences of character in the
speaker and in his client.[49] Orators must have a scent for
an audience, for what people are feeling, thinking, waiting
for, wishing. To arouse feeling, the orator must have it
himself.[50] He need not feign it; it arises naturally from
his imaginative sympathy, as on the stage.[51] Emotional
appeal is not to be made suddenly; it is to be led up to and
down from;[52] and it demands full force of delivery.[53] The
only way to rebut feeling is by feeling. Cicero adds the usual
sections on wit and humor.[54]
The treatment of _dispositio_[55] gives little specific counsel toward
the achievement of that sequence in which Cicero himself excelled.
In general, _dispositio_ has to consider: how to make the most
of the stronger points without seeming to slur the weaker;
whether the case will prevail more readily through argument or
through appeal, through direct proof or through refutation;
how to cover retreat at need by making sure that the case,
if it cannot be won, shall at least not be damaged. [To
translate this doctrine into the terms of modern manuals, the
first general consideration of _dispositio_ is emphasis, both
as proportion of space and as progressive iteration of main
points.]
The traditional order[56] (_exordium_, _narratio_, etc.,) is
natural; but the real problem is the arrangement, or sequence,
of the proof and the weighing of arguments rather than the
counting of them. [This is a practical caveat against the
tyro’s idea that he can prevail by sheer force of numbers. To
be effective, an argument must be more than a series; it must
be a line. Its progression is more than arithmetical; it is
rather geometrical.] Appeal to feeling[57] should be rather
pervasive than located in particular divisions. The strongest
arguments should be put first and last; the exordium composed
after the rest of the speech, in order to be the more carefully
adapted[58] and more essentially related to the plaintiff,[59]
the defendant, the case, or the judges. The _narratio_,[60]
though concise, must be ample not only for vividness, but even
for clearness. Constructive argument and refutation are to be
considered together as a whole [i.e., debate is always at once
destructive and constructive].
Without making panegyric[61] as a separate kind of oratory,
we can see that deliberative speeches offer more scope in
that direction than forensic. Cicero adds general topics for
panegyric.
The chapters on _memoria_[62] begin with the familiar story of Simonides,
to make the obvious point that what furthers memory is order. Visual
associations, Cicero thinks, are strongest, and can be used to recall
even sentences. But verbal memory is less important. The orator’s memory
is of things.[63]
In Book III Crassus discusses style (_elocutio_). About a third of
the book[64] amplifies the theme that rhetoric is inseparable from
philosophy. What follows is a conventional treatment of the choice of
words (_electio_)[65] and the movement of sentences (_compositio_),[66]
with a few chapters on delivery.[67] These latter topics are handled so
much more explicitly in _Orator_ that only the first part claims analysis.
By style we mean generally diction that is idiomatic, clear,
vivid, and apt.[68] Idiom and clearness we may take for
granted. “All elegance of speaking, though it is polished by
the study of grammar, is promoted by reading aloud orators and
poets.[69]... If there be a certain Roman and urban tone,
in which there is nothing to offend, to displease, or even
to attract notice, nothing to sound or smell foreign, let us
follow this and learn to flee not only country roughness but
also foreign bravado.[70] ... women more easily keep the pure
tradition.”
“That scheme of thought and expression and force of speaking
the ancient Greeks used to call philosophy.[71]... For that
ancient teaching appears to have been the preceptress alike
of living rightly and of speaking well. Nor were the teachers
separate; the same masters formed morals and speech.”[72]
From the scorn of Socrates for rhetoric arose the unnatural
separation of rhetoric from philosophy ... “that divorce as it
were of the tongue from the heart ... that one class of persons
should teach us to think, another to speak, rightly.”[73]
Philosophy has suffered by this separation. The Cyrenaic
philosophy remains incomplete by dissuading from public life.
The Stoic philosophy, though it declares eloquence to be virtue
and wisdom, makes wisdom practically unattainable; and the
dry abstractness of address cultivated by the Stoics is quite
ineffective. Rhetoric, on the other hand, has suffered by being
reduced to maxims of pleading. In a word, training in rhetoric,
to be adequate, must include philosophy; and philosophy remains
ineffective without rhetoric. This, of course, is the ideal;
but it is not practically impossible; for we are not saying
that the orator must be a philosopher, only that he must know
philosophy.[74]
Therefore style must not be conceived either as the
controversial acrimony of the forum or as conventional
adornment borrowed by ignorance. The style must become the
thought, not weary the audience by display; and the very idea
of enhancing implies a store of thought.[75]
The futile distinction made by rhetoricians between a
particular case and a general has this bearing on style, that
eloquence consists in bringing to bear on every question those
fundamental human aspects which can be exhibited only through
large knowledge; for copiousness of style comes only from
copiousness of thought. The Greeks gave oratory to philosophy,
philosophy to oratory. Our Roman ancestors aspired to knowledge
in all fields that touch civil life. The greatness of the arts
has been diminished by division and separation.[76]
These twenty chapters are a brilliant instance of what the ancients
meant by amplification. Logically they do little more than iterate the
truism that style is inseparable from substance; but actually they make
the truism live. Cicero is an admirable example of his own definition of
the eloquent as those “who speak with clear distinctions, lucid order,
amplitude, brilliance of matter and manner, and in prose weave something
of the spell of verse—in a word, who enhance.”[77] “Immortal gods! said
Catulus, what a variety of things, Crassus, you have embraced! what
force, what abundance! and from what poverty have you dared to lead the
orator forth and establish him in the kingdom of his fathers!”[78]
_ORATOR_
Cicero’s _De oratore_, though it covers all five parts of rhetoric, is
most ample as to _inventio_. His _Orator_ is complementary in that it is
largely devoted to _elocutio_.[79] Like the earlier work, _Orator_ is
specifically limited to deliberative and forensic oratory. Occasional
oratory, or panegyric, though he declines again to treat it as a
separate field,[80] Cicero recognizes as the “nurse of that orator whom
we wish to form,” especially in sentence skill.[81] _Inventio_[82] and
_dispositio_,[83] as depending more on foresight than on eloquence,
are barely summarized. _Elocutio_ occupies three-fourths of the
discussion.[84]
_Orator_ has been less attractive than _De oratore_ for the reason that
it is more compact and more technical. None the less it has a cogency
and a felicity even more characteristically Ciceronian. Few men writing
on style have shown in their own styles so much precision and charm. _De
oratore_ keeps the fluency of dialogue; _Orator_ shows more of Cicero’s
own mastery of the oratorical period.
The division of style into three kinds (_genus tenue_, _genus medium_,
_genus grande_)[85] has been much discussed as to its origin.[86]
Whatever its origin, it is dubious as philosophy and has been vicious as
pedagogy. Cicero applies it later[87] to the three tasks, or objects,
of oratory: to prove, to win sympathy, to move. He adds[88] that the
orator should excel in all three directions. But this hardly warrants a
division of style into three kinds; for actually the teacher too ready
to classify, or the student too ready to think of style as separable and
additional, may thereby deviate his whole study. Historically the trail
of the three styles has been baneful. For inculcating style perhaps the
least fruitful means is classification.[89]
But Cicero’s discussion of style, though grouped at first by this
classification, ranges beyond it.
DIGEST OF _ORATOR_, 61-236, ON STYLE[90]
Style (61) is the very mark of the orator. The diction of the
philosophers (62-63) has neither the force nor the pungency
of oratory; for the philosophers (64) are limited to abstract
discussion, as the sophists (65) to decoration, and the
historians (66) to a somewhat diffuse smoothness. The style of
poetry (67) differs not in speed or vividness, but in boldness
of diction (68) and in sometimes being pursued for sheer values
of sound.
The three styles of speaking[91] arise from the orator’s
three objects: (69) to prove, to please, to move. Aptness,
then, demands adjustment not only to the speaker (71) and the
audience (72), but also to the object. What is proper to the
plain style (_genus tenue_, 75)? This sounds so ordinary that
it seems easier than it is; for, though not strong, it must
be sound. It is untrammeled by cadences (77), is free without
rambling, and neither fits word to word nor avoids the pleasant
negligence of one elaborating matter rather than manner. It
avoids periodic structure (85) and dramatic delivery (86);
but admits a careful use of wit (87-90). The median style
(_genus medium_, 92), adjusted to the winning of sympathy
(_conciliare_), aimed at the ἦθος of the audience, has as its
chief character _suavitas_; as its chief exponent, Demetrius of
Phalerum. The high style (_genus grande_, 97), aiming at πάθος,
though it is the acme, is not to be pursued exclusively; for
the perfect orator must be master of all three (100); the three
may be modified (103), combined, and varied; and variety is
necessary (109) both in any given speech and as a habit.
After a summary, 113-139, of the orator’s necessary knowledge,
especially of the other parts of rhetoric, Cicero passes to his
main topic, harmony. Explaining (140-148) the importance of
this, he defines it in its simplest aspect of euphony (149);
negatively as the avoidance of hiatus, stops, and other awkward
combinations, positively as balance, symmetry, the rounding out
of the phrase by correspondence (165).
The rest of _Orator_, about one third (l-lxxi, 168-236) is
devoted to prose rhythm under four heads: (a) origin, (b)
cause, (c) nature, (d) use. Under the first Cicero develops a
rhetorical doctrine of rhythm from Thrasymachus, Isocrates, and
Gorgias. As to the second, its cause (177-8), he says: “The
ear, or the mind through the ear, contains in itself a certain
natural measure[92] of all spoken sounds.” The third heading,
the nature of rhythm, is treated at greater length (liii-lx,
179-203). Analyzing rhythm to show that it has an effect
distinct from that of mere euphony, Cicero goes on to examine
what this effect is (183). Since there is a distinct rhythmical
effect in prose, it can be explained, though it appeals to
sense, not to reason, and though it is less obvious and less
essential than in verse. It is lacking (186) in earlier
writers, Herodotus for example.[93] It has to be sought as a
final grace of prose (186). “If there is (187) prose stinted
and concise and other prose dilated and fluent, the difference
must arise not from the nature of letters (_litterarum_),
but from the variety of intervals, long and short; and since
prose is now steady, now shifting, according as it is woven
and blended with these intervals, the nature of the difference
(or of this variety) must reside in the rhythm (_numeris_,
187).”[94]
Prose being unmetrical, however, are its rhythms (188) still
the same as those of verse? The feet must be the same; but
what rhythms are available in prose? That any foot is possible
appears in that we often fall carelessly into meter. Prose
consists largely of iambs; but we often lapse into less
familiar meters. It is plain, then, that prose feet are the
same as poetic.
Some think iambic, as being most like real life (191), more
suited to simple narrative; dactylic, to the dignity with which
it is associated in heroic verse. Ephorus prefers the pæan or
the dactyl to the spondee or the trochee because the latter are
either too slow or too rapid. Aristotle, finding the heroic
too grand for prose, the iambic too colloquial (192), and the
trochaic too tripping, approves (193) the pæan. This is to be
preferred as being less readily metrical (196); but it should
be varied by other measures. Iambic is most frequent (197) in
the plain style, the pæan in the grand style; but all should
be mingled for variety. “Thus the hearers will hardly notice
the snaring of their delight [in sound] and the pains to square
the speech. These will be the less apparent if the words and
thoughts are weighty; for those who are listening to these and
liking them—the words, I mean, and the thoughts—while their
attention and admiration are thus fixed do not notice the
rhythm, though they would be less pleased without it.” (197).
Prose is rhythmical not (198) by never varying—that would be
verse—but by movement neither limping nor fluctuating, but even
and constant. Prose rhythm, therefore, is more difficult than
verse. The rhythm of the period (199), in order to make such a
close as the ear desires, must be marshalled that way from the
start. Prose rhythm may arise, without rhythmical intention,
from the harmonizing[95] of the phrase.
The use (204) of rhythm is most extensive in panegyric (207);
in the other fields it enters when panegyric enters, or when
statement of facts demands rather dignity than poignancy, often
also in amplification, and most frequently in the peroration
(210). For variety change (211) from the statements grouped
and rounded in periods to statements detached (_incisa_ and
_membra_). Debate, more than exposition, needs speed. The
cadence, or close (_clausula_, 215) may be in any one of
several modes. The dichoreus, preferred in Asia (212), is
admirable; but any one cadence palls. A full period (221)
consists of four parts, or clauses (_membra_), i.e., is about
the length of four hexameter verses; and is held together by
_nodi continuationis_. When we wish to shift to detached short
sentences (_membratim_), as we must often do in forensic, we
pause, and break the rhythm that might suggest artifice. But
even in such shorter reaches (223) we need rhythm, whether
they be _incisa_, _membra_, or short periods; and these may
be supported by a longer period, ending in a dichoreus or
a spondee. The shorter reaches demand freer measures. They
are of most force in forensic (225), especially in proof and
refutation. Nor is any sort of speaking (226) stronger than to
strike with two or three words, sometimes even with one, and
then to interpose a rhythmical period.
Rhythm is not merely beautiful (227), but, like the beautiful
motions of athletes, useful. Pursuit of it must avoid the
appearance of artifice, padding (231) to round the cadence, the
laming of the movement by too many short reaches, and monotony.
Proof of the value of rhythm may be made by dislocating[96] the
sentence movement of a good orator without changing the words,
or conversely by rearranging the sentences of a careless orator
(233). Those who affect to despise rhythm (234) are unable to
master it. Calling themselves Attic, they ignore the rhythm of
Demosthenes. If they prefer a loose style, let them follow it
if they can show even in their parts the beauty that is lacking
in the whole (235), or if they can compose in any other style;
but the perfect orator (236) is master of all his art.
Cicero’s treatment of rhythm in oratory, though sometimes vague and
as a whole unsatisfying, is important historically. Its very extent
and care show that for the orator, no less than for the theorist,
rhythm in the classical tradition was a main consideration. It was not
something additional, a final grace of style, but an essential element
of oratorical effectiveness. Moreover it was a primary and controlling
consideration in all that revision which is spent on the shaping of
sentences. The oral and auditory ancients taught sentences more largely
as movements in time than do the writing and visual moderns. They are
thus the more instructive to those whose ears writing and print have
trained imperfectly. In every case, of course, ancient or modern, the
unit is logical, the expression of a thought; but whereas modern manuals
generally confine themselves to terms of syntax, the ancient rhetoric is
constantly aware of the effects of rhythm. Its analysis of these, though
it leaves much to be desired in scientific accuracy,[97] serves at least
to direct attention and stimulate imitation; and more than the modern
logic of the sentence it seems to promote fluency.[98]
FOOT-NOTES:
[1] Besides many incidental references, Cicero left seven works dealing
mainly or entirely with rhetoric: _De inventione_ (about 86 B.C.), _De
oratore_ (55 B.C.), _Partitiones oratoriæ_ (about 54 B.C.), _Brutus_
(46 B.C.), _Orator_ (46 B.C.), _De optimo genere oratorum_ (about 46
B.C.), _Topica_ (44 B.C.). Of these the most explicit and suggestive are
_De oratore_ and _Orator_, which are used as the basis of the following
chapter.
The most convenient bibliographical guide to Cicero’s rhetorical doctrine
is Laurand, L., _De M. Tulli Ciceronis studiis rhetoricis_ (University
of Paris thesis, 1907), which also summarizes lucidly its derivation and
progress.
The best editions in English are: Wilkins, A. S., _M. Tulli Ciceronis
De Oratore_, Oxford, 1893 (3d ed.), 3 volumes (introduction, including
a sketch of the history of rhetoric and a tabular analysis of the
treatise _Ad Herennium_ formerly ascribed to Cicero; analyses, notes,
index); Sandys, J. E., _M. Tulli Ciceronis Orator_ ... Cambridge, 1885
(introduction, including a sketch of the history of rhetoric, a brief
analysis of Cicero’s rhetorical works, a study and an abstract of
_Orator_, and a list of editions, commentaries, and translations; notes,
indices).
English translations of _De oratore_: Guthrie, W., London, 1808 & 1840;
Watson, J. S., London (Bohn), 1855 & 1896; Calvert, F. B., Edinburgh,
1870; Moor, E. N. P., (Book I only), London, 1904. Of _Orator_ Sandys
(page xcvii) cites three English translations, of which only Yonge’s
seems to be available in this country. The French translation by Colin
(_Traduction du traité de l’orateur de Cicéron, avec des notes, par M.
l’Abbé Colin_, Paris, 1737), though somewhat paraphrastic, is accurate so
far as I have used it. Another accompanies Bornecque’s edition, Paris,
1921.
Among recent critical studies the following will be found suggestive
in their several directions: Hendrickson, G. L., _The Peripatetic mean
of style and the three stylistic characters_, Amer. Jo. Philol. xxv.
125 (1904); _Ancient characters of style_, Amer. Jo. Philol. xxvi. 249
(1905); _Cicero’s Brutus and the technique of citation in dialogue_,
Amer. Jo. Philol. xxvii, 184 (1906); Hubbell, H. M., _The influence
of Isocrates on Cicero, Dionysius and Aristides_ (Yale thesis, 1914);
Nassal, F., _Æsthetisch-rhetorische Beziehungen zwischen Dionysius von
Halikarnass und Cicero_ (Tübingen thesis, 1910). For study of rhetorical
terms see Causeret, C., _Étude sur la langue de la rhétorique et de la
critique dans Cicéron_, Paris, 1886, which is classified by the fivefold
division, _inventio_, _collocatio_, etc. The influence of Cicero in the
middle age and the Renaissance will be discussed in a later volume.
[2] _Literature_, the second lecture on _University Subjects_ in the
_Idea of a University_.
[3] See below, Chapter IV. II.
[4] W. B. Owen in the introduction to his edition of Book I (Boston,
1895) makes more of this than its importance seems to warrant.
[5] _In omni genere sermonis et humanitatis perfectum_, I. ix. 35
[6] I. xi.
[7] I. xii. 51.
[8] I. xiii. 55.
[9] 56.
[10] 63.
[11] I. xv. 64. _Quam ob rem, si quis universam et propriam oratoris vim
definire complectique vult, is orator erit mea sententia, hoc tamen gravi
dignus nomine, qui, quæcumque res inciderit quæ sit dictione explicanda,
prudenter et composite et ornate et memoriter dicet cum quadam actionis
etiam dignitate._
[12] Wilkins (note _ad loc._) evidently takes _composite_ in a general
sense as referring to composition (_dispositio_, _collocatio_); for he
says: “The definition includes all the five main divisions of oratory,”
and _dispositio_ is not otherwise mentioned. But for the apparent
intention to include all five parts, _composite_ would more readily
suggest _compositio_, which is the technical name for sentence movement,
one of the subdivisions of _elocutio_. _Compositio_ is consistently used
in this special sense; but whether _composite_ is so meant here or not,
Cicero intended four of the five parts, if not five; and that suffices
to establish his allusion to the traditional division. The issue between
Crassus and Antonius has little to do with _dispositio_; it concerns the
scope of _inventio_.
For the division of rhetoric see pages 21, 65, the table in foot-note 1a
to Chapter V, and Wilkins’s introduction, page 57.
[13] I. xvi.
[14] xviii.
[15] xix. 86.
[16] 87.
[17] xx. 91.
[18] 92.
[19] _disertus._ I. xxi. 94.
[20] _Eloquentem vero qui mirabilius et magnificentius augere posset
atque ornare quæ vellet, omnisque omnium rerum, quæ ad dicendum
pertinerent fontis animo ac memoria contineret._
[21] I. xxv-xxxv.
[22] xxxiii. 149 seq.
[23] xxxvi-xlvii.
[24] xlix. 213. _Oratorem autem, quoniam de eo quærimus, equidem non
facio eundem quem Crassus, qui mihi visus est omnem omnium rerum atque
artium scientiam comprehendere uno oratoris officio ac nomine; atque eum
puto esse qui et verbis ad audiendum iucundis et sententiis ad probandum
accommodatis uti possit in causis forensibus atque communibus: hunc ego
appello oratorem eumque esse præterea instructum voce et actione et
lepore quodam volo._
[25] lxi. 260.
[26] xxiv-lxxi.
[27] lxxii-lxxxv.
[28] lxxxvi-lxxxviii.
[29] xx. 84.
[30] _Animus acer et præsens et acutus idem atque versutus invictos viros
efficit._
[31] xxi. 88.
[32] xxii.
[33] Tacitus (_Dial._ 34) says that the older method (of Cicero’s time),
supplanted in his own time by the schools of the _declamatores_, was
apprenticeship.
[34] xxiv. 99.
[35] xxiv. 101.
[36] 102.
[37] 103.
[38] xxiv-xxvi, 104-110. For the more detailed presentation of Quintilian
see Chapter iv, page 74.
[39] xxv. 108.
[40] xxvii. 114.
[41] Hendrickson (Amer. Journ. Philol. xxvi. 260) finds this threefold
division first here. The usual terms are _docere_, _conciliare_, _movere_.
[42] xxvii. 117.
[43] xxx. 132.
[44] xxxi. 133.
[45] xxxviii. 157.
[46] xxxix. cf. above, xxvii. 117.
[47] xlii-lxxi.
[48] xlii. 178.
[49] xliii. 182.
[50] xlv. 190.
[51] xlvi. 191.
[52] xlix-liii. 213.
[53] liii. 214.
[54] liv-lxxi.
[55] lxxii-lxxxv.
[56] lxxvi.
[57] lxxvii.
[58] lxxviii.
[59] lxxix.
[60] lxxx.
[61] lxxxii-lxxxv.
[62] lxxxvi-lxxxviii.
[63] lxxxviii. 359. _verborum memoria, quæ minus est nobis necessaria ...
rerum memoria propria est oratoris._
[64] xv-xxxvi.
[65] xxxviii-xlii.
[66] xliii-liv.
[67] lvi-lxi.
[68] x. 37.
[69] 39.
[70] xii. 44.
[71] _sapientiam._ xv. 56.
[72] 57.
[73] xvi. 61.
[74] xvii-xxiii.
[75] xxiv-xxvii.
[76] xxviii-xxxv.
[77] xiv. 53.
[78] xxxii. 126.
[79] Sandys notes that the avowed object is “criticism, and not direct
instruction.” This, however, is part of Cicero’s literary method and of
his habit of scorning the manuals. As to his main topic, _elocutio_, he
writes _doctrina_ as definite as that of _De oratore_ on the other parts;
and though his headings are not all conventional, his outline and order
are thoroughly systematic.
[80] 37, seq.
[81] 40, _verba iunxisse_; cf. 77, _vinculis numerorum_; 208.
[82] 44, seq.
[83] 50, seq.
[84] 61-236.
[85] 20-23.
[86] See the articles by Hendrickson cited in the first foot-note to this
chapter.
[87] 69.
[88] 100.
[89] One could wish that Cicero had been content with his twofold
division in _Brutus_, xxiii. 89: _cum duæ summæ sint in oratore laudes,
una subtiliter disputandi ad docendum, altera graviter agendi ad animos
audientium permovendos_.
[90] The digest of the whole _Orator_ at pages lxxiv-lxxvi of the edition
of Sandys need be neither repeated nor revised. Assuming this, I have
added here certain significant rhetorical details, translation of some
important passages, and the connection of the topics.
[91] See above.
[92] _Mensionem_, 177. The word in a similar passage at 67 is _mensura_.
[93] Because, says Sandys, their style is unperiodic, and there can
hardly be rhythm without periods. He cites the famous passage from
Aristotle discussed above at page 27, and notes Quintilian’s demur as to
Herodotus. This is a fair inference from Cicero’s context; and, indeed,
the ancients generally considered prose rhythm as oratorical rhythm. The
narrative rhythms of imaginative prose were naturally not much discussed
separately in a time when prose fiction was undeveloped. The nearest
approach to these in oratory was in panegyric. But Dionysius with more
discernment praises the _compositio_ of Herodotus. (See below, Chapter v.)
[94] The translation is closer to that of Colin than to that of Sandys.
The point—and if it is obvious, it is often forgotten—seems to be that
variety in prose depends on rhythm.
[95] _concinnitas_ (201). Cicero does not say explicitly what I have
summarized in the last sentence above; but I think he implies it. He does
not hint what Stevenson brings out in _Some Technical Elements of Style
in Literature_, that subconscious rhythmical predilection may be a cause,
or a determining factor, in adaptation.
[96] Dionysius of Halicarnassus exhibits this specifically with telling
effect in the first part of _De compositione verborum_. See below,
Chapter v.
[97] For scientific analysis, with a succinct review of previous
investigations, see W. M. Patterson, _The Rhythm of Prose_, New York,
Columbia University Press, 1916. For the _clausula_ in particular see
the summary of Zielinski in Sandys, _Companion to Latin Studies_, 655;
Quintilian below, page 79; and M. W. Croll, _The cadence of English
oratorical prose_. Studies in Philology, 16:1, University of North
Carolina, January, 1919.
[98] That the classical rhetoric has so little to say of narrative
rhythms is due not so much to the limited scope of ancient narrative as
to the fact that these rhythms are considered properly in poetic. See
page 30.
CHAPTER IV
THE TEACHING OF RHETORIC
The pedagogy of rhetoric, more constant and more pervasive than that of
most subjects still taught, demands historical interpretation, and thus
extensive and consecutive survey.[1] Summary of its history has conveyed
little of its vitality; but analysis of two cardinal documents will show,
first, what the constant tradition of teaching was typically throughout
the great classical centuries, and secondly what the teaching of rhetoric
was destined to become, with almost equal constancy and pervasiveness,
during the centuries of decadence. For each of these traditions there is
fortunately, besides much other testimony, a typical text. Quintilian,
writing long after rhetoric had ceased to function as an instrument of
assembly government, nevertheless comprehends its best older tradition
and the whole scope of its classical development in a great work of
pedagogy, _De institutione oratoria_ (about 95 A.D.). Seneca the Elder,
who died about the time of Quintilian’s birth, had already recorded from
memory and notes in his _Controversiæ_ that particular application of the
ancient schooling which in the generation before Quintilian was already
infecting the old rhetoric, and through which the teaching of both Greek
and Roman schools was to be dwarfed and perverted. Quintilian, though
writing later than Seneca, preserves ancient rhetoric as a ripe whole;
Seneca, though earlier, isolates the germ of its decay.
I. QUINTILIAN ON THE TEACHING OF RHETORIC (_DE INSTITUTIONE ORATORIA_)[2]
A. TABULAR VIEW[3]
1. preliminary studies (προγυμνάσματα, I-II. x)
a. earliest lessons in speech I. i-iii
b. studies with _grammaticus_ (_ante officium rhetoris_)
(1) in diction as usage iv-vii
(2) ” ” ” style viii
(a) lectures on poetry (_prælectio_), with reading aloud
(_lectio_)
(3) in composition ix
(a) retelling of fables
(b) paraphrase of poetry
(c) formal amplification of maxims (_chria_, χρεία)
(4) in contributory subjects (music, geometry, astronomy) x
(5) in enunciation (lessons from an actor) xi
c. studies with _rhetor_ (_prima apud rhetorem elementa_)
(1) learning from his example II. i-iii
(2) exercises in composition iv
(a) rehearsal of events
(x) summary of the plot of a tragedy or comedy
(_fabula_, _argumentum_)
(y) summary of historical events (_historia_)
(b) elementary analysis of statements of fact
(x) analysis of legends
(y) analysis of history
(c) elementary panegyric (_laudatio_) and parallel
(_comparatio_)
(d) amplification of typical propositions (_loci communes_,
_theses_)
(3) _rhetor’s_ analysis of models (_prælectio_) v
(4) speeches from assigned outline (_præformata materia_) vi, vii
[(5) advice to teachers on correction and promotion] viii, ix
(6) speeches on hypothetical cases (_declamatio_) x
(a) deliberative (_suasoriæ_)
(b) forensic (_controversiæ_)
2. definition of rhetoric (II. xi-III. v)
a. function and scope xi-xxi
b. origin and earlier development III. i, ii
c. the five parts of rhetoric iii
(1) investigation (_inventio_, εὕρεσις, discussed III.
vi-VI. v)
(2) plan (_dispositio_, τάξις, discussed in VII)
(3) style (_elocutio_, λέξις, discussed in VIII, IX)
(4) memory (_memoria_, μνήμη, discussed in XI. ii)
(5) delivery (_pronuntiatio_, _actio_, ὑπόκρισις, discussed
in XI. iii)
d. the three fields of oratory iv
(1) occasional, panegyric (_demonstrativum_, ἐπιδεικτικόν;
see chapter vii)
(2) deliberative (_deliberativum_, συμβουλευτικόν; see chapter
viii)
(3) forensic (_iudiciale_, δικανικόν; see chapters ix-xi)
e. the three aims of oratory v
(1) to inform (_docere_)
(2) to win sympathy (_conciliare_, _delectare_)
(3) to move (_movere_)
3. investigation and handling of material (_inventio_, εὕρεσις,
III. vi-VI. v; _dispositio_, τάξις, VII)
a. the nature of the case (_status_, στάσις)
(1) in law (_status legalis_)
(2) in reason (_status rationalis_) as having for its main
issue
(a) fact (_an sit_, _status coniecturalis_, _coniectura_,
στοχασμός)
(b) definition (_quid sit_, _status definitivus_, _finis_,
ὅρος)
(c) morals or policy (_quale sit_, _status generalis_,
_qualitas_, ποιότης)
b. the parts of pleading (IV. i-VII)
(1) components
(a) exordium (προοίμιον) IV. i
(b) statement of facts (_narratio_, διήγησις) ii
(c) excursus, proposition, division iii-v
(d) proof (_confirmatio_, ἀπόδειξις; as including appeal,
πίστις)
(x) evidence V. i-vii
(y) argument viii-xi
(z) order xii
(e) refutation (_refutatio_, λύσις) xiii
(x) destructive enthymeme
(f) peroration (_peroratio_, ἐπίλογος) xiv
(2) pervasive elements VI. i
(a) appeal
(x) imaginative ii
(y) humorous iii
(b) debate (_altercatio_) iv
(c) judgment (_iudicium_, _consilium_) v
(3) plan (_dispositio_, τάξις) VII
4. style (_elocutio_, λέξις, VIII, IX)
a. choice of words (_electio_, ἐκλογή, including figures)
VIII. i-IX. iii
b. sentence-movement (_compositio_, σύνθεσις) IX. iv
5. training for facility (_firma facilitas_, X, XI)
a. reading to foster speaking X. i
b. imitation ii
c. writing for practise iii
d. revision iv
e. translation and other exercises v
f. preparing the speech vi
g. speaking the speech vii
(1) adaptation XI. i
(2) memory ii
(3) delivery iii
6. the orator himself
a. moral force and philosophy XII. i, ii
b. knowledge of law and history iii, iv
c. physique v, vi
d. dealings with clients vii-ix
e. styles of oratory x
f. when to leave the platform xi
B. THE TERMS
Quintilian’s survey is in the traditional terms of classical rhetoric.
These demand the more attention because translation has often missed the
specific meanings attached to recognized technical terms. “Institutes of
Oratory,” never precisely rendering his title, is now almost meaningless.
_Institutio Oratoria_ means The Teaching of Rhetoric and announces not so
much a manual for students as a survey for teachers. Of the pedagogical
terms, _grammatica_ and _grammaticus_ may still be rendered “grammar” and
“grammarian” only if they are understood to have wider scope. _Prælectio_
(I. viii) describes the habitual introductory exposition of a passage
of poetry by _grammaticus_, or less commonly of a passage of oratory by
_rhetor_ (II. v). _Materia_, meaning generally “material,” means often
technically (II. vi. vii) a prescribed outline, as French _matière_
still does in pedagogical use. _Declamatio_ (II. x) was quite different
from “declamation.” It was speaking, usually extempore, on an assigned
hypothetical case, and grew, as will appear below, from an exercise for
boys to an exhibition of virtuosity by men.
Of the five traditional parts of rhetoric (III. iii), the first,
_inventio_, does not mean “invention”; it means, in Aristotelian
language, the discovery of all the extrinsic means of persuasion, or more
simply, survey of the material and forecast. _Dispositio_ (_collocatio_)
refers not to the arrangement of details, but to the plan of the whole.
_Elocutio_ means “elocution” in the sense borne by that word before
the nineteenth century. It is sufficiently rendered by “style” and is
always conceived in two aspects: (1) _electio_, the choice of words,
including “figures of speech”; and (2) _compositio_, the arrangement
of words in clauses and sentences, including rhythm and harmony—in a
word, sentence-movement. _Compositio_ does not mean, though it is often
translated, “composition” in the wide sense now current. For the latter
the term is _dispositio_. _Memoria_ ranges far beyond memorizing. It
embraces the speaker’s whole command of his material in the order of his
constructive plan and in relation to rebuttal, and was most stressed for
speeches unwritten. _Pronuntiatio_ and _actio_ cover the whole field of
delivery, including all that is now often called “elocution,” from the
placing of the voice to the handling of the body.
In detail, _status_ (III. vi), meaning generally and simply “status,”
refers technically to a classifying system for determining “the nature of
the case” (see 3. a, in the tabular view above). Of its three divisions,
_coniectura_, having nothing to do with “conjecture,” denotes a main
issue of fact; _finis_, a main issue of definition; _qualitas_, a more
general issue of morals or policy. _Narratio_ (IV. ii) means never
“narration” in the sense assigned by recent text-books, always either
“statement of the facts” or, more generally, “exposition.” These and
other technical terms have been guarded, in the tabular view above and in
the interpretations below, by adding the Latin originals.
C. TYPICAL DOCTRINE
(1) _Elementary Exercises_
The tradition of _grammatica_ as having the twofold function of forming
right speech and of expounding poetry[4] continued for centuries.[5]
Traditional also are the first exercises in composition.[6] A chapter (x)
on the concurrence of other studies toward a rounded education,[7] and
one on elocution (xi), close a preliminary pedagogy so suggestive as to
be still studied to-day.
(2) _Declamatio_
The counsels to _rhetor_ (II) imply a warm atmosphere of promotion and a
general habit of collaboration.
“The teacher himself should speak something—nay, many things
a day—for auditory memory. Though reading aloud may supply a
plenty of examples to imitate, nevertheless the living voice
gives ampler nourishment, especially the voice of the teacher,
whom the pupils, if they be rightly taught, at once love and
respect.... Thus while mastery comes through writing, critical
faculty will come through hearing.” II. ii.
The teacher should frankly and fully show how. His criticism should
beware of setting up inhibitions. To be promotive, he should find
something to praise, and, besides explaining why he would have this out
or that changed, should illuminate by interposing something of his own.
Sometimes it will be helpful to give whole treatments which the boy may
imitate without losing faith in his own (II. iv). In short, the teacher’s
_declamatio_ should be a model for his students (II. v).
“In this teachers have shown a divergence of method. Some of
them would develop orally the outlines that they gave their
pupils to speak from, not content to guide by the [assigned]
division. Not only would they amplify argumentatively, but also
emotionally. Others, giving only a sketch, would after the
pupils’ speeches treat what each one had scanted. Some topics,
indeed, they would elaborate with no less care than when they
themselves were the orators. Either method is useful; neither,
I think, should be separated from the other; but, if there must
be a choice between the two, it will more avail to have shown
the right way in advance than to recall from their error those
who have already fallen.” II. vi. 1-2.
The same promotive guidance appears in the assigning of outlines
(_materiæ_), less and less ample as the pupils advance, for written
composition (II. vi). This writing was generally for practise, not for
casting a particular speech in form to be memorized. Sometimes, says
Quintilian, the boys may recite what they have written out; but generally
learning by heart is better spent on the orators and historians than on
their own work (vii).
The _declamatio_ recommended by Quintilian is speaking from outline on
hypothetical cases. The more elementary assignments, for deliberative
speeches, were called _suasoriæ_; the more advanced, for forensic
speeches, _controversiæ_. Both he treats only as school exercises. Within
these limits he recommends _declamatio_ as an important pedagogical
discovery.
“So soon as [the youth] is well taught and sufficiently
exercised in these first tasks, themselves not small, but as
it were members and parts of greater ones, let the time demand
the essaying of deliberative speaking and forensic on assigned
outlines. Before I go into the method of these, I must tell
briefly what _declamatio_ has as its idea, which is at once
the most recent discovery and far the most useful. For it at
once embraces almost all the exercises just discussed and
offers the nearest likeness to actuality. Therefore it has
become so popular as to be in the opinion of many sufficient
of itself to develop eloquence. Nor can there be found any
mastery in consecutive discourse which is not related to
this exercise in speaking. True, the actual practise has so
declined by the fault of teachers that among the chief causes
corrupting eloquence have been the license and ignorance of
_declamatores_; but we may use well what is essentially good.
“Let the outlines of the fictitious cases assigned be therefore
as like as possible to actuality; and let the _declamatio_,
so far as possible, imitate those pleas for which it was
invented to prepare. Wizards, pestilence, oracles, stepmothers
more cruel than those of tragedy, and other topics even more
imaginary, we seek in vain among real law cases. What, then?
Are we never to permit a young man to elaborate themes outside
of statistics, even poetical ones, such indeed as I myself have
mentioned, that he may have room, take some pleasure in the
assignment, and enter as it were into the body [of the party he
defends]? That used to be all very well; but at least let such
[exercises] be grand and swelling without being silly and to
critical eyes ridiculous.” II. x. 1-6.
Evidently the _declamatio_ that Quintilian recommends is not the
_declamatio_ that he heard about him. He wishes to recall to its original
purpose what was already out of hand. Originally, he implies, it defined
that general practise in debating which must have been as common in the
ancient teaching as in modern universities. But already, as he also
admits by implication, it had become quite different. Already it was
established both as a special exercise and as a special form of public
speaking. With the narrowing of the field of public discussion, the large
old rhetoric surveyed by Quintilian had been narrowed more and more
toward an artificial combination of forensic ingenuity with dramatic
imagination. Instead of training youth to lead in public policy and to
secure justice for individuals, _declamatio_ had become an end in itself,
the rhetor’s own kind of oratory. As an exhibition of skill it was his
easiest means of winning pupils, and of holding them by letting them
exhibit themselves. The inherent vice of artificiality, which Quintilian
admits by implication, he nevertheless assigns entirely to perverted
educational practise. He would recall _declamatio_ from invention to
actuality, and from display to exercise. That his warning was already too
late is evident from Seneca (see section II of this chapter). Meantime
one of the chief opportunities for perversion will be found in the
_prosopopœiæ_ described next.
The pervasive classical inculcation of appropriateness (see also XI. i)
was carried into _declamatio_ through specific exercises known generally
as _prosopopœiæ_ (προσωποποιίαι). Their idea was an imaginative entering
into the character, the emotional as well as the intellectual habit,
of the person for whom one was speaking (_fictæ alienarum personarum
orationes_, VI. i. 25). In more elementary form, sometimes called
_ethopœiæ_ (ἠθοποιίαι) they bade the student say what Priam must have
said to Achilles, or Sulla on renouncing the dictatorship, or some other
character of history or fiction on a critical occasion; and they began
even with the boy’s amplification of fables and myths.[8] As applied to
_declamatio_ (_suasoriæ_ and _controversiæ_) they are thus described by
Quintilian:
“Therefore _prosopopœiæ_ seem to me far the most difficult,
since they add to the other tasks of deliberative _declamatio_
(_suasoria_) the difficulty of characterization (_persona_).
For the same arguments must be urged in one way by Cæsar, in
another by Cicero, in another by Cato. But the practise is most
useful, either as a twofold task or as of the greatest interest
to poets also or to future historians. To orators it is even
necessary. For the many orations composed by Greeks or Latins
to be delivered by others had to adapt what was to be said
to the speaker’s habit of life. Did Cicero think in the same
way, or assume the same character, when he wrote for Pompey as
when he wrote for Ampius and others? Did he not, discerning
the fortune, the rank, the deeds of each of them, express the
very image of every one to whom he was giving voice, so that
they seemed to speak beyond themselves, indeed, but still as
themselves? Nor is a speech less faulty for deviating from
the person than from the case to which it should be adapted.
Admirably, therefore, Lysias, in what he wrote for the
untrained, is seen to have been faithful to their actual style.
“But _declamatores_[9] especially have to consider what
befits each character; for the forensics (_controversiæ_)
that they speak as advocates do are very few. Usually they
become sons or fathers, rich, old, harsh, mild, avaricious,
even superstitious, timid, or mocking, so that even comedy
actors hardly conceive more ways of life on the stage than
they on the platform. All these [exercises] may be regarded
as _prosopopœiæ_. I have brought them under the head of
_suasoriæ_ because the only difference is in [the assumption
of] character, although the exercise is sometimes extended also
to _controversiæ_.”[10] III. viii. 49-52.
(3) _Status_
Quintilian’s chapter (III, vi) on _status_ is one of his most important,
both as specific doctrine and as typical of ancient method. He has
simplified a pedagogical device which, while it had been hampered by too
analytical subdivision, had long vindicated itself as one of the most
effective applications of the ancient theory of systematic guidance.
_Status_, meaning the essential character of the case as it appeared to
preliminary survey of all the material and all the bearings, had come
to denote a uniform system for determining that essential character
by leading questions. To gauge the sufficiency of his preparation and
the line of his argument, to bring to bear not only his particular
investigation, but the whole fund of his experience, the student was to
ask himself what the case meant to him as a whole. He must interpret it
as resting mainly on one of three issues: (1) of fact (_an sit_); (2) of
definition (_quid sit_); or (3) of general considerations, as of right or
expediency (_an recte sit_). The first was called _status coniecturalis_,
or _coniectura_; the second, _status definitivus_, or _finis_; the third,
_status generalis_, or _qualitas_.[11] Even if two of these entered, or
all three, one must always be the focus.
The first _status_ (_coniecturalis_, _an sit_) is most
frequently determining in criminal cases at law; but it may be
determining in any debate involving history, for instance on
the question of the recognition of Anglican orders by the Roman
or the Eastern Church, or on the question of the historical
justification of the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of
the United States. Whether it is to be determining must usually
be forecast by experiment; for the ancient system presupposes
that all three _status_ will be tried in preparation
before one is chosen. Actually many arguments against the
validity of Anglican orders have interpreted the _status_
as _coniecturalis_; i.e., they rely mainly on establishing
certain facts of the English Reformation. Others have chosen
_status definitivus_. Though neither excludes the other, one,
according to the ancient system and by the very conditions of
public address, will always be for that particular speech _the
status_. There can be no cogency without unity.
Erskine’s defense of Lord George Gordon in a trial for treason
was based on the second _status_ (_definitivus_, _quid sit_). The
facts alleged he admitted. That Gordon was concerned in a riot
he did not challenge. _Status coniecturalis_ he simply waived.
He organized his case to show that what Gordon admittedly did
could not be construed as coming within the term treason.
In the defence of Orestes, a familiar ancient assignment, the
_status_ could not, except by mere ingenious perversion, be
_coniecturalis_. The facts of his killing of Clytemnestra and
of her previous killing of Agamemnon had to be admitted. The
_status_ might, indeed, be _definitivus_ for some one who cared
to split hairs about what we now call murder or homicide; but
naturally it was the third (_generalis_, _an recte sit_). Orestes
was justified on the ground of the sacred duty to avenge the
murder of his father. _The_ issue was whether even a criminal
mother should be executed by her own son.
College debaters defending the maintenance of the Monroe
Doctrine settled on the third _status_. The forcing of the
second by their opponents they found themselves prepared to
rebut. The issues of democracy, protection, peace seemed to
them vital as offering valid arguments for and against, i.e.,
as being real clashes of actual opinion; and all these issues
fell under _status generalis_. _Status coniecturalis_ could
never be made determining. _Status definitivus_ would lead to
quibbling costly for opponents who should raise it. _Status
generalis_ held _the_ issue.
This sort of forecast, surveying the whole trend, the ancients regarded
as so vital that they reduced it to a system. The classified _status_ is
typical of their pedagogy of rhetoric. Their teaching of _inventio_ did
not stop with investigation; it promoted reflection directly and guided
it so systematically that no essential aspect could be ignored. Such
questioning for focus and line in our day of statistical accumulation is
not less, but more valuable.
(4) _The Parts of a Speech_
The traditional parts of an oration Quintilian discusses (IV-VI) under
their traditional subdivisions. The exordium (IV. i), for instance,
may be drawn from the case, from the persons, from the occasion, or
from rebuttal of one’s opponent; and its threefold aim is to remove
prejudice, to win attention, and to open the way for understanding.[12]
But Quintilian often constructively recombines the traditional items,
and often interprets them from teaching experience. The statement of
facts (_narratio_, IV. ii) is not limited to pure exposition; even
rehearsal may contribute to persuasion. Its cardinal virtue of clearness
he reasserts in rebuke of those students whom an itch to be always
impressive makes impatient of the obligation.
“When they have experienced the whole range, they will find
nothing in eloquence more difficult than to say what every
hearer thinks he would have said himself, because it seems to
him not good, but true.” IV. ii. 38.
That the statement of facts should be brief does not permit its being
either abrupt or meager. That it should sound true implies that it should
be in character, i.e., that it should be dramatically consistent and
convincing, and also that it should lead into the argument. Similarly
practical are the warnings against making the division (IV. v) too minute
and against letting it hamper emotional appeal or interrupt progressive
coherence. To his conspectus of the ancient classification of proof (V)
Quintilian adds (xiii) the following shrewd maxims for rebuttal:
Defense demands more skill than attack.
The system of _status_ has one of its main uses in refutation.
Rebuttal often consists largely in breaking down analogies.
Never rebut what your opponent did not say.
Neither be too anxious nor fight over every item.
Peroration should be more than recapitulation; it should take
occasion from the adversary. VI. i.
(5) _Plan_
Quintilian’s discussion of _dispositio_ (VII) is like that of other
ancient treatises in confining itself to plan in general. Without
specific doctrine for the promotion of cogency as progressive coherence,
it carries forward the system of _status_ as determining the main line
of argument. That the ancients appreciated and practised what is now
taught in American schools and colleges as the lore of paragraphs is
evident in their best composition, notably in the orations of Cicero. The
decline from such progressive coherence among the later _declamatores_
is one of the marks of decadence (see section II, below). But how the
lore was taught we are left to infer. The elementary working out of what
is now unfortunately called a detached paragraph, i.e., of a single
short composition, is prescribed in the _chria_ (I. ix) much as in modern
manuals; but that does not touch the art of composing a sustained speech
_by_ paragraphs. In the cogency of mounting by stages we miss the typical
systematic instruction. Some of this must have been inculcated through
assigned outline (_materia_, page 67 above), some of it by the rhetor’s
oral teaching. Quintilian’s instruction as to the close of the exordium
is a clear hint of what is now taught as paragraph emphasis.
“The proem should put last that to which the beginning of what
follows can most conveniently be linked.” IV. i. 76.
There are, indeed, other hints; but that so important an aspect of
composition should not be a distinct topic even in Quintilian’s
constructive pedagogy leaves the ancient lore of _dispositio_ too
analytical to be sufficient for modern teachers.
(6) _Style Analyzed_
Quintilian’s long discussion of style (_elocutio_, VIII-XI) opens
with one of his best sayings, “let care in words be solicitude for
things”;[13] and the whole introduction is an admirable answer to the
old quibble about form and substance. If he thereupon proceeds for two
books by the usual categories, he at least avoids the subdivision that
had become excessive, and provides a convenient guide to the voluminous
classical lore of _elocutio_.[14] Typical is his introduction, under
sentence-movement (_compositio_, IX. iv), to the doctrine of sentence
close (_clausula_).
[“Though rhythm must be pervasive] it is more demanded in
closing cadences (_in clausulis_) and more obvious; first,
because every thought has its own conclusion and demands a
natural pause to separate it from the beginning of the one that
follows; and furthermore, because the ear, having followed an
oral sequence, having been guided by the current of flowing
prose, is more critical when that movement stops and gives time
to consider. Neither hard, therefore, nor abrupt should be the
place where the attention takes breath and is renewed. Here is
the dwelling-place of prose; here is the point to which the
audience looks forward; here speaks the orator’s whole merit.”
IX. iv. 61-62. (The text of the last sentence is dubious;
but the general intention of exalting the importance of the
_clausula_ is clear.)
(7) _Style Promoted_
Having followed the usual analysis of style, Quintilian proceeds (X)
to constructive promotion, to the ways of gaining secure control
(_firma facilitas_; see the tabular view, page 66). “We who contemplate
oratorical power, not mountebank volubility, have to inculcate both
range and discrimination” (_copia cum iudicio_, X. i. 8). So the vivid
impressions that come through the ear should be supplemented by critical
reading. The reading of poetry promotes concrete realization, heightening
of style, emotional appeal, and aptness in characterization.[15] From
imitation Quintilian passes (X. iii) to writing for practise in style.
Since this, like deep plowing, is for a better yield, he goes into
specific counsels.
Repeat what you have just written, both for connection and
to warm up afresh. Fluency comes from habit, not from haste.
You will not learn to write well by writing rapidly; you will
learn to write rapidly by writing well. Lolling and looking at
the ceiling will not answer; you must follow a plan (_ratio_).
Rapid extempore draft (_silva_) has this disadvantage, that
subsequent revision, though it may amend words and rhythm, is
likely to leave the superficiality (_levitas_) that has arisen
from hasty crowding. Better exercise prevision, and so conduct
your work (_opus ducere_) from the beginning that revision
shall be polishing, not entirely making over.
Dictation, by either urging or delaying the natural pace of
composition, leads to crude, random, or inept expression. It is
neither writing nor speaking; for it has neither the accuracy
of the one nor the impetus of the other. Incidentally it
precludes those motor activities which help composing when one
is alone.[16]
Though solitude is best—night, the closed door, the single
light—since you cannot always have it, learn abstraction. X.
iii. 3-28, paraphrased.
In transition Quintilian observes that meditation (_cogitatio_, X. vi)
for speaking without writing can go so far as to fix not only the order
of points, which is enough, but even the connection of words. The value
to the speaker of practise in writing is to make channels (_formæ_)
for such meditation. Since meditation must always leave a margin for
improvisation, the plan must be such as may be easily left and resumed.
In other words, to give the speaker secure control, the plan must be
progressive. Iterating this in the next chapter,[17] Quintilian adds that
the other main means to extempore power is concrete realization.[18]
Writing gives speaking precision; speaking gives writing ease (X.
vii. 29). From this summary of their general relations in education,
Quintilian passes to the use of writing in the preparation of a
particular speech.
“Busy pleaders commonly write the most essential parts and
the beginnings [i.e., of paragraphs, so as to be readier to
pick up the constructive pattern after weaving in rebuttal
impromptu]. The rest of their prepared matter they grasp by
meditation: and what arises suddenly they meet extempore.” X.
vii. 30.
Brief notes to be held in the hand are admissible, but not what
is advised by Lænas, to write out the whole speech and then sum
it up in outline.[19] X. vii. 32, paraphrased.
The secure control that Quintilian seeks to promote, that _firma
facilitas_ which is the subject of the whole tenth book, is evidently
quite different from mere fluency. With the gift of gab in boys he has
long ago expressed his impatience. “Impromptu garrulity, without the
meditation that the master intends, almost without hesitation in rising
to speak, is really the brag of a mountebank” (II. iv. 15). He not only
presupposes, he specifically inculcates, most careful preparation.
(8) _Memory_
In this preparation the importance that he gives to writing, not only
for general practise, but for the composition of a particular speech,
may seem greater than is warranted by experience. Even so he is far from
supporting those who represent classical oratory as having been generally
written and memorized.[20] That the urgencies of public address could be
met by that method is _a priori_ a difficult assumption; and even the
spread of the oratory of display in his time, and his own professorial
fondness for finish of style, did not lead Quintilian to urge memorizing
generally and unreservedly. Rather what he offers under _memoria_ (XI.
ii) has the usual wide ancient scope. It should be read in its connection
with what he has already taught (X. vi. vii, page 80 above) about
_cogitatio_.
“All training rests upon memory.... It is the power that
makes available funds of examples, laws, decisions, opinions,
precedents, funds which the orator ought to have in abundance
and at command. Rightly is it called the treasury of eloquence.
“Those who plead much ought not only to retain surely, but to
discern [bearings] quickly, not only to grasp what has been
written by reading it over and over, but to follow the sequence
of points and words in what has been [merely] thought out,[21]
to remember the points made on the other side, and, instead
of rebutting them seriatim, to bring them in where they will
be opportune. Nay, extempore speaking seems to me to rest
upon no less vigor of mind.[22] For while we are saying one
thing, we have to be considering what we are going to say. So
while thought (_cogitatio_) is always questing beyond what
is [actually on the carpet], whatever it finds meantime it
deposits, so to speak, in the memory; and the memory, as it
were a third hand, transmits what it has received from forecast
(_inventione_) to expression (_elocutioni_).” XI. ii. 1-3.
Devices and exercises for training and applying such a faculty (XI.
ii. 8-35) are summed up (36) under the two principles of _divisio_ and
_compositio_, definiteness of outline and definiteness of sentence
movement. The former is thus iterated for the third time (see X. vi. vii)
as essential. The importance of the latter lies in the fact that the mind
more readily retains settled rhythms (39). As verse is easier to memorize
than prose, so periodic rhythms than unperiodic.[23] Thus Quintilian
faces finally the question of learning by heart. That it was a question,
even for Quintilian, shows that classical practise was divided, as modern
practise is, by differences both in talent and in the field of habitual
exercise.
“From this diversity of talents arises the question whether
the preparation of a speech should go so far as learning by
heart (_ad verbum sit ediscendum dicturis_), or only far
enough to grasp the force of each point and the order (_an
vim modo rerum atque ordinem complecti satis sit_). As to
this doubtless no rule can be proclaimed as universal. With a
memory strong enough, and with time enough, I should like to
hold every syllable. Otherwise it is idle to write [the speech
out. Such power] is to be secured especially in boyhood, and
memory to be trained to that habit, lest we learn to excuse
ourselves. Therefore to be prompted or to refer to notes is a
fault, because it encourages slackness, and there is no secure
hold without some anxiety not to lose. By prompting or the use
of notes the impetus of delivery is interrupted, the speech
halting and abrupt; and he who speaks as if he were reciting
forfeits the whole charm even of what he has written well by
betraying that it has been written [i.e., memorizing, to be
effective, must be perfect].
“Memory can even give such an impression of impromptu talent
that we seem not to have brought the speech from home, but to
have laid hold of it on the spot; and that is a great advantage
both to the orator and to his case....
“But if memory is less tractable, or if time does not suffice,
tying oneself to words will be useless, since the forgetting
of a single one may lead to awkward hesitation, or even to
silence. It is far safer, having firmly grasped the substance,
to give oneself freedom of expression.” XI. ii. 44-48.
D. SCOPE AND PLAN
The comprehensive program announced by Quintilian in his proem is carried
through. No other ancient treatise is so exhaustive.[24] Including
all the traditional topics, he proceeds upon the classical theory of
systematic guidance, but makes the important contribution of pedagogical
order. For his plan is progressive. Though sometimes anxiously analytical
in subdivision, he is constructive in making his main line not the survey
of the subject, but the development of the student. The traditional five
parts of rhetoric stand out clearly; but they cover only about half
of the space, and they do not determine the plan. Rather Quintilian
proceeds from less to more, from boyhood through adolescence to manhood.
His idea is to widen and deepen the practise of public speaking as it
opens more and more to the growing speaker. Aristotle’s philosophy
of rhetoric begins with the speaker as theoretically the efficient
cause; Quintilian’s pedagogy ends with the speaker as practically the
efficient result. So, before entering upon definitions, he devotes two
books to practical exercises, beginning not with the subject, but with
the boy.[25] So, after he has defined the field and scope, he expounds
_inventio_ as in practise it expands, and links it with _dispositio_. So
the two books in which _elocutio_ is traditionally analyzed are followed
by the two that show practically how it may be achieved; and these two
are the culmination, the final application of all the preceding doctrine.
His _Institutio_ is faithfully what its title proposes, a pedagogy of
rhetoric.
That it keeps its place in the history not only of rhetoric, but of
education is due, of course, to Quintilian’s cogency; it is due also to
the largeness of the subject. Rhetoric, for the fortunate few who alone
could aspire to leadership, comprised most of the higher systematic
education. The scope so brilliantly vindicated by Cicero[26] is taken
by Quintilian as a matter of course. Thus his work is in more than one
aspect a general pedagogy. Thus also rhetoric itself, to fulfil his
demands and follow his methods, must keep his conception of bringing to
bear the whole man. The narrowing of rhetoric in practise arose from the
narrowing of public life and meant the narrowing of education.
II. DECLAMATIO IN SENECA,[27] TACITUS, AND PLINY
A. DECLAMATIO
The _declamatio_ exhibited by Seneca, though already established, was
fairly new at Rome.[28] Cicero, writing about the time of Seneca’s birth,
still uses _declamare_, _declamatio_, and _controversia_[29] in their
older general senses. His approval of practise speaking on hypothetical
cases was apparently of something like our modern “moot courts.”
_Controversiæ_ of the Senecan sort he knew only in their incipiency.[30]
Tacitus, writing his _Dialogus de oratoribus_ about 81 A.D., a few years
before Quintilian’s _Institutio_, shows clearly that the specialized
_controversiæ_, from being common, had become pervasive almost to the
extent of monopoly. From the older, Ciceronian position of comprehensive
training his Messalla derides _declamatio_ and all its works.
“As to this [education of an orator] the great men of the past
had made up their minds. To bring it about they discerned the
need not of _declamatio_ in the schools of the rhetors, nor
of exercising tongue and voice in imaginary _controversiæ_
without specific relation to actuality, but of filling the mind
by the technic (_artibus_) of discussing (_disputatur_, i.e.,
discussing after the manner of the philosophers) good and
evil, honor and dishonor, justice and injustice; for this is
the orator’s subject matter (_subiecta ad dicendum materia_).”
Tacit. _Dial._ 31, 1.
[The dialogue, which of course gives more than one point of
view, but none the less clearly shows the position of Tacitus,
proceeds from such general studies to the old custom of
apprenticing oneself to an experienced orator (31-34), and then
contrasts the modern habit as follows.]
“But now our striplings are drawn off into the schools of
those who are called rhetors. How little, just before Cicero’s
time, these teachers pleased our ancestors is evident from the
fact that the censors Crassus and Domitius bade them close,
as Cicero puts it, their ‘schools of impudence.’ Well, as I
started to say, the boys are drawn off into schools in which
it would be hard to say whether the place itself, or their
fellow students, or the sort of exercise, is likely to do their
talents more harm. The place has no respect, since every one
is equally unskilled; the fellow students give no impetus to
progress, since boys among boys and youths among youths speak
and are heard with equal carelessness; but the exercises are
in great part positively thwarting. For two sorts of themes
are handled with the rhetors: _suasoriæ_ and _controversiæ_.
Of these the _suasoriæ_, as being easier and demanding
less foresight (_prudentia_), are left to the boys; the
_controversiæ_ are assigned to those of more power. My word!
what assignments! and how incredibly composed! It follows,
moreover, that _declamatio_ may be applied to an assignment far
removed from actuality. So it comes to pass that they pursue
with great words rewards for tyrannicides, or the choice to be
made by ravished maidens, or incests of matrons, or whatever is
argued as often in school as seldom in the forum. When they
come before real judges—” ... Tacit. _Dial._ 35, 1-7.
What Quintilian deplores, then, in the practise of _declamatio_ Tacitus
shows to have been none the less common. All the more significant is
the slight and as it were unwilling consideration that Quintilian gives
to these fashionable aspects. Even while he insists on the value of
_declamatio_ for general training, he deprecates that wide departure
from actual pleading in themes, conception, and style which Seneca
records as a matter of course and Tacitus derides as habitual. The use
of _declamatio_ by mature speakers not for exercise, but for exhibition,
he passes over incidentally in a few sentences as a perversion. Its
undoubted prevalence he admits sadly as something that a serious teacher
should ignore.[31] Both the scorn of the historian and the reservations
of the teacher spring from the older, larger tradition of rhetoric. To
this both Tacitus and Quintilian discerned in _declamatio_ a menace.
How far their fears were justified will appear in later narrowing and
perversion. Meantime they have supplied for interpreting the collection
of Seneca not only the ancient standard, but also the necessary
information.
B. CHARACTER AND SCOPE OF SENECA’S COLLECTION
Seneca’s _Controversiæ_[32] is a collection of the _declamationes_
made by celebrated rhetors. Though Seneca may well have used published
material, his extensive reports, as it were verbatim,[33] at once attest
the grasp of the ancient _memoria_ and suggest, amid considerable
variety, a fund of stock cases. To exhibit the rhetors’ skill by
competition, his plan is to show side by side different treatments
of the same theme. He interpolates specific, and, in the prefaces to
the several books, general criticism. Though he does not offer his
collection of models explicitly as a comprehensive guide, his pervasive
implication is that _declamatio_ exhibits the cardinal virtues. Rhetoric
might with more safety tend to monopolize education so long as it had
its old comprehensiveness; but as it was narrowed, it tended to put
the cart before the horse. “Give your mind to eloquence,” says Seneca;
“from this you can range easily into all arts.”[34] The idea is almost
opposite educationally to Cicero’s view that eloquence is nourished by
all studies; and the eloquence exhibited by Seneca is itself much smaller
than that intended by Cicero.
(1) _Subjects for Suasoriæ_
_Suasoriæ_ were deliberative; _controversiæ_, forensic. Though in actual
practise the one field of oratory seems as difficult as the other,
in pedagogical use _suasoriæ_ were generally assigned as elementary
exercises, the boy’s first extended compositions with the rhetor.[35] The
seven surviving specimens of Seneca’s collection are on the following
themes:—
1. Alexander debates whether to embark on the ocean.
2. The three hundred Spartans sent against Xerxes debate,
after the flight of the expeditionary forces from the rest of
Greece, whether they too shall flee.
3. Agamemnon debates whether to sacrifice Iphigenia, when
Calchas has declared that the Trojan expedition cannot
otherwise set sail with the consent of the gods.
4. Alexander the Great debates the entry into Babylon after the
auguries have warned that danger lurks for him there.
5. The Athenians debate whether to remove the monuments of
their victories over the Persians, Xerxes having threatened to
come back unless they do so.
6. Cicero debates whether to appeal to Antonius for mercy.
7. Cicero debates whether to burn his writings, Antonius having
offered him immunity on this condition.[36]
That the subjects seem to have been always historical reminds us that
Roman deliberative oratory was barred from its natural field of the
living present. Thus restricted, it is meager even for a school exercise.
(2) _Subjects for Controversiæ_
The cases assigned for the _controversiæ_ of older students, though more
various, were even more removed from actuality. The list of those used by
Seneca to exhibit the skill of the rhetors themselves fully justifies the
exclamation of Tacitus,[37] _quales, per fidem!_ Posed as available for
argument on either side—a rhetor would sometimes espouse now one side,
now the other—they are difficult, subtle, sensational, often so dubious
as to preclude quotation, always remote. On their face they were chosen
and iterated by men who desired sensation, prized ingenuity, and had
turned the art of persuasion to advertisement.
_A Disinheriting Uncle_ (I. 1)
“Children who refuse support to their parents are liable to
imprisonment.”
Two brothers quarreled. The son of one of them, in spite
of his father’s prohibition, supported his uncle, who had
fallen into poverty. Disinherited on this account, he made
no legal protest. He was adopted by his uncle. Through a
legacy the uncle became rich. The father began to be in want.
The son supported him in spite of the uncle’s prohibition.
He was disinherited. [Speak for either the young man or the
disinheriting uncle.]
_The Pirate Chief’s Daughter_ (I. 6)
[A young man] captured by pirates wrote to his father for
ransom. He was not ransomed. The pirate chief’s daughter
induced him to promise marriage if he got his freedom. He
promised. She left her father to follow him. He has returned to
his father and has married her. An orphan heiress comes along.
His father bids him repudiate the pirate chief’s daughter and
marry the heiress. When he refuses, he is disinherited. [Defend
either the father or the son.]
_An Oath of Husband and Wife_ (II. 2)
A husband and a wife made an oath that if anything happened to
either, the other would die. The husband, traveling abroad,
sent a messenger to his wife to announce that her husband had
died. She threw herself from a cliff. Having recovered, she is
bidden by her father to leave her husband. She refuses. She is
disinherited. [Speak for either the wife or her father.]
_Poison Given to a Maniac Son_ (III. 7)
A father has given poison to a son who was raging mad and did
violence to himself. The mother brings action for cruelty.
[Speak for either the father or the mother.]
_Crucifixion of a Slave who Refuses Poison to his Master_ (III.
9)
A sick man has asked his slave to give him poison. The slave
has not given it. The master provides in his will that his
heirs shall crucify the slave. The slave appeals to the
tribunes. [Speak for either the appellant or the respondent.]
_An Exiled Father Excluded from his Lands_ (VI. 2)
“Aiding an exile with shelter or food is prohibited.”
“The penalty for homicide shall be exile for five years.”
The father of a son and a daughter was found guilty of homicide
and exiled. He used to come to one of his properties near the
frontier. The son learned this and punished the overseer. The
overseer excluded the father. The father began to go to his
daughter’s. Tried for harboring an exile, she was acquitted on
the plea of her brother. The five-year period having expired,
the father disinherits the son. [Speak for either the father or
the son.]
Against such subjects, against others equally subtle and unreal, even
indecent and perverted, both Tacitus and Quintilian protest in the name
of education. Training for actual pleading, they urge, is not to be had
from tyrannicide, rape, incest, wizards, pestilence, and stepmothers.
Seneca leaves no doubt that such subjects were typical; but he expressly
repudiates the assumption that _controversiæ_ should be exercises to
train for the bar.[38] That _declamatio_ was quite different not only in
his view, but in fact, there is no room to doubt. The difference between
what Tacitus and Quintilian urge on principle and what they themselves,
as well as Seneca and Pliny, record as practise is decisively sharp. It
is the difference between the old rhetoric and the new. Even in Seneca’s
time, much more in that of Quintilian, _declamatio_ was measured as
a special form of public speaking. As such Seneca seems to regard it
with complacency. That he thinks it self-sufficient and self-justifying
seems evident from his pains to give its oral triumphs the permanence of
written record. _Declamatio_ might be cursed by the older tradition as
bad education, or justified as originally good by ignoring what it had
become. None the less it had gone quite out from the old rhetoric, and
had been accepted and widely applauded as an end in itself.
That it perverted schooling, as Tacitus complains, was partly due to its
inevitable tendency to turn the school into an auditorium. The rhetor
remained, indeed, a teacher; but even in teaching he offered himself as a
model.[39] The transition was easy to offering himself to the public as
an orator in the latest style of oratory. While this was one of the few
ways left under the Empire for appeal to a large audience, it was also
one of his chief means of publicity. What the rhetor was thus to become
throughout the Roman Empire may be clearly forecast from Pliny’s account
of Isæus.
(3) _Pliny on Isæus_
Great as is the reputation that had prepared me for Isæus,
I found him greater. He has in the highest degree mastery,
abundance, fertility. He speaks always extempore, but as if
he had long written. The diction is Greek, nay Attic; the
prelude, neat, simple, winsome, or grave and lofty. He asks
for several _controversiæ_, and lets the audience choose,
often even the side. He rises; his robe is right; he begins.
Instantly everything is ready, and ready almost equally. Deep
thoughts respond at once and words, but what words! chosen
and refined. From his impromptus gleam much reading and much
writing. He introduces aptly, states the case lucidly, argues
keenly, sums up strongly, in style is superb. In a word, he
instructs, charms, moves;[40] and which he does best you hardly
know. The enthymemes are frequent, and so are the terse and
finished syllogisms, an achievement difficult even for writing.
His memory is incredible. He resumes what he has spoken
extempore, and does not slip on a single word. Such control he
has attained by study and practise; for day and night he does
nothing else, hears nothing else, says nothing else. Past his
sixtieth year, he is still only a schoolman; and nothing is
more ingenuous than that sort of man, or more unsophisticated,
or better. We who are crowded at the bar and in real cases
learn, even against our will, much cunning. The school and
the auditorium, with their made-up cases, are inoffensive and
innocuous—and none the less happy, for old men especially. For
what is happier in old age than what is pleasantest in youth?
Therefore I account Isæus not only most eloquent, but also most
blest; and if you have no desire to know him, you are made of
stone and iron. So come, if not for other reasons, if not on my
account, at least to hear him. Have you ever read of the man
of Gades who was so stirred by the name and fame of Livy that
he came from the ends of the earth to see him and, once having
seen him, forthwith went his way? ’Tis crass, uncultured,
stupid, almost base, to think no more highly of an experience
than which nothing is pleasanter, or prettier, or more refined.
You will say, “I can read no less eloquent orators here.” Yes;
but there is always a chance to read, not always to hear.
Besides, the living voice, as the phrase goes, is far more
moving. For though what you read may be more vehement, yet
what is fixed by the delivery, the mien, the bearing, the very
gesture of a speaker abides deeper in the mind. Else we give
the lie to the story of Æschines, who when he had read aloud
to the Rhodians a speech of Demosthenes, and every one was
admiring it, is said to have added: “What if you had heard the
beast himself?” And Æschines, on the testimony of Demosthenes,
had a most brilliant delivery. None the less he admitted that
the man who had begotten that speech delivered it far better.
All this goes to prove that you should hear Isæus, if only to
say that you have heard him. Pliny, _Epist._ II. 3.
In essentials this description applies to the _controversiæ_ preserved
by Seneca. The Greek rhetor Isæus whom Pliny heard at the end of the
first century is recognizably like the Roman rhetors whom Seneca heard
some hundred years before.[41] A century had only fixed the type as a
distinct form of oratory, and extended its vogue. Succeeding centuries
repeated it, in Greek and in Latin, throughout the Roman world. Meantime
Tarsus may have taught _declamatio_ to its most famous citizen. Certainly
St. Jerome knew it well. “We have been rhetoricated,” he says with grim
humor, “and have played a bit in the way of the _declamatores_.”[42]
Indeed, the rhetoric that came first and most actively to the Fathers
of the Church must have come through _declamatio_.[43] Its influence as
late as the fourth century on St. Augustine throws into sharp relief his
ignoring of it in his rhetoric for preachers, the fourth book of _De
doctrina christiana_. With such real work of oratory _declamatio_ has
nothing to do.
C. SENECA’S CLASSIFICATION AND TREATMENT
Instead of giving his specimens entire, Seneca divides them by a
threefold critical classification: (1) _sententiæ_, (2) _divisio_, (3)
_colores_. The treatments of the same case by different _declamatores_
are thus compared specifically as to (1) the significances, (2) the
analysis, (3) the imaginative handling.
(1) The term _sententiæ_ might imply such interpretations as were
significant because they were leading. Taken thus, it suggests the
saliences which mark, stage by stage, the development of a single,
controlling interpretation. But _sententiæ_ was used familiarly of such
interpretations as were valuable rather separately than together, for
themselves rather than for the furthering of a progressive development—in
a word, aphorisms, or epigrams. The latter sense had become the more
common, and in fact is what Seneca exhibits. His _declamatores_ seem more
concerned to strike now and strike again than to urge on. Though they
still distinguish the formal parts (proem, statement, etc.),[44] they
are no longer preoccupied with the onward march of the older tradition.
For the cogency of progressive development they have substituted the
momentary effectiveness of striking summaries.
(2) Seneca’s _divisio_, the analysis of the case, shows similarly not the
stages of a consecutive order, but merely the components of an arbitrary
classification. Given such cases as were posed, even the _divisio_
called for ingenuity. Its preliminary _quæstiones_ sometimes suggest an
ingenious and perverted application of the traditional _status_.[45]
(3) Under _colores_[46] Seneca exhibits the imaginative development.
Meaning generally the tone, or cast—in a large sense, the style,
_colores_ means specifically in Seneca’s collection (1) descriptive
amplification, and (2) dramatic characterization. Even the descriptions
were more than concrete realization of the facts; they were imaginative
elaborations.
Quintus Haterius, on the side of the father [in the case of the
pirate chief’s daughter, above, page 92] evoked a very fine
picture. In the abrupt style habitual with him he began to
describe, as if he heard the tumult, how everything was laid
waste and ravaged, the farms given to the flames, the peasants’
flight; and, when he had amplified the terror, he added: “Why
shudder, young man? ’Tis the arrival of your father-in-law.”
Seneca, _Controversiæ_, I. 6. 12.
[Fabianus] was apter at _suasoriæ_. The local color of places,
the courses of rivers, the sites of cities and the habits of
their peoples, no one described more amply. Never did he
pause for lack of a word. His soothing speech would flow about
everything with swiftest and easiest course. _Ibid._ II. præf.
3.
More boldly and ingeniously imaginative was the characterization. The
case itself being fictitious, the treatment might go the whole length
of fiction. At least the _declamatio_ must so enter into the motives,
and especially the emotions, of the parties as to make them _dramatis
personæ_; at most he might go so far as to supply his imaginary dialogues
with a plot.[47] Thus a guilty son is staged in dialogue with his father:
I shall die. I shall die.
Perhaps. I shall not weep.
Heart, why quiverest thou? Tongue, why tremblest? Eyes, why
are ye dulled? It is not yet the thirtieth day.
You beg for life? I gave it; and you have lost it.
It is your will that your son should die.
My will? No, your madness, your blind and rash desire, yes,
and her father, too soon overborne by your prayers.
Seneca, _Controversiæ_, II. 3. 1.
That such dramatization is obviously an extension of the school
_prosopopœiæ_[48] shows how pervasive was the preoccupation with
imaginative development. “Asinius Pollio used to say that the _color_
was to be exhibited in the statement of facts, and carried out in the
arguments.”[49] What was left of the old rhetoric? The interpretations
demanded by _sententiæ_ and _divisio_ were at least intellectual; but
the main interpretation, the goal and measure of skill, was imaginative.
The surest way to fame was through _colores_. Through _colores_ what had
once been useful as a school exercise was artificially extended, and
forensic was turned into a form of occasional oratory.
_Sententiæ_, _divisio_, _colores_, epigrams, ingenious analysis,
imaginative development, seem a poor substitute for the traditional five
parts of rhetoric. Especially impoverishing was the restriction of the
ancient _inventio_. With investigation supplanted by fiction, debate lost
its typical training and its typical power. With the shift of emphasis
to imagination, rhetoric was confused with poetic,[50] to the impairing
of both. Nor was _dispositio_ furthered by _sententiæ_ and _divisio_.
Salience, instead of being used to further consecutiveness, became an
end in itself. The whole was sacrificed to the parts. _Elocutio_, thus
left to itself, tended inevitably toward an art of display. The history
of rhetoric has no more striking proof that style, when cultivated in
artificial isolation, goes bad.
So wide a departure suggests a divergence in conception, a divergence
older and deeper than the particular innovations of _declamatio_. Beside
Aristotle’s conception of rhetoric as the art of giving effectiveness
to truth there had persisted the conception of it as the art of giving
effectiveness to the speaker. Though the two conceptions are not mutually
exclusive, the dominance of the one or of the other tends either to give
rhetoric those manifold relations and that constant answer to reality
which mark its great ancient achievements, or on the other hand to narrow
it toward virtuosity and display. The large pedagogy of Quintilian is
animated by the Aristotelian conception. The other conception, brilliant
in Gorgias and his like, had already animated not only the _declamatores_
at Rome, but that larger “second sophistic”[51] which became pervasively
the rhetoric of the imperial centuries, in Greek and in Latin, throughout
the Roman world. Ancient rhetoric offers the historic example, then, of a
divergence that has remained typical.
FOOT-NOTES:
[1] Historical studies are relegated to a later volume.
[2] The long and wide influence of Quintilian will be discussed in a
later volume. It is briefly indicated by Sandys, _History of Classical
Scholarship_, vol. I, and traced more specifically by Ch. Fierville in
his admirable French edition of Book I (Paris, 1890), which also offers
the best biography and bibliography. Much of the introduction in W.
Peterson’s edition of Book X (Oxford, 1891) is devoted to Quintilian’s
literary criticism.
The two modern English translations are (1) by J. S. Watson in the Bohn
Library (Oxford, 1891, and probably earlier), and (2) by H. E. Butler in
the Loeb Classical Library (London, 1921-2). Both occasionally miss the
significance of technical terms. The former, providing summaries and many
of the valuable notes of Spalding and Capperonier, is the more useful.
[3] Since Quintilian’s survey includes all the cardinal terms of
classical rhetoric, the corresponding Greek terms have been added for
convenience of reference.
Compare the valuable analysis of the treatise _Ad Herennium_ (current in
the middle age as Cicero’s) in the introduction to Wilkins’s edition of
Cicero’s _De oratore_, vol. I, pages 56-64.
[4] recte loquendi scientiam et poetarum enarrationem, I. iv. 2.
ratio loquendi et enarratio auctorum, quarum illam _methodicen_, hanc
_historicen_ vocant, I. ix. 1.
[5] John of Salisbury, for instance, discusses it about 1159 in
_Metalogicus_, Migne, 850 C. D.
[6] Προγυμνάσματα. The widely used compend of them by Hermogenes (late
second century) includes myth, tale, chria, proverb, analysis destructive
and constructive, commonplace, encomium, comparison, characterization
(ἠθοποιία), description (ἔκφρασις), thesis, and the proposal of a bill.
[7] orbis ille doctrinæ quam Græci ἐγκύκλιον παιδείαν vocant, I. x. 1.
[8] Thus Hermogenes on the exercise of retelling myths: “Myths are
sometimes to be expanded, sometimes to be told concisely. How? By now
telling in bare narrative, and now by feigning the words of the given
characters. For example, ‘the monkeys in council deliberated on the
necessity of settling in houses. When they had made up their minds to
this and were about to set to work, an old monkey restrained them, saying
that they would more easily be captured if they were caught within
enclosures.’ Thus if you are concise; but if you wish to expand, proceed
in this way. ‘The monkeys in council deliberated on the founding of a
city; and one coming forward made a speech to the effect that they too
must have a city. “For see,” said he, “how fortunate in this regard are
men. Not only does each of them have a house, but all going up together
to public meeting or theater delight their souls with all manner of
things to see and hear.”’ Go on thus, dwelling on the incidents and
saying that the decree was formally passed; and devise a speech for the
old monkey.” Προγυμνάσματα, ed. Rabe, 2-3.
The exercise is still used in French schools, and for older pupils is
carried, as by the ancients, into a sort of historical fiction.
[9] Though the word seems to refer rather to the masters than to the
pupils, the whole passage none the less clearly indicates the nature and
scope of the exercise for students. The dramatic skill of a _declamator_
is described again in similar terms at X. i. 71; the use of _prosopopœia_
in the peroration of legal pleading, at VI. i. 25-27.
[10] _Suasoriæ_ and _controversiæ_, Quintilian adds, should not be
treated as essentially different. So far as _prosopopœia_ goes, they
differ hardly at all; and otherwise they differ mainly in degree,
_controversiæ_ being more difficult.
Besides the consecutive discussion of _declamatio_ in chapter x of
Book II, much of which is quoted above, Quintilian has many incidental
references and allusions. At IV. ii. 29, he defines _declamatio_
as _forensium actionum meditatio_, “exercise in pleading”, and he
implies the same definition in _ad declamandum ficta materia_ (I. x.
33) and in _fictas ad imitationem fori consiliorumque materias_ (i.e.,
_controversias suasoriasque_, II. iv. 41). Steadfastly ignoring its
use as a form of public speaking, he consistently treats it as a
school exercise. He implies that _declamatio_ embraced a large part of
actual teaching when he complains (II. i. 8) that it is forecast by
_grammaticus_, and calls _rhetor_ (II. i. 3) _declamandi magister_.
He says repeatedly that it depends largely on imaginative realization
of character and emotion (VI. i. 25-27; X. i. 71; and the passage on
_prosopopœiæ_ quoted above). He admits the use of it as an exhibition
of virtuosity (_in ostentationem_, II. x. 10), but satirizes this (II.
xx. 3) by the anecdote commemorating the futile skill of a man who could
throw grains through the eye of a needle. Though he regards it as a
gymnastic profitable for mature speakers in providing variety and relief
(X. v. 17), he has no patience with the common practise of keeping up
indefinitely what is properly a school exercise (XII. xi. 15). Finally he
repeats explicitly and implicitly his warning that _declamatio_ should be
kept close to actuality; and in a long passage (V. xii. 17-22) concluding
his discussion of the _sedes argumentorum_, he indignantly condemns its
perversion into prettiness as an emasculation of oratory.
Lucian, whose satire does not spare rhetors, makes specific mention now
and then of _declamatio_, using the term μελέτη or μελετᾶν: _Demonax_,
33, 36; _Rhetorum præceptor_, 17. One passage is very like Quintilian’s
in the text above: “But the chief exercise and the aim of the art of
dancing, as I said, is acting, which is practised in the same way by
rhetors, especially by those who cultivate the so-called _declamationes_.
Their art is the more applauded for its adaptation to the assigned
characters and for its consonance with the persons introduced, whether
princes, tyrannicides, poor men, or farmers.” _De saltatione_, 65. Some
of his satires, e.g., _Tyrannicida_, _Abdicatus_, and some of the
_encomia_, sound like mock _declamationes_.
[11] Watson’s (Bohn) translation quotes (foot-notes to pages 212-13 of
volume I) Capperonier’s tabular summary of the doctrine of _status_
found in Quintilian, Cicero, the treatise _Ad Herennium_, and Hermogenes.
For Cicero see also pages 49-51 above.
Jæneke’s Leipzig dissertation (1904) _De statuum doctrina ab Hermogene
tradita_ compares by tabular view (pages 23-4, 120-1) the system of
Hermagoras, as it is inferred from Cicero, Quintilian, and St. Augustine,
with that of Hermogenes.
[12] The maxim was _reddere auditores benevolos, attentos, dociles_.
The classical lore on the third of these functions is surveyed by F. P.
Donnelly, S. J., in _A function of the classical exordium_, Classical
Weekly, V. 204-7, New York, May 11, 1912.
[13] Curam ergo verborum rerum volo esse solicitudinem. VIII, proem,
20. The passage goes on: “For generally the best words are inseparable
from their things, and are discerned by their own light. But we look
for them as if they were always lurking and hiding. So, forgetting that
they must be near the subject-matter, we seek them elsewhere and, when
we have found them, lay hold of them by force. A higher spirit is needed
for essaying eloquence; for if she is in sound health throughout her
frame, she will not think her care should be spent on manicuring and
hairdressing.” Fronto, on the contrary, praises the young Marcus Aurelius
for digging up words, “ut verbum ex alto eruas et ad significandum
adcommodes,” ed., Haines, I. 6.
[14] For Aristotle’s treatment see above page 24; for Cicero’s, pages 53,
57; for those of Dionysius and “Longinus,” Chapter V.
[15] in rebus spiritus et in verbis sublimitas et in affectibus motus
omnis et in personis decor. X. i. 27.
[16] For an interesting note on dictation as practised by a professional
orator, see H. von Arnim, _Leben und Werke des Dio von Prusa_, page 140.
[17] via, X. vii. 5; intendendus animus ... usque ad ultimum, X. vii. 16.
[18] imagines, X. vii. 15.
[19] The interpretation is substantially that of Luigi Valmaggi: “Insomma
il precetto di Quintiliano è questo, che occorre o recitare a memoria o
improvvisare sia pure su appunti presi meditando il discorso, ma è d’uopo
evitare assolutamente una miscela dei due sistemi.” _Osservazioni sul
libro x di Quintiliano_, in Atti della reale accademia delle scienze di
Torino, 37:228.
[20] Our modern habits of writing and reading hinder our comprehension
of the speaking and listening ancient world. Especially are we liable to
misinterpretation of the idea of writing in the ancient rhetoric. This
contemplated primarily general training in style. It also included some
written preparation for a particular speech, and finally the writing out
of some speeches, especially speeches on occasion, in full. But that
this last was the general ancient practise has never been sufficiently
supported and is _a priori_ improbable. The writing out of speeches after
they had been spoken, and the common ancient practise of writing speeches
for other men to learn and deliver, are not in point, and must be kept
apart from the question of written preparation. The traditional quarrel
between the ancient oratory which relied more and that which relied
less on writing is admirably summed up by Van Hook, _Alcidamas versus
Isocrates; the spoken versus the written word_, in the introduction to
his translation of the attack of Alcidamas _On those who write written
speeches_, Classical Weekly, XII, 89-94, New York, Jan. 20, 1919. Though
there is ground for difference of opinion in interpreting what we can
learn of the habit of Demosthenes or of Cicero, there is no ground for
assuming that the ancient counsels of care in preparation generally imply
writing out. Quintilian, who leans toward written preparation, is by
himself almost sufficient testimony to the contrary.
[21] _Cogitatis_, with obvious reference to _cogitatio_ in X. vi. vii.
[22] Note that _memoria_ is vigor of mind, and that it is first, as
often, applied to extempore speaking.
[23] For Aristotle on this aspect of the period (_Rhetoric_, iii, 1409
b), see 27 above.
[24] See the tabular view above (page 63, with foot-note 3) and
Quintilian’s own review and forecast in the proem to Book VIII.
[25] How deliberate and consistent is his order appears, for instance, at
the opening of II. xi, where the definitions begin: Iam hic ergo nobis
inchoanda est ea pars artis ex qua capere initium solent qui priora
omiserunt.
[26] See Chapter III, pages 38, 46.
[27] The best edition is _Sénèque le rhéteur, controverses et suasoires_,
traduction nouvelle (with expository introduction), texte revu (in fine
print at the bottom of each page), Henri Bornecque (Lille), 2 volumes,
Paris (Garnier), 1902.
The best discussion is also by Bornecque, _Les déclamations et
les déclamateurs d’après Sénèque le père_, Travaux et mémoires de
l’Université de Lille, nouvelle série, I. Droit, Lettres—fascicule 1,
Lille, au siège de l’Université, 1902 (bibliography, index of authors
cited other than Seneca, catalogue raisonné of _declamatores_).
Incidental and more general discussion will be found in standard
treatises on Roman literature of the Empire, in G. Boissier’s _La fin du
paganisme_, and in his _Tacite_, pages 200-240.
Peterson’s translation of the _Dialogus_ of Tacitus is published in the
Loeb Classical Library.
[28] For a summary of the earlier Greek history see Bornecque, _Déclam._,
40.
[29] E.g. _De orat._ I. 140.
[30] Commentabar declamitans—sic enim nunc loquuntur. _Brutus_, 310. On
this point Seneca has no doubt:—Declamabat autem Cicero non quales nunc
controversias dicimus, ne tales quidem quales ante Ciceronem dicebantur,
quas thesis vocabant. Hoc enim genus maxime, quo nos exercemur, adeo
novum est, ut nomen quoque ejus novum sit. Seneca, _Controversiæ_, I.
præf. 12.
[31] See above, pages 70-73 and foot-note 10. The objection of
Petronius, _Satyricon_ i. 2, is less specific.
[32] Seneca the Elder (sometimes called the Rhetor, circ. 56 B.C.-39
A.D.) made the collection in his last years.
[33] Bornecque, _Déclam._ 25, thinks that the _Controversiæ_ may be taken
as substantial reproductions.
[34] _Controv._ II, præf. 3. J. W. H. Walden quotes a similar counsel
from Libanius, _Ep._ 248: καὶ σύ τοι τὸ ἄρχειν ἔχεις ἀπὸ τοῦ δύνασθαι
λέγειν. _The Universities of Ancient Greece_, page 78, foot-note.
Bornecque, _Déclam._ 135, sums up the situation as follows: “la
rhétorique, devenue l’étude unique, perd, du même coup, le contact avec
la réalité ... et elle dépouille à peu près toute valeur comme moyen
d’éducation oratoire et général.”
[35] Tacitus, _Dial._ 35-5, quoted above, page 88. Quintilian, II. iv. 25.
[36] C. T. Cruttwell translates the second of these at page 335 of his
_History of Roman Literature_.
The subjects mentioned incidentally by Quintilian are similar:—Deliberant
Patres conscripti an stipendium militi constituant. III. viii. 18.
Deliberant Patres conscripti an Fabios dedant Gallis bellum minitantibus.
19. Deliberat C. Cæsar an perseveret in Germaniam ire, cum milites passim
testamenta facerent. 19.
Pompeius deliberavit Parthos, an Africam, an Ægyptum peteret. 33.
Deliberat Cæsar an Britanniam impugnet. VII. iv. 2.
[37] _Dial._ 35. 5, quoted above, page 88.
[38] Deinde res ipsa diversa est: totum aliud est pugnare, aliud
ventilare. Hoc ita semper habitum est, scholam quasi ludum esse, forum
arenam. III. præf. 13.
The same point of view is taken by Pliny in the letter (_Epist._ II. 3)
quoted below.
The following _controversia_ was assigned to the young Marcus Aurelius
by his master Fronto: “I have sent you an outline; the case is serious.
A consul of the Roman people, laying aside his robes, has donned a coat
of mail and among the young men at the feast of Minerva has slain a lion
in the sight of the Roman people. He is denounced before the Censors.
Put into shape and develop.” _Correspondence of Fronto_, ed., with a
translation, C. R. Haines, London and New York (Loeb Classical Library),
1919, vol. I, page 210 (see the further correspondence on this theme,
pages 212, 214).
[39] See above, page 69.
[40] For all its informality, Pliny’s letter runs, as it were
inevitably, into the traditional channels of the formal parts of
a speech (_proœmiatur_, _narrat_, _pugnat_) and the three ends of
oratory (_docet_, _delectat_, _afficit_). Indeed, it shows throughout a
familiarity with rhetorical technic, and assumes a like familiarity on
the part of its recipient.
[41] H. Keil’s editio maior of Pliny’s Letters (Leipzig, 1870) dates
the second book A.D. 97-100, within a few years of Quintilian’s
_Institutio_. For Isæus see Philostratus, _Vit. Soph._ i. 20, and
Juvenal’s satirical phrase “Isæo torrentior” (I. iii. 74).
[42] “Rhetoricati sumus, et in morem declamatorum paululum lusimus,”
quoted by Labriolle, _Histoire de la littérature latine chrétienne_,
Paris, 1920, page 470. _Lusimus_ corresponds to Seneca’s description of
_declamatio_ as _ludus_ (foot-note 38 above).
[43] The history of _declamatio_ as a direct and an indirect influence is
reserved for a later volume. It is summarized suggestively by Bornecque
in both the introduction to his edition of Seneca and his treatise
cited in foot-note 27. Walden’s ample summaries of the work of Libanius
(4th century) in his _Universities of Ancient Greece_ corroborate what
Bornecque says of St. Augustine.
[44] See Pliny’s letter on Isæus above.
[45] E.g., I. præf. 21; II. iii. 11. See also Bornecque, _Déclam._ 51.
For _status_ see above, page 74.
[46] The long and intricate history of _colores_, extending, with that
of its Romance cognates, through the middle ages, must be postponed; but
its interest may be divined by merely glancing at the successive uses
recorded in a few dictionaries. The importance of exploring the term
has been urged again by Fletcher in his _“True Meaning” of Dante’s Vita
Nuova_, Romanic Review, XI. 119.
[47] For the literary influence of this habit of oral fiction see
Bornecque, _Décl._
[48] See above, page 71.
[49] Seneca, _Controversiæ_, IV. iii. 3. Doubtless Quintilian had such
perversion of _narratio_ in mind when he wrote: “[_The narratio_] should
be neither dry and starved ... nor again winding and seductive with
far-fetched descriptions, into which many are led by imitation of the
license of poetry.” II. iv. 3.
[50] See the section on Ovid in Chapter VII below. Bornecque sums up
the tendency acutely as “pénétration réciproque de la poésie et de la
déclamation,” _Déclam._ 115.
[51] The development of this history is reserved to a later volume.
CHAPTER V
THE LITERARY CRITICISM OF RHETORIC
Criticism is inevitably a part of teaching. The teacher’s holding
up of models involves both analysis of them and appreciation. The
differentiation of the critic from the teacher is roughly that his
judgments are not applied immediately to tasks of composition, that he
rather defines or extends theory than promotes practise. His estimate
of the professional writer is not directly brought to bear on the
advancement of the amateur. He stops with appreciation; the teacher tries
to carry this over into imitation. But the differentiation of the two
functions has never been complete; and in classical times it went only a
little way. Quintilian, who was typically the teacher, is included with
respect in histories of criticism. Dionysius of Halicarnassus classifies
his acute appreciations of orators and poets under text-book headings,
and puts forth his treatise on style, as does the great unknown “On
the Sublime,” for instruction. Both are what we now call critics. The
classification of Dionysius does not hinder his critical appreciation;
the classification of the great unknown merges into a kindling enthusiasm.
Probably most of the literary criticism current in the last years of
the Republic and the first centuries of the Roman Empire came from
grammarians and rhetoricians.[1] It is worth while, nevertheless, to
consider separately from the manuals and methods of instruction those
treatises which were written rather to educate appreciation than to
further the tasks of the schools. Outstanding among these are the
_Brutus_ of Cicero and the _Dialogus_ of Tacitus; but the two most
specific and significant in doctrine are the ones mentioned above:
Dionysius of Halicarnassus on Sentences (_De Compositione Verborum_), and
the unknown author on the Heightening of Language (_De Sublimitate_). In
some respects complementary, the two together offer a clear view of style
in the classical conception.
A. DIONYSIUS OF HALICARNASSUS ON SENTENCES
The most specific and systematic rhetorical treatise of Dionysius[1a]
deals with sentence movement, or _compositio_[2] (see pages 25, 53, 67,
79). This, he makes bold to say in his second paragraph,[3] is the aspect
of composition most profitable for the study of youth.
There is need ... of oversight and guidance ... for a choice
of words at once pure and noble ... and a sentence movement
combining charm with dignity.... The chief heads under which
I propose to treat the subject are the following: what is the
nature of sentence movement and what force it has; what are its
aims and how it attains them; what are its generic varieties,
and what is the distinctive feature of each, and which of them
I believe to be best; and still further, what is that poetical
something, both pleasant on the tongue and sweet to the ear,
which naturally accompanies the sentence movement of prose, and
wherein lies the force of that poetical method which imitates
unpoetical speech and succeeds thoroughly in the imitation, and
by what method each of these two may be attained.[4]
Sentence movement, moreover, Dionysius thinks to be more important than
the choice of words.[5] He supports this assertion first by analyzing a
passage from the _Odyssey_.[6]
Everybody would, I am sure, testify that these lines cast a
spell of enchantment on the ear, and rank second to no poetry
whatsoever, however exquisite it may be. But what is the secret
of their fascination, and what causes them to be what they are?
Is it the choice of words or the sentence movement? No one
will say “the choice”; of that I am convinced. For the diction
consists, warp and woof, of the most ordinary, the humblest
words, such as might have been used off-hand by a farmer,
a seaman, an artisan, or anybody else who takes no account
of elegant speech. You have only to break up the meter, and
these same lines seem commonplace and unworthy of admiration.
For they contain neither noble metaphors nor _hypallages_
nor _catachreses_ nor any other figurative language; nor yet
many unusual terms, nor foreign or new-coined words. What
alternative, then, is left but to attribute the beauty of the
style to the sentence movement?
In like manner he urges concerning a passage from Herodotus:[7]
Here again no one can say that the grace of the style is due
to the impressiveness and the dignity of the words. These
have not been picked and chosen with studious care; they are
simply the labels affixed to things by Nature. Indeed, it would
perhaps have been out of place to use other and grander words.
I take it, in fact, to be always necessary, whenever ideas are
expressed in proper and appropriate language, that no word
should be more dignified than the nature of the ideas. That
there is no stately or grandiose word in the present passage,
any one who likes may prove by simply changing the harmony.
There are many similar passages in this author, from which it
can be seen that the fascination of his style does not after
all lie in the beauty of the words, but in their combination.
Not content with analysis, Dionysius proceeds[8] to enforce his point
by garbling. Fine passages of verse and of prose, without any change
of words, are dislocated to show that their force resides not in these
words taken singly, but in the sentence order, or movement. The method
is ingenious. It is even telling. Any teacher who shall thus put side by
side a fine passage of English prose and the same words in a different
order will make his students aware of literary effects to which they
should not remain deaf.[9] The connotation of pace and tune may be
further exemplified by comparing, for instance, a tale of Chaucer’s with
the version made by Dryden.[10]
The method is interesting, striking, to some extent revealing. What does
it reveal? That suggestiveness is not only through the imagery of single
words, but through their sound in combination; that a large part of the
connotation which we call style is sentence pace. This is generally so
little discerned that Dionysius may be pardoned for magnifying it; and he
further guards himself by recording his intention of writing a treatise
also on the choice of words. Occupied in the present treatise exclusively
with their combination, he naturally brings out the importance of this
as vividly as possible. Is the effectiveness of style in the choice
of words, or in their combination? Here he seems to answer, “In their
combination.”[11]
But effectiveness of expression resides primarily in neither _electio_
nor _compositio_, secondarily in both. Primarily it is the writer’s keen
sense of the ways of nature and of man, his receptivity and insight.
Then it is concrete expression, the choice of words of sensation, the
speaking in terms of light, sound, color, motion, attitude, gesture.
Such words, whether figurative in the technical sense or literal, may be
called imagery. Or, in other fields of composition, it is an illuminating
precision. Finally, that effectiveness which we call style comes from
apt and beautiful rhythms, from that _compositio_ which is the subject
of this treatise. In a word, style is a complex. That _compositio_ is an
important element Dionysius does well to show, for this is not obvious
and is commonly neglected; but that _compositio_ is _the_ cause, or even
that it is generally more important than the other elements, can hardly
be demonstrated. Undoubtedly Homer’s verse weaves much of his spell;[12]
but surely his words, though often, as Dionysius says, ordinary, have
none the less that specific concreteness which characteristically makes
epic vivid. In the following passage that he quotes from Herodotus, where
the separable charm of the sentence movement is made more obvious by
playing as it were in the wrong _tempo_, he might claim even more. Surely
the dialogue method is important for vividness and economy, and this
too is a matter of _compositio_. But is the _compositio_, for all its
charm, the main cause? Who shall determine? The impression is a complex
in which each element counts—the choice of details, the choice of words,
the arrangement or movement—and in which we can hardly assign an exact
proportion to any one. Certainly the beat and tune of prose are part of
its connotation, its effect on the reader. Doubtless also—though here we
lack scientific analysis to confirm our impression[13]—they are demanded
subconsciously by the composing emotion of the author as he speaks or
writes. Nevertheless Dionysius is an early instance of a danger lurking
in statistical analysis of literature, perhaps also of a danger lurking
in the treatment of style—much more of a single element of style—as a
separate entity. Being a teacher, Dionysius doubtless thought that there
was little danger in over-emphasizing the importance of pace with young
students. They are too likely to be quite unaware of it to be corrupted
by pedagogical exaggeration.
That “thin and bloodless talk” with which Cicero[14] taxes the
philosophers Dionysius thinks to be due to defective _compositio_.
The main difference between poet and poet, orator and orator,
is in aptness of sentence movement. Almost all the ancients
gave this much study; and consequently their poems, their
songs, and their discourses are things of beauty. But among
their successors, with few exceptions, this was no longer so.
In time it was at last entirely forgotten; and no one thought
it to be indispensable or even contributory to beauty of
discourse.[15]
Having established the importance of adapting sentence movement,
Dionysius proceeds to show that such adaptation is little hindered by _a
priori_ consideration of logic.
I used to think that we ought to follow nature as far as
possible in adjusting the parts of a discourse ... for
instance, to put nouns before verbs ... the essential before
its modifiers.... This idea is plausible; but I came to think
it was not true.[16]
Does Dionysius mean that logic offers no norm for the order of words?[17]
Hardly. Rather he shows by his instances that word order has little to
do with philosophical or logical classification. The order in a given
sentence is not determined abstractly by the logical idea of putting the
subject before the predicate, or the substance before the accident. It is
guided partly by rhythm; and it is widely variable.
The variability that he shows in the Greek word order is wider than in
English. In both languages it is controlled by usage, by what is habitual
and therefore expected; and this fact seems to be ignored by Dionysius.
Even a Greek could not shape a sentence at his own will without reference
to the habit of the language. But in this respect Greek usage, because
the Greek could rely on showing sentence relations by inflection, was
less restrictive than English usage. For English, then, it is not true to
say that there is no sentence norm, no normal or natural order. That the
norm is not determined by logic in the sense of abstract analysis is true
for either, or any, language; but in modern languages, much more than
in Greek, it is restricted by usage. Every careful translator has found
his efforts to convey Greek style hampered by the inferior variability
of modern sentence habits. Taken more generally, however, the contention
of Dionysius is sound and suggestive. It is that the order of words in a
sentence is not predetermined by logic, that it is freely adaptable, and
that this adaptation constitutes a large element in effectiveness.
Having thus vindicated the right of the speaker or writer to deal with
the order of his words artistically, unfettered by logic, Dionysius
proceeds to inquire in what artistic shaping consists.
The functions of _compositio_ [the tasks of sentence movement]
seem to me to be three: (1) to discern what goes naturally
with what to make a beautiful and satisfying combination; (2)
to know how to make systematically out of these potential
agreements a better harmony; (3) if revision is still
necessary, whether abridgement, expansion, or alteration, to
know how to work out the adaptation as the potential values
demand. The scope of each of these I will explain more clearly
by using certain analogies from the industrial arts with which
all are familiar: house-building, ship-building, and the
like. When a builder has provided himself with the material
from which he intends to construct a house—stones, timbers,
tiling, and all the rest—he then puts together the structure
from these, studying the following three things: what stone,
timber, and brick can be united with what other stone, timber,
and brick; next, how each piece of the material that is being
so united should be set, and on which of its faces; thirdly,
if anything fits badly, how that particular thing can be
chipped and trimmed and made to fit exactly. And the shipwright
proceeds in just the same way. So, I say, they also should work
whose task is to compose sentences well.[18]
To simplify the language of Dionysius by borrowing from music a metaphor
which, though it does not cover his whole intention, is true so far as
it goes, the three tasks of the shaper of sentences are: (1) to hear the
tune, (2) to follow the tune, (3) to correct the tune. The first depends
on the speaker’s awareness, his sensitiveness to words; the second
depends on his technical ability to carry out what is thus suggested, to
sustain and enhance; the third, more specifically technical, is to revise
in detail.
On its face this division is new. Not only has it nothing to do with
other divisions which apply to style in general, being limited to
sentence movement, but it also differs from earlier divisions of this
item by being synthetic. Its point of view is not that of a critic
analyzing what has been already composed, but of a speaker or writer
composing. It is practical.
Is it practicable? At the very outset of the exposition the analogy
of the building arts is disconcerting. Even when allowances are made
for the strict limitation to building, the exclusion of all that we
now call architecture, the description still seems hardly exact. And,
its exactness assumed, is it applicable? Is the analogy sound? Both
the _Rhetoric_ and the _Poetic_ of Aristotle in speaking of sentences
generally avoid analogies from the static arts. The _Poetic_ even rules
them out at the start by its classification of the arts; and Aristotle’s
analogies for sentences are drawn not from building, but from walking,
running, and breathing.[19] Dionysius both assumes and asserts the same
point of view: “The science of public speaking is, after all, a sort of
musical science, differing from vocal and instrumental music in degree,
not in kind.”[20] And generally his discussion, like Aristotle’s, is
in terms of rhythm. Why, then, this analogy with arts that Aristotle
regarded as lying in quite another field? The famous analogy in the _De
Sublimitate_[21] of building with solid blocks is not, in its context, so
remarkable; for it is applied less restrictively to _compositio_. Is a
shaper of sentences like a builder?
Is he like a builder in the process that Dionysius puts first, the
discerning of inherent compatibilities in his material? The question is
not of the subject-matter or conception of a whole work, but of component
parts or details. Doubtless an author may be somewhat vaguely considered
as discerning potentialities in this material; but what is the material?
Is it words in the sense that the builder’s is stone or wood? Can an
author find inherent compatibility in words as a builder in the strength,
texture, shape, or color of his stone? His material is ideas and images.
His choice of particular words for these is doubtless affected by
connotations of sound;[22] but must it not be primarily suggested and
finally determined by the sense? Can word combinations be considered as
in themselves beautiful and satisfying, as really having compatibilities
of sound? An author who followed Dionysius literally might launch himself
into mellifluous nonsense. Dionysius is speaking figuratively; but is his
figure really suggestive? We may well remember that more modern analogies
drawn from the static arts of mass and line have been misleading for the
consecutive art of words.
The distinction between Dionysius’s two remaining items may seem slight
until we remember that the division is not analytical into elements, but
synthetic into processes that are consecutive in time. Given the primary
and general equipment of sensitiveness, the writer may enhance while
he is writing and then afterward revise. In fact, there is a typical
difference between following the flow of thought and imagery and sound,
and then correcting it, between composing and revising. That the two
should be distinct, and that both should be guided partly by sound, is
counsel practically helpful.
In fact, once he proceeds to apply his second and third headings in
detail, Dionysius is more convincing. The righting[23] of a sentence by
transposing phrases or clauses is in practise, and should be in theory, a
first counsel of sentence emphasis. A defect of modern text-books is to
set forth this important process as if it were purely logical. Dionysius
follows the ancient tradition in making it rhythmical; and he also
clarifies it by specific instances. He proceeds[24] to the varying of the
rhythm by lengthening or shortening. Here his preoccupation with rhythm
tends to obscure other considerations. That a sentence is a logical unit,
and that a given statement is left single or combined with its neighbor
according to its logical bearing on the whole passage,[25] he seems to
ignore or take for granted. Again, the lengthening of a clause to fill
out the rhythm risks bombast. On the other hand, some of the additions
that he quotes as unnecessary to the idea are not superfluous for the
image; their value is not mainly rhythmical. But so far as it goes this
chapter is suggestive.
Distinguishing[26] charm (ἡδονή) from beauty (τὸ καλόν), Dionysius
finds[27] that they arise from four qualities: melody, rhythm, variety,
aptness. Melody is an affair of pitch and inflection. The passage,[28]
besides being a precious hint as to the Greek scale, is a useful reminder
that English—and especially American—speech too often ignores variety
of pitch. Similarly the treatment of rhythm as quantitative[29] should
remind us that in our own habit it is predominantly accentual. These
differences in habit of speech, while they suggest resources unused,
should none the less warn us against transferring the distinctions
and counsels of Dionysius bodily from Greek to English. Of those that
are equally applicable to both languages is the general advice[30] to
seek variety and aptness less in the choice of words, where there can
be little latitude, than in their combination. Indeed, it is hardly
too much to say that aptness of style, though abstractly it includes
precision and imagery in the single word, is more largely than most of
us realize an effect of rhythm, and that variety, except when in oral
utterance it includes pitch, consists in rhythm exclusively.
Distinguishing[31] the letters as vowels or consonants, Dionysius finds
Greek speech sounds to be neither more nor less than twenty-four. His
phonetic analysis of these is specifically according to the position
of the vocal organs in utterance. The following discussion[32] of the
quality of syllables in combination, of effects hard, smooth, or sweet
in sound apart from sense, is doctrine oftener accepted as an idea than
tested.[33]
Syllables, which are combinations or interweavings of letters,
preserve at once both the individual properties of each
component and the joint properties of all, which spring from
their fusion and juxtaposition. The sounds thus formed are soft
or hard, smooth or rough, sweet to the ear or harsh to it; they
make us pull a wry face, or cause our mouths to water, or bring
about any of the countless other physical conditions that are
possible.
These facts the greatest poets and prose-writers have carefully
noted, and not only do they carefully arrange their words and
weave them into appropriate patterns, but often, with curious
and loving skill, they adapt the very syllables and letters to
the emotions which they wish to represent.
[Passages from Homer are quoted as examples.]
Such lines are to be found without number in Homer,
representing length of time, hugeness of body, stress of
emotion, immobility of position, or similar effects, simply by
the manipulation of the syllables. Conversely others are framed
to give the impression of abruptness, speed, hurry, and the
like.[34]
That such associations are natural is obvious, Dionysius thinks, from
onomatopœia, the earliest and simplest form of sound-connotation in
words. But he does not shrink from pushing his doctrine far beyond this
to the conclusion that sound effects both subtle and various may be
achieved, and should be consciously sought, by literary art.
The conclusion is inevitable, that style is beautiful when
it contains beautiful words, that beauty of words is due to
beautiful syllables and letters, that language is rendered
charming by the things that charm the ear in virtue of
affinities in words, syllables, and letters....
If, then, it were possible that all the parts of speech by
which a given subject is to be expressed should be euphonious
and elegant, it would be madness to seek out inferior ones. But
if this be out of the question, as in many cases it is, then
we must endeavor to mask the natural defects of the inferior
letters by interweaving and mingling and juxtaposition.[35]
The following instances of poetic effects gained by apt combinations of
proper names that have no such suggestions singly will remind English
readers of certain sonorous passages in Milton.[36]
That the connotation of such combinations is due to their syllabic
quality, however, as distinct from their rhythm, Dionysius hardly
succeeds in establishing. The doctrine is flatly denied by Lewis.
A certain learned and well-known student of verse says that
(for example) gutturals and sibilants express “amazement,
affright, indignation, contempt,” and he cites as an
illustration a passage from Paradise Lost.
Out of my sight, thou serpent; that name best
Befits thee with him leagued, thyself as false
And hateful; nothing wants but that thy shape
Like his and color serpentine may show
Thy inward fraud.
One objection to this kind of doctrine is that it makes people
think they have no ear for verse, for after careful reading
they are still uncertain whether they can detect the effect
described. Another objection to it is that it is not true.
Compare with the lines quoted this little song from Browning’s
Pippa Passes:
The year’s at the spring,
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hill-side’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in his heaven—
All’s right with the world.
This is shorter by four syllables than the passage from Milton,
but it has the same number of gutturals and two more sibilants;
yet fancy describing it as an expression of “amazement,
affright, indignation, contempt!”
For another illustration, in one of the standard manuals of
versification it is pointed out that the surd mutes (p, k,
t) “help to convey the idea of littleness, delicacy, and
sprightliness,” and that the short vowel i is fitted to
express “joy, gaiety, triviality, rapid movement, and physical
littleness.” To illustrate both assertions, Mercutio’s account
of Queen Mab is cited:
She comes
In shape no bigger than an agate stone, ...
Drawn by a team of little atomies.
Here the effect is perhaps easier to recognize, and even an
obtuse reader thinks he follows the reasoning; but compare
Browning’s lines:
The wroth sea’s waves are edged
With foam, white as the bitten lip of hate.
The “bitten lip” has as many surd mutes and short i’s as the
“little atomies”; but it fails to express sprightliness,
gaiety, or triviality....
The fact is, of course, that all this analysis of sounds
proceeds upon a false assumption. When you say Titan you mean
something big, and when you say tittle you mean something
small; but it is not the sound of either word that means either
bigness or littleness, it is the sense. If you put together
a great many similar consonants in one sentence, they will
attract special attention to the words in which they occur, and
the significance of those words, whatever it may be, is thereby
intensified; but whether the words are “a team of little
atomies” or “a triumphant terrible Titan,” it is not the sound
of the consonants that makes the significance.[37]
Rhythm is discussed in the same order, first[38] by classifying feet
as iambs, trochees, dactyls, etc., then[39] by analyzing their effects
singly and in combination. “A simple rhythm or foot has not less than two
syllables nor more than three.”[40] This is commonly accepted for meter;
but does it hold for the rhythms of prose? Moreover that the foot is
the rhythmical unit, whether in Greek or in other languages, is oftener
assumed than proved. Rhythmical effects, in English at least, seem to be
not so much of feet as of measures, whether verses or clauses. Unless
the foot is actually a unit, for the composer or for the hearer—and
this is at least doubtful—such analysis as that of a noble passage from
the funeral speech in the second book of Thucydides[41] lays too much
stress on the components—spondees, anapests, etc.—and not enough on the
_compositio_, or pace of the sentence. By way of contrast to Thucydides,
Plato, and Demosthenes, Dionysius pillories Hegesias of Magnesia.[42]
Variety of rhythm[43] is discussed more generally, without instances, and
as an introduction to rhythm in prose.
Prose diction has full liberty and permission to diversify
the _compositio_ by whatever changes it pleases. A style is
finest of all when it has the most frequent rests and changes
of harmony; when one thing is said within a period, another
without it; when one period is formed by the interweaving of a
larger number of clauses, another by that of a smaller; when
among the clauses themselves one is short, another longer, one
roughly wrought, another more finished; when the rhythms take
now one form, now another, and the figures are of all kinds,
and the voice-pitches—the so-called “accents”—are various, and
skillfully avoid satiety.[44]
Aptness,[45] or appropriateness to the actors and the action, is analyzed
rather as imitative smoothness or roughness in detail than as the speed
of the whole stanza or paragraph. Dionysius says nothing, for instance,
of the staccato effect of frequent predication. His text is the famous
stone of Sisyphus from the eleventh book of the _Odyssey_.
Finally[46] Dionysius classifies sentence movement into three typical
modes:[47] the rough (αὐστηρά), the smooth (γλαφυρά) or florid (ἀνθηρά),
and the blended (εὔκρατος). Certain accidental likenesses to the familiar
threefold classification of style[48] should not obscure the fact that we
have here something different, a classification not of style in general,
but of _compositio_. The first mode Dionysius defines as seeking rather
the force of each part than the harmony of the whole. The words stand
out separately, without fear of hiatus or other clashing of sounds, and
without care for periods.[49] The aim is rather a direct stirring of
emotion (πάθος) than a pervasive suggestion of character (ἦθος). This
sterner, elder mode, quite different from “the showy and decorative
prettiness of our day,”[50] he exemplifies, with his usual minute
analysis, from Pindar and Thucydides. The second, or smooth mode[51]
is periodic in its sentences and nicely articulated in its clauses and
phrases.
It tries to combine and interweave its component parts, and
thus give, as far as possible, the effect of one continuous
utterance. This result is produced by so nicely adjusting the
junctures that they admit no appreciable time-interval between
the words.[52]
Aiming at the easiest transitions within the period, it is careful to
distinguish between periods. The parts coalesce; the units stand out.[53]
This is in line with the doctrine of Aristotle,[54] and is admirably
exemplified by the practise of Cicero. Dionysius’s instances are Sappho
and Isocrates. The third, or blended mode[55] Dionysius labors in vain
to distinguish from the other two. Ingenious as are his analyses of
the three modes, even sometimes suggestive, they fail to establish the
reality of the classification. We can discern in the distinction between
his first two a carrying out—perhaps an undue extension—of Aristotle’s
distinction between the unperiodic style and the periodic.[56] His third
mode seems to be not a mode at all, but merely a reminder that neither of
the other two can be used exclusively or pushed to excess.
As to the distinction of prose rhythms from verse[57] Dionysius quotes
with approval Aristotle’s dictum[58] that prose should be rhythmical
without becoming metrical. It seems plain none the less that his own
taste is for rather marked rhythms even in prose, and that he would
encourage students to go a long way toward meter. Before he closes his
book upon this consideration, he raises quite frankly the question of how
far its analyses have practical value.
I have a presentiment that an onslaught will be made on these
statements by people who are destitute of general culture and
practise the mechanical parts of rhetoric unmethodically and
unscientifically.... Their argument will doubtless be: “Was
Demosthenes, then, so poor a creature that, whenever he was
writing his speeches, he would work in meters and rhythms after
the fashion of clay-modellers, and would try to fit his clauses
into these moulds, shifting the words to and fro, keeping an
anxious eye on his longs and shorts, and fretting himself about
cases of nouns, moods of verbs, and all the accidents of the
parts of speech? So great a man would be a fool indeed were he
to stoop to all this niggling and peddling.” If they scoff and
jeer in these or similar terms, they may easily be countered
by the following reply: “First, it is not surprising after all
that a man who is held to deserve a greater reputation than any
of his predecessors who were distinguished for eloquence was
anxious, when composing eternal works and submitting himself
to the scrutiny of all-testing envy and time, not to admit
either subject or words at random, and to attend carefully to
both arrangements of ideas and beauty of words: particularly
as the authors of that day were producing discourses which
suggested not writing, but carving and chasing—those I mean
of the sophists Isocrates and Plato.... What wonder, then, if
Demosthenes also was careful to secure euphony and melody and
to employ no random or untested word or thought?”[59]
The defense is sufficient abstractly, though it does not quite meet the
fact that in practise both teachers and students of rhetoric have not
infrequently frittered away much time in minute analysis of _compositio_.
Such analysis easily becomes over-minute, easily deviates from the
paramount consideration of the idea or the image. That it is properly the
work of revision, not of the first draft, Dionysius often implies, but
might well have stated explicitly. So applied, given common sense and the
honest determination to say what one means, analysis of prose rhythms is
distinctly valuable and often necessary.
FOOT-NOTES:
[1] For Cicero, see Chapter III, for Quintilian and Tacitus, Chapter IV;
for Dio Chrysostom and Apuleius, Chapter VIII.
[1a] For biography and bibliography of Dionysius see Roberts, W. Rhys,
_Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the Three Literary Letters_, Cambridge,
1901, pages 1-50, 209-219. To the latter should be added: Egger, Max,
_Essai sur la critique littéraire et la rhétorique chez les grecs au
siècle d’Auguste_, Paris, 1902; Mætzke, Karl, _De D. H. Isocratis
imitatore_, Wratislaw, 1906; Kremer, Emil, _Ueber das rhetorische system
des D. von H._, Strassburg, 1907; Geigenmüller, Paul, _Quæstiones
Dionysianæ de vocabulis artis criticæ_, Leipzig, 1908; Nassal, Franz,
_Æsthetisch-rhetorische Beziehungen zwischen D. von H. und Cicero_,
Tübingen, 1910; Hubbell, H. M., _The Influence of Isocrates on Cicero,
Dionysius, and Aristides_, Yale University Press, 1914.
The best edition of the _De compositione verborum_ is that by Roberts,
W. Rhys, _Dionysius of Halicarnassus on Literary Composition_ (text,
introduction, translation, notes, glossary, appendices), London, 1910. A
current summary of the _De compositione_ will be found in Roberts, _Three
Literary Letters_, pages 8-19; a more detailed summary, with a tabular
analysis, in his edition, pages 1-10; a commented summary in Egger, pages
67-111.
The rhetorical system of Dionysius is tabulated from all his works by
Ammon, George, _De D. H. librorum rhetoricorum fontibus_, Monachii,
1889. In English equivalents, the pertinent parts of his analysis are as
follows:
A. subject-matter
I. investigation (inventio)
selection (iudicium)
II. arrangement (dispositio)
1. division
2. order
3. revision and elaboration
B. style
I. choice of words (electio)
1. precision
2. imagery
II. sentence movement (compositio)
1. nature
2. force
3. processes
a. in phrases
b. in clauses
c. in periods
4. charm and beauty
a. melody
b. rhythm
c. variety
d. aptness
5. kinds
a. strong
b. smooth
c. blended
6. verse and prose
Kremer (see above), whose analysis, though less detailed, is
substantially the same, collates from all the writings of Dionysius
his doctrine on the several topics and gives foot-note references to
Aristotle, Cicero, and others.
Nassal (see above), pointing out that Dionysius and Cicero agree
strikingly in many points, argues that they have for common source in
these cases a Greek treatise written during the years between the time of
the _Lysias_ of Dionysius and of the _De Oratore_ of Cicero and the time
of the Demosthenes of _Dionysius_ and of the _Orator_ of Cicero, and that
this common source is very probably Cæcilius of Calacte.
Geigenmueller (see above) supplies a collation of critical terms with
valuable comparisons.
Nassal (page 11) quotes from Doxopater a definition of rhetoric ascribed
to Dionysius: “Rhetoric is the artistic mastery of persuasive discourse
in communal affairs, having as its end to speak well.” (Usener, Fragment
I.) The definition is sound and striking, but for the lame and impotent
concluding phrase. As reported by Maximus Planudes (quoted by Ammon,
page 1), the definition is substantially the same, but has amplified
this concluding phrase with a clumsy twist from Aristotle. Whether the
definition belongs to Dionysius or not, the tradition shows his fame as a
rhetorician.
[2] That it deals with this exclusively, not with composition in general,
is clear from both the Greek title and the Latin. The terms σύνθεσις and
_compositio_ are technically specific. They do not mean style in general,
which in the classical treatises includes also choice of single words
(ἐκλογή, _electio_). Much less do they mean _composition_ in our larger
modern sense, for which the ancient term is _dispositio_, _collocatio_,
or more generally οἰκονομία. Dionysius makes the distinction quite clear
at the opening of his treatise, and holds to it throughout. In this sense
is to be taken the title of the admirable translation of Rhys Roberts,
_Literary Composition_, as is shown by his rendering elsewhere _The
Arrangement of Words_ (page 8 of his edition of _Three Literary Letters_).
[3] i. 66. The Roman numerals in these foot-notes refer to chapters;
the Arabic, to the pages of the Rhys Roberts text. The Rhys Roberts
translation is used with modifications.
[4] i. 68-70.
[5] iii. 74.
[6] iii. 76-78 (Odyssey, xvi. 1-16).
[7] iii. 84 (Herodotus i. 8-10).
[8] iv. 84.
[9] See, for example, my _Writing and Speaking_, pages 376-378; _College
Composition_, pages 184-188.
[10] That this sort of analysis may be carried even further is suggested
by R. L. Stevenson’s _Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature_,
which is partly along the lines followed by Dionysius.
[11] That this is generally more important he explicitly affirms in
his _Demosthenes_, chapter li. Reviewing the traditional five parts of
rhetoric, he puts οἰκονομία (_dispositio_) above εὕρεσις (_inventio_),
and σύνθεσις (_compositio_) above ἐκλογή (_electio_).
[12] Rhys Roberts’s use of imitative renderings to make this point is
of course necessary; but readers unfamiliar with Greek rhythms should
beware of inferences based on an assumption of equivalence between Greek
metrical habits and English.
[13] This is the contention of Stevenson in _Some Technical Elements of
Style in Literature_.
[14] _De Oratore_, I. xiii. 57.
[15] iv. 92.
[16] v. 98.
[17] Henri Weil’s classic essay on the order of words in the ancient
languages has been translated into English by C. W. Super, Boston, 1887.
The rationale of word-order is discussed in Spencer’s _Philosophy of
Style_.
[18] vi. 104.
[19] See above, pages 28, 29.
[20] xi. 124.
[21] Section x.
[22] See above, page 60 and foot-note 95.
[23] vii.
[24] ix.
[25] See my _College Composition_, page 69.
[26] x. The same distinction is made in his _Demosthenes_, xlvii.
[27] xi.
[28] xi. 126.
[29] xi. 128.
[30] xii. 130.
[31] xiv.
[32] xv-xvi.
[33] In English it is urged specifically by Stevenson in _Some Technical
Elements of Style in Literature_.
[34] xv. 154-156.
[35] xvi. 160, 166.
[36] It may remind some elder readers also of a story once current
concerning a pious old lady who in reading her Bible found emotional
satisfaction in the “blessed word Mesopotamia.”
[37] Charlton M. Lewis, _The Principles of English Verse_, New York,
1906, page 131.
[38] xvii.
[39] xviii.
[40] xvii. 176.
[41] xviii. 178.
[42] Stevenson makes similar use of Macaulay.
[43] xix.
[44] xix. 196.
[45] τὸ πρέπον, xx.
[46] xxi.
[47] Dionysius uses the same classification in his _Demosthenes_, xxxvi.
[48] See above, page 56.
[49] xxii. 212. One thinks of Carlyle.
[50] xxii. 216.
[51] xxiii.
[52] xxiii. 234.
[53] xxiii. 236.
[54] _Rhetoric_ III. ix. 1409 a. See above, page 28. Aristotle’s
εὐσύνοπτος may have suggested the περίοπτος of Dionysius.
[55] xxiv.
[56] _Rhetoric_, _ibid._
[57] xxv, xxvi.
[58] _Rhetoric_, III. viii. 1408 b. See above, page 26.
[59] xxv. 262.
B. THE GREAT UNKNOWN ON IMAGINATIVE DICTION
“Longinus on the Sublime”[1] will for many years continue to name the
most captivating of ancient treatises, though its author, whoever he was,
was not the rhetorician Longinus, and though its subject is wider than
our word _sublime_. The Latin _sublimitas_ translates precisely enough
the ὕψος of the Greek title; but our words _sublime_ and _sublimity_ are
reserved for special application to such lofty passages as we quote from
Dante and Milton. Sappho’s love poem, quoted by the author as a typical
instance, though we feel at once its vivid beauty, we should not call
sublime. The Greek word is more general. Meaning literally height, it
includes in this treatise all such effects of style as lift us, as move
us beyond comprehension or assent to sympathy or resolve. But though
the meaning is clear, an equivalent English term is still to seek.
_Elevation_ has unfortunate suggestions of the rhetorical; _height_ is
too vague; _heightening_, though nearer, is not generally used in this
sense. Falling back on such a periphrasis as _heightening of style_, we
become aware that our word _style_, as used generally and untechnically,
is not far from the author’s intention. Though in text-books and works
of criticism it is often extended, in ordinary parlance it means that
very heightening, or lift, which is discussed by the Great Unknown. So we
shall convey his intention as fairly as seems feasible by translating his
title _Style_.
In the following digest Roman numerals indicate the chapters, or sections.
_The heights of style are such passages as please always and
please all._
(i) The heights of authorship are seen in eminence and
excellence of words. Experience in subject-matter (_inventio_)
and cogency of order (_dispositio_) are effects of the whole;
but the orator’s power flashes in his happy moments of style
(_elocutio_). (ii) Nor because we see genius here are we to
think that style is beyond art. (iii, iv) [Contrast] the
turgid, the pretty, the frigid, (v) faults arising from the
search for novelties. (vi) Though judgment of style is the
final fruit of much experience, we must attempt definition of
heightening. (vii) Count those passages wholly beautiful and
true instances of the heights of style which please always and
please all.
_The first source of height in style is intellectual power of
conception._
(viii) Of such heightening (1) the first and strongest
source is intellectual power of conception; (2) the second,
emotion. These are native; the remaining three are acquired:
(3) handling of figures, (4) noble diction, and (5), what
includes the other two, sentence movement (_compositio_).
(ix) The force of the first (i.e., conception), and also
its waning, we feel in Homer, whose _Odyssey_ lapses into
narrative from the dramatic power of the _Iliad_. (x) The
realization of this first source in actual composition means
compression, the bringing together of significances with no
insignificances to interrupt. (xi) Oratorical amplification,
which is complementary to this, of itself never rises to the
heights. (xii) Heightening of style is single and intensive, as
in poetry or in the orations of Demosthenes; amplification is
iterative and extensive, as in Plato or Cicero. (xiii) Plato,
however, shows the way to mastery—imitation, (xiv) a way which
even we may follow.
_The second source is emotion._ (This is not treated here in
its place as a separate section, but is implied throughout what
follows.)
_The third source is handling of figures._
(xv) For weight, grandeur, and energy the right language
is imagery. In oratory the purpose of this typically is
intellectual; in poetry, emotional; but oratory too may use
it for emotional effect. [xvi-xxix. Discussion of figures.]
(xxx-xxxi) Beautiful words are essentially the light of
thought; and homely words have their expressiveness. (xxxii)
Abundance of figurative language may proceed from emotion
and kindle it. Even extended and detailed metaphor may be
stimulating.
_The fourth source, noble diction, means more than constant
excellence._
(xxxiii) Better eminence with some faults than a lower
plane without them: Homer than Apollonius, Archilochus than
Eratosthenes, Pindar than Bacchylides, Sophocles than Ion,
(xxxiv) Demosthenes than Hyperides, (xxxv) Plato than Lysias,
and, in general, force than elegance. (xxxvi) But though the
achievement due to art is typically that of the lower plane,
the success of never failing, the assurance of technical
mastery, still this does not make art the less important.
[xxxvii-xxxviii. Further on figures: metaphor, hyperbole.]
_The fifth source is sentence movement (compositio)._
(xxxxix) The fifth of the elements that combine to give height
is _compositio_. Having already in two other treatises gone
exhaustively into the theory of _compositio_, I will treat
it here only in general. The pervasive emotional effect of
rhythm need only be insisted on; it is too evident to require
proof. (xl) That it is separately distinguishable as a cause
of heightening can be seen in many authors, most strikingly
in Euripides, who is a poet rather of _compositio_ than of
thought. (xli-xlii) Conversely, a wrong rhythm may drag down
or distract, (xliii) as may also a descriptive detail that
interrupts or jars.
_That orators rarely attain the heights of style means that
they live unworthily._
(xliv) Why have we now few authors that reach the heights?
Is the cause political, the decay of democracy? Rather it is
moral; it is our materialism.
Compared with the orderly _a priori_ progress of Dionysius, this
treatment seems at once less systematic; and though the manuscripts
show gaps, some apparently of considerable length, we have enough
of the treatise to conclude that the whole was rather suggestive
than logically divided and consecutive. But through it all runs the
controlling idea that the higher reaches of style are, in cause and in
effect, imaginative. Discussing oratory, the author is all the while
drawing instances from poetry; and this means more than in the treatise
of Dionysius. The scope is larger. Not only does he range far beyond
_compositio_, which occupies only five of his chapters; he is looking in
general less to technic and more to motive. What lifts the orator, and
makes him lift his hearers, is first intellectual power of conception,
then emotional power of sympathy. These are the springs. They work out in
imaginative diction and rhythmical pace; but that few orators lift us by
these means is due fundamentally to a general lack of idealism.
The contribution, then, of this unknown critic consists in illuminating
the bearing of poetic on rhetoric, the importance of imaginative
realization even for purposes of persuasion. The distinction between
rhetoric and poetic he never blurs; in fact he contrasts the two
explicitly; but he brings out, more clearly than any other ancient
author, their interdependence.
First, he precludes any undue separation of thought from emotion by
making conception, in Homer as well as in Demosthenes, intellectual. His
word νόησις reminds one that Aristotle conversely brings rhetoric into
poetic by making thought, διάνοια,[2] one of the elements of tragedy.
Then further he shows throughout that style at its height, in Demosthenes
as well as in Homer, is imaginative realization, that where we feel ὕψος,
_sublimitas_, even in the field of rhetoric, we find the typical language
of poetic. Such passages, he says in his first chapter, do not merely
persuade us; they carry us out of ourselves.
This is clearest in chapters x-xv, which show how power of conception
works out in the typical movement (x) of poetic, then (xi-xiv) in that
of rhetoric, and then (xv) in their common ground of diction. These
chapters, the core of the treatise, confirm by artistic divination the
philosophical analysis of Aristotle, and range beyond diction into
composition. How, he inquires, are we to lift oratory to the heights?
Even as Sappho, he answers, makes us in a single poem feel love; that
is, by selecting those characteristic actions which are most salient and
gathering them into a single body. “Do you not marvel how she seeks to
gather soul and body into one, hearing and tongue, eyes and mien, all
dispersed and strangers before?”[3] Poetry gives us the truth of life
by bringing into organic continuity what is revealing and significant.
What life disperses and interrupts, poetry focuses and brings into
emotional sequence and momentum. Its essential processes are to realize
these saliences imaginatively and to unify them. “It is survey of the
high points, and composition (σύνταξις) for unity.”[4] A simple modern
instance is Browning’s “Meeting at Night.”
This, the treatise goes on (xi-xii), is the typical method of poetic.
The parallel (σύνεδρος) method of rhetoric is the converse; it is
amplification. Poetry suggests in a flash; oratory iterates and enlarges.
The one is intensive; the other, extensive. The one is compressed;
the other, cumulative. Now none of the many and well-known means of
amplification is self-sufficient. They all fall short without what we
have called heightening. True, amplification and height of style may
seem (xii) to amount to the same thing, since the object of both is by
definition to invest the subject with greatness; but they differ in
method.
Height means direct lift (δίαρμα); amplification implies
multitude. Therefore the former is often in a single idea
(νόημα), whereas the latter always implies quantity and
abundance.... So Cicero differs from Demosthenes in grand
passages. The [force of the] one is in sheer height; of the
other, in volume.... The fire of the one is like lightning ...
of the other, like a conflagration.[5]
So much for height as proceeding from the whole conception and movement.
To return now to diction:
Weight, grandeur, and energy are furthermore most readily
achieved by images (φαντασίαι), or, as some call them,
bodyings-forth.... [By these terms are meant] specifically
those cases in which, moved by enthusiasm and passion, you
seem to see the things of which you speak, and to put them
under the eyes of your hearers. As imagery means one thing with
the orators and another with the poets, you must have observed
that with the latter its function is vivid suggestion; with the
former, precision.[6] Nevertheless both uses of imagery appeal
to emotion. [Euripides in a passage quoted from _Orestes_, 255]
saw the Furies himself, and what was imaged in his mind he
almost compelled his hearers to see. [In another passage, from
the lost _Phaëthon_] would you not say that the soul of the
writer mounts the car with the driver, takes the risk with him,
and with the horses has wings?[7]
Imaginative diction, then, is not primarily a trick of words; it is a
visualizing habit of thought. It is sympathetic insight, even to the
extent of feeling with Phaëthon’s horses their wings.
[In poetry imagery may even range beyond what is convincing;]
but in oratory it is always best when it holds to reality and
verisimilitude (ἔμπρακτον καὶ ἐνάληθες).... What, then, can
the image do in oratory? Much else, doubtless, it can add to
speeches in energy and emotion; but infused into arguments
drawn directly from facts it not only persuades the hearer,
but also makes him its slave. [Instances from Demosthenes and
Hyperides] While he is arguing from the facts, the orator has
expressed them in images. He has given his very premise (λῆμμα)
a force beyond persuasion. As by a law of nature, in all such
cases we always hear the stronger. So we are drawn away from
the argumentative [value] to that which is imaginatively
striking, in which the facts [as mere evidence] disappear in
excess of light.[8]
Imaginative realization of facts, the author is saying, which is
essentially poetic, has its use also in rhetoric. That use is normally
intellectual, for precision, for making an idea luminous. But there is a
further use that is emotional. Besides making ideas clear, imagery in
oratory, as well as in poetry, makes facts live. Thus it is not merely
stylistic beauty; it has its function at the very base of oratory, in
the subject-matter, in the very facts. Make the audience visualize these
facts, see them, hear them, live in them by imagination, and you have
done something more effective than marshaling them as evidence and urging
your inferences. By the imaginative illusion of actuality the audience is
not merely convinced; it is captured. In such passages, rather than in
reasoning, oratory reaches its heights.[9]
The following chapters (xvi-xxxviii) on figures, carrying into detail
the fundamental principle of imaginative realization, are handled less
originally and less suggestively than the principle itself. Perhaps we
are the less patient with the details of imagery because we have been
made to see vividly the scope of imagination. Classification of imagery,
which seems inevitably to produce the most tedious chapters in rhetorics,
lacks for us moderns what is most characteristic of this ardent and
original spirit, constructive suggestion. But at least he abstains from
carrying it into minute analysis. Even these his most technical chapters
are illuminated by that genius for appreciation which brought together
one of the most significant of all collections of literary models. His
own style, too, flashes in memorable sentences:
A figure seems best when it is not noticed as a figure (xvii).
What is hurried and roughened by emotion, if you smooth out
to a level by conjunctions, loses its spur and fire (xxi).
Beautiful words are essentially the very light of thought (xxx).
Occasional oratory (ἐπιδεικτικός) being recognized by the ancients as the
most literary of the three fields,[10] one might expect this treatise to
dwell on it especially. But the author’s object is not special; it is
general. This and the contagion of his enthusiasm have made his book,
ever since its recovery in the Renaissance,[11] a powerful influence.
Its promotive quality sets it above the schematic analysis of even so
discerning a critic as Dionysius. Milton must have felt in it his own
creative attitude toward reading. Nor does it need to dwell on the school
of Isocrates when its own most characteristic passages have themselves
the very mood and method of occasional oratory.
What, then, did those immortals see who reached at the greatest
things in writing and scorned unvarying nicety? Besides many
other things, this, that nature meant us men to be no low
species nor ignoble; but leading us, as into a great pageant,
into life and the whole order of things, to be spectators
of all that she shows and contestants eager for honor, she
implanted forthwith in our souls invincible passion for all
that is permanently great and in our eyes more divine.[12]
Where has been more nobly expressed the mainspring of interest in
literature? Great authors satisfy our longing to enter the human scene
fully, to experience vicariously and to share in imagination passions
and deeds greater than those of our every day. They touch the heights of
style who know the heights of life. To bring oratory into this company is
at once to claim for it literary height and to insist on the relation
of rhetoric to morality. The moral implications of rhetoric are stressed
again in the last chapter (xliv) that remains. Aristotle had recognized
them explicitly. St. Augustine, at the end of the ancient world, must
reaffirm them for Christian preaching. But against the sophistic that had
always threatened this ideal no antidote is more effective than the great
unknown’s sense of mission.
Aristotle’s theory of rhetoric determines its function. Cicero dignifies
even its conventional tasks as training for leadership. Quintilian
surveys it as a comprehensive pedagogy. Dionysius analyzes its art. But
the great unknown moves us to share that art ourselves.
FOOT-NOTES:
[1] The edition of W. Rhys Roberts (Cambridge, 1899; second edition,
1907), bearing this traditional title, has, besides text and translation,
an introduction on the authorship, contents, and character, and several
valuable appendices: A. textual; B. linguistic (beginning this scholar’s
collation of Greek rhetorical terms); C. literary (with a table of
contents and a list of quotations located and arranged alphabetically by
authors); D. bibliographical.
Other modern English translations are: by H. L. Havell, with an
introduction by Andrew Lang (London, 1890; reprinted by Lane Cooper in
_Theories of Style_, New York, 1907); by A. O. Prickard, with a brief
introductory essay on the authorship and character, a digest by chapters,
and four appendices: I. Specimen Passages Translated from Greek Writers
of the Roman Empire on Literary Criticism; II. The Treatise on Sublimity
and Latin Critics; III. Passages Translated from Bishop Lowth’s Oxford
Lectures on Hebrew Poetry; IV. Additional Note on Paraphones.
[2] _Poetic_, 1450 a.
[3] x.
[4] xi, at the end. The ἐκεῖνο of this parenthesis in xi refers to x.
[5] xii. A similar comparison is made by Quintilian, X. i. 106.
[6] In English the familiar contrast is between Shakspere’s figures and
Bacon’s.
[7] xv.
[8] xv.
[9] The bearing of delivery on this, of the art of the actor on the
art of the orator, is glanced at in the opening chapter of Aristotle’s
_Rhetoric_, Book III (see above, page 24), a meager passage illumined by
this doctrine of the Great Unknown.
[10] Aristotle, _Rhetoric_, III. xii. 1414 a. See the discussion of this
passage above, page 33.
[11] See the bibliography in the edition of Rhys Roberts.
[12] xxxv. Beside this may be set for contrast the bitter satire of
Lucian’s _Rhetorum præceptor_, which declares the practical equipment for
success in oratory to be effrontery, a loud voice, a store of strange
words, stock allusions, and sheer gab.
CHAPTER VI
THE _POETIC_ OF ARISTOTLE[1]
Veneration of Aristotle has been impatiently classed with “other mediæval
superstitions,” both by those who disliked authority and by those who
revolted against the inlaying and overlaying of his text with centuries
of interpretations. Since the Renaissance the _Poetic_ has, indeed,
fared in this regard somewhat as the Bible; and in both cases those
deviations from the original intention are widest, perhaps, which have
arisen from “private interpretation,” from missionary zeal more anxious
to read _into_ the text than to read _in_ it. What may be called on
the other hand communal interpretation, the consentient application of
Aristotle’s ideas to the typical problems of a whole group or period,
constitutes an important guide in the history of criticism. Both kinds
of interpretation imply in the original an extraordinary fertility. This
vitality, it is also clear, is of principles, of ideas set forth not
only as classifying, but as constructive. The principles have been from
time to time crystallized in rules; and some of the rules, having been
found restrictive or even inhibitory, have thereupon been flung aside.
But again and again a return to Aristotle’s _Poetic_ for orientation
of practise and of criticism has vindicated it as constructive. It is
not what Professor Dewey has lately called a “closed system.”[2] It
has exceptionally little of that mathematically abstract method which
Bergson[3] found unsatisfying for survey of human activities in time.
Rather its method is inductive. It examines how imaginative conceptions
have been so composed and so expressed as to kindle, direct, and sustain
the imagination of an audience; and its formulation is typically like
what modern science calls an hypothesis, that is a generalization
interpreting facts so far as they are known, and fruitful in their
further investigation.
To reinterpret the _Poetic_ in 1924, therefore, should be not merely to
reconsider the drama and the epic of Aristotle’s time, valuable as this
is historically, but according to Aristotle’s intention to consider what
makes drama, our own as well as his, and what vitally moves it to possess
an audience. Each interpretation of so fundamental a work must have its
own preoccupations. The French interpretations of the seventeenth century
had an emphasis different from that of the Italian of the sixteenth;
and we in turn must see with our own eyes. But the correction that
therefore becomes necessary, lest we make Aristotle say what we wish,
lies in the text itself. Fortunately the _Poetic_ is short enough to be
read attentively in two hours; and its terms, though translated somewhat
variously, sometimes imperfectly, now and then perversely, really demand
not so much erudition as patience, attention to the context, and some
acquaintance with the processes of art. The _Poetic_ should be read
consecutively as a whole and then scrutinized in its parts. Interrupted
though it is here and there, in some few places even fragmentary,
it nevertheless progresses as a whole.[4] As to its terms, the best
precaution is to remember that they mean to express the processes of
actual composition and the results of the actual representation of drama
or of the actual recitation of epic. In this sense the book is practical.
It is not, as Bywater implies,[5] the less theoretical; but it deals with
the composing as well as with the thing composed.
That Aristotle’s survey of human expression included a _Poetic_ as well
as a _Rhetoric_ is our chief witness to a division[6] oftener implied in
ancient criticism than stated explicitly. Rhetoric meant to the ancient
world the art of instructing and moving men in their affairs; poetic
the art of sharpening and expanding their vision. To borrow a French
phrase,[7] the one is composition of ideas; the other, composition of
images. In the one field life is discussed; in the other it is presented.
The type of the one is a public address, moving us to assent and action;
the type of the other is a play, showing us in action moving to an end of
character. The one argues and urges; the other represents. Though both
appeal to imagination, the method of rhetoric is logical; the method of
poetic, as well as its detail, is imaginative. To put the contrast with
broad simplicity, a speech moves by paragraphs; a play moves by scenes.
A paragraph is a logical stage in a progress of ideas; a scene is an
emotional stage in a progress controlled by imagination. Both rhetoric
and poetic inculcate the art of progress; but the progress of poetic is
distinct in kind. Its larger shaping is not controlled by considerations
of _inventio_ and _dispositio_,[8] nor its detail by the cadences of
the period.[9] In great part, though not altogether, it has its own
technic. The technic of drama in Aristotle’s day was already mature and
was actively developing. The technic of narrative, in epic derived from
the great example of Homer, in “mime” and dialogue still experimental,
was less definite. To set forth the whole technic, the principles of
imaginative composition, in a single survey is the object of Aristotle’s
_Poetic_.
TABULAR VIEW OF THE _POETIC_ OF ARISTOTLE[10]
_The first section moves from definition of poetic in general to the
mode of drama_ (chapters i-v.)
Chapter
I. The art of poetry
A. is one of the arts that imitate men in action
1. belonging with instrumental music and dancing ii
a. as using rhythm and melody besides words
B. has two typical modes iii
1. narrative
2. drama
a. tragedy
b. comedy
C. developed historically iv
1. from the instincts of imitation and rhythm
2. toward
a. idealizing what men may be
(1) as in epic and tragedy
b. satirizing what men are
(1) as in lampoons and comedy
c. differentiation of form
(1) drama tending toward unity of plot v
(a) through the successive improvements of Æschylus and
Sophocles
(2) but keeping variety in verse.
_The second section discusses plot as the mainspring of tragedy_
(chapters vi-xviii)
II. In the mode of drama, tragedy
A. (definition) is an imitation of an action vi
1. serious
2. determinate
3. in language enhanced by rhythm, melody, and song
4. by action, not by narrative
5. issuing in emotional catharsis
B. is primarily plot
1. the subsidiary elements being character, diction, thought,
spectacle (including make-up), and song
2. (definition) Plot is a course of action planned to move
causally from a beginning through a middle to an end vii
3. Plot is thus animated
a. not merely by one main person viii
b. but by such consistency
(1) as arises from truth, as distinct from facts ix
(2) as is opposed to the episodic
(3) as is necessary to the catharsis
4. Plot may be complicated by reversal or recognition x
a. arising causally from the plot itself xi
b. and has as a third element emotion and suffering
5. Plot is the consistent working out, in an illustrious
personage, of some human error to its issue
a. Prologue, episode, etc., are merely formal parts xii
b. Plot is not mere reversal of fortune in a character
altogether good or bad xiii
(1) for consistency, plot should be single, not divided
by reversal to make a “happy ending”
(a) as in inferior tragedies
(b) and in comedy
c. Plot achieves catharsis by its own consistency xiv
(1) not by spectacular means
(2) for the effect of fear and pity arises from the clash
of motive with circumstance
d. Plot imposes consistency also on characterization xv
(1) generally consistency with
(a) goodness
(b) the moral habit of the class
(c) the received idea of the particular person
(d) itself; i.e., actions must be clearly motivated
(2) particularly consistency with the causal weaving of
the plot
(a) excluding the _deus ex machina_
e. Plot is the true measure of the various kinds of
recognition xvi
(1) The least artistic is recognition by bodily marks
(2) No better is mere disclosure
(3) A third, by recollection, arises from some incident
in the plot
(4) A fourth is through the inference of the personæ
(5) But the best of all is that which arises causally
from the course of the action
6. Plot, in the actual process of playwriting
a. demands a habit of visualizing xvii
(1) furthered by the dramatist’s acting out of his own
scenes
b. begins in the dramatist’s mind with a scenario
(1) for the amplifying incidents must be fewer than in
epic
c. is worked out as complication and solution xviii
(1) This is the technical point in which tragedies are
similar or dissimilar
(2) The four typical kinds of tragedy, i.e., (a) those
that depend mainly on reversal and recognition,
(b) on emotion, (c) on character, (d) on spectacle,
show the four elements of interest which the
dramatist should seek to combine
d. precludes the extensiveness of epic
e. involves making the chorus one of the actors
(1) not a mere singer of interludes
C. The subsidiary element of thought, the rhetorical element
in tragedy, includes the effects produced directly by
persuasive speech, as distinct from those produced by
action xix
D. The subsidiary element of diction, to set aside what
belongs under delivery, includes letters, syllables,
connectives, nouns and verbs (with their inflection),
and word-combinations xx
1. Words may be classified as xxi
a. single or double
b. ordinary or extraordinary (figurative, coined, etc.)
c. masculine or feminine
2. Virtue in the choice of words consists in being clear
without being colorless xxii
a. Though extreme or habitual deviation from ordinary use
is a fault, occasional deviation is necessary to
distinction
b. Though it is a great thing to use variations of diction
with propriety, the greatest thing is to be master
of metaphor.
_The third section defines epic and compares it with tragedy_
(chapters xxiii-xxvi).
III. In the mode of narrative, epic
A. has some general likeness to tragedy xxiii
1. in that its [component] stories should be single,
complete, having beginning, middle, and end
a. giving the pleasure of a living whole
b. not following the method of history
(1) as inferior poets do, but not Homer
2. in that it may be simple or complex, emphasize either
character or emotion, and has some of the same
elements as tragedy xxiv
B. differs in length and in meter
1. Its characteristic advantages are scope and variety
2. The respective meters are the result of experience in
appropriateness
C. shows in Homer the superiority of making the characters
reveal themselves without explanation
D. can make freer use of the marvelous
1. by vividness of description
2. from the fact that the causal sense is weaker in reading
or merely listening than in witnessing stage
representation
E. may be defended against the typical charges that it is
impossible, improbable, corrupting, contradictory, or
artistically incorrect xxv
F. is inferior to tragedy xxvi
1. The charge that tragedy is more vulgar and exaggerated
applies not to tragedy, but to acting
2. It has fewer elements of appeal
a. lacking music and spectacle
3. It is less vivid than tragedy read [much less than
tragedy acted]
4. It is less concentrated [and so less intense]
a. lacking dramatic unity.
I
The principle of poetic art is imitation. Its two kinds are drama in
several forms and that other kind which ranges from epic to dialogue and
which has no single generic name. All its forms in both kinds—tragedy,
comedy, dithyramb in the one; epic, mime, dialogue in the other—are
grouped with the arts of the flute, the lyre, and the dance, and apart
from those of painting and singing. Thus begins Aristotle’s _Poetic_
with that chapter of definition which, as in the _Rhetoric_, opens and
illuminates the whole subject.
As to poetic art[11] I propose to discuss what it is in itself
and in the capacity of each of its species, how plots must be
organized if the poem is to succeed, furthermore the number
and nature of the parts, and similarly whatever else falls
within the same inquiry, beginning systematically with first
principles.[12]
Epic and tragedy, comedy also and the [dramatic[13]] art of
the dithyramb, and most of the art of the flute and of the
lyre are all, taken together, imitations. They differ one from
another in three respects: in the means of imitation, in the
object, or in the mode [i.e., all are essentially imitation;
in imitation they are generally alike, and in imitation they
are specifically different].
For as there are those who by colors and outlines imitate
various objects in their portrayals, whether by art or by
practise, and others who imitate through the voice, so also
in the arts mentioned above. All [these] make their imitation
by rhythm, by language, and by music, whether singly or in
combination. Thus only rhythm and music are used in the art
of the flute, of the lyre, and in such other arts, similar in
capacity, as that of the pipes. Rhythm itself, without music,
[suffices for] the art of the dancers; for by ordered rhythms
they imitate both character and emotion and action [i.e.,
dancing compasses the whole scope of representation]. Words
alone, whether prose or verse of whatever kind, are used by an
art which is to this day without a name. We have no common name
for the mime of Sophron or Xenarchus and the Socratic dialogue.
Nor should we have one if the imitation were in trimeters or
elegiacs or some other kind of verse.... [For it is not verse,
Aristotle goes on to say, that makes poetry, but imitation.]
So much for differentiation. There are some arts that use all
the means mentioned above, i.e., rhythm, music, and verse,
e.g., dithyrambic and nomic poetry and also both tragedy and
comedy; but they differ in that the first two use all the means
in combination, whereas the latter use now one, now another.
Therefore I differentiate these arts by their respective means
of imitation.
To proceed surely from this opening chapter, it is evidently necessary to
grasp what Aristotle means first by imitation, secondly by that nameless
art which uses only words, thirdly by classifying the art of poetry with
that of music and that of the dance.
By imitation Aristotle means just what the word means most simply and
usually, but also and more largely the following of the ways of human
nature, the representation or the suggestion of men’s characters,
emotions, and actions.[14] At its lowest, imitation is mimicry; at
its highest, creation. The latter is often implied in the Greek word
_poetic_.[15] Poetic is one of the fine arts. By whatever means, in
whatever forms, it is a direct showing of life, as distinct from any
account of life through experiment or reasoning. The artist enhances
our impressions of life by the suggestions of music or of story, the
representations of dance or of drama. All these ways are called by
Aristotle imitation because they follow the movements of human life. It
is noteworthy that he presents imitation primarily as a constructive or
progressive principle. The more obvious imitation achieved by a single
phrase, a single melody, or a single dance-movement is reserved for later
discussion of detail.[16] The poet is a maker, as indeed he was called
by our Elizabethans as well as by the Greeks, in the sense that he is
creative. Poet, poetry, poetic, all are used by Aristotle with this broad
implication of creative composition,[17] of “imitating men in action.”
Secondly, Aristotle specifies as kinds of the poetic art tragedy and
comedy, which belong together as drama, and on the other hand epic, mime,
dialogue, which also belong together, but have no common name. We lack,
he says, a generic name for those forms of poetic art which, however
various, are alike in having for their sole means of imitation words. The
generic name that Aristotle desired to cover all prose and all metrical
compositions in which the imitation is through words alone is still to
seek. Yet that the genus is distinct through many varieties of form is
even clearer to-day than in his time. The imitation of dancing and of
all forms of drama is through representation; the imitation of music
without words is through suggestion. Now so is the imitation of words
without music. True, the words in the latter case carry something besides
imitation; they convey ideas; but in so far as they achieve imitation,
they do so by suggestion, and it is this suggestive imitation that makes
them poetic. What is needed, then, is a term to cover all composition in
words that proceeds by suggestion. Perhaps the nearest term in modern
English is _narrative_. Using narrative widely enough to include, as in
common modern use it often does include, dialogue and description, we
have the term that Aristotle desired. _Story_ would serve if it were
not often used of the plot of a play or of an account in a newspaper.
_Narrative_ usually connotes a distinct method. A distinguishing generic
term is more important to-day than in the time of Aristotle. Modern
authors have developed narrative in directions little explored by the
ancients. We have thus a variety of narrative forms which was quite
unknown to Aristotle. Still, through all this variety, runs what he
discerned as a common controlling method, the method of suggestion. In
this fundamental _Gulliver’s Travels_ and the _Sentimental Journey_ and
_The Lady of the Lake_, to take examples as different as possible, belong
together; and together they belong apart from _Othello_.
Thirdly, what is the significance of grouping all these forms of poetic
art with music and dancing? Painting, which even in Aristotle’s day was
a fine art, is mentioned only as an analogy from another group. Singing,
or chanting, also is only mentioned for analogy, perhaps because it is
not creative. Architecture may have been omitted as being primarily at
that time a useful art; but sculpture was both a fine art and, perhaps
most obviously of all arts, imitative. Though we need not assume that
Aristotle intended here a comprehensive classification of the arts, it
is clear that he intended to group poetic art with the arts of music and
dancing. Nor is his principle of division far to seek. Clearly he regards
poetic as one of the arts of movement in time, and as distinct from the
static arts of line and color, balance, mass, and pose. True, music and
dance entered largely into early Greek drama and were still present
in the drama of Aristotle’s time; but that fact does not explain the
grouping together of “epic, tragedy, comedy, dithyramb, flute-playing,
and lyre-playing,” with the later inclusion of dancing. Aristotle does
not say that these occur together; and the mention of epic precludes any
such interpretation. He says that they are alike. He saw all poetic art,
especially drama, as primarily an art of movement. What is implied here
in the opening chapter is carried out consistently, in doctrine and in
terms, through the whole book. No one should deny a certain fundamental
likeness among all the arts; but the likeness is not in technic except
among those arts which have like “means” of expression, such as “rhythm,
language, and music.” Modern application of terms from architecture and
painting to drama and story has spread no little confusion. Aristotle
will have us think along right lines; and, as in his _Rhetoric_, the
first chapter is the most important of all. We are to think of poetic
composition not as structure, but as movement.
[Chapter ii differentiates the epic and the tragic art, which
idealize “men in action” by seeking higher types of manhood
and exhibiting men’s aspirations, from the comic art, which
exaggerates human failings. Chapter iii differentiates the
two typical modes of poetic imitation as the narrative and
the dramatic. Chapters iv and v, starting from the common
impulses toward imitation, toward music, and toward rhythm,
summarize the history of tragedy and of comedy. The conclusion
is that tragedy differs from epic not only in proceeding by
representation instead of narrative, but by being focused on a
short period of time, normally twenty-four hours; in a word, by
being intensive. Thus we arrive at the famous analysis of the
essentials and the elements of tragedy.]
A tragedy,[18] then, is an imitation of an action that is (1)
serious and, (2) as to size, complete, (3) in language enhanced
as may be appropriate to each part, (4) in the form of action,
not of narrative, (5) through pity and fear effecting its
catharsis of such emotions.... Every tragedy,[19] therefore,
must have six constituents, according to which we estimate its
quality: plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle, and
music.
The greatest of these is the plan of the actions (the plot);
for tragedy is an imitation not of men, but of action and
life ... and the end [for which we live] is a certain form of
action, not a quality. By their characters men are what they
are; but by their actions they are happy or the reverse. [In a
play] therefore they do not act in order to imitate character;
they include character for the sake of the actions. Hence the
actions and their plot are the end of tragedy; and the end is
greatest of all. Furthermore, without action there may not
be tragedy; without character there may be.... By stringing
together speeches expressive of character and well made as to
diction and thought you will not achieve the tragic function.
Much rather is it achieved by a tragedy which, however
deficient in these, has plot and plan of actions. Besides,
those things by which tragedy moves us most, scenes of reversal
and of discovery, are parts of the plot. A further proof is
that novices in dramaturgy can put a fine point on diction and
characterization before they compose deeds; and it is the same
with nearly all the early dramatists. The principle and, as it
were, the soul of tragedy is plot.
Second is character.... Third[20] is thought, i.e., the
ability to say what is necessary and appropriate, which in
public address is the function of politics and rhetoric....
Characterization is what shows habit of mind.... Thought
appears in formal reasoning.
Fourth is diction, i.e., the expression of meaning in words,
which is essentially the same in verse as in prose.
Of the remaining elements, melody is the greatest of
enhancements; and spectacle, though moving, is [in general] the
least artistic and [in particular] has the least to do with the
art of the drama.
The history of criticism involved in the successive interpretations of
this much discussed section and the following may be postponed. The
immediate concern is the meaning of the definition and the division for
dramaturgy, i.e., for the actual composition of a tragedy and for the
analysis of tragedy in terms of composition. Aristotle begins with the
subject-matter. The theme itself must be tragic, and is so if it is
first serious and secondly complete within its own extent. A playwright
considering the possibilities of such-and-such material is to ask first
whether it is serious. The Greek word[21] means not solemn in the sense
of sad, but such as to interest the composer and the audience by its
importance. It might be rendered _humanly significant_. The question, Is
there drama here? becomes, then, first of all, Is there action here that
will engage emotional participation? That is the first question; for it
is fundamental.
Secondly, is this action dramatically manageable as to extent? Will
it finish within the time of a drama, come to its issue, focus; or is
its interest such as to demand more extensive development in time; in
a word, is it a drama plot or an epic plot? The epic of “much-enduring
Odysseus” demands extent of time; the tragedy of Œdipus, compression of
time. _Complete_[22] here means concluded, i.e., susceptible, within
dramatic limits, of a conclusion emotionally satisfying. To be dramatic,
the action must be self-consistent and self-determining. Tragedy is
characteristically intensive.[23]
So far our tragedy has no words; it may even do without them.
Nevertheless in its higher ranges it expresses itself also through
suggestive language. In the third place, then, tragedy uses the whole
range of “enhanced utterance,” i.e., rhythm, and occasionally music
and song. In conception a tragedy must be significant and complete; in
expression it may be variously suggestive.
The fourth distinction of tragedy is its characteristic movement, which
is acting, not narrative. The process of drama is representation; the
process of story is suggestion. Drama shows men and women doing; story
tells what they did. That is essentially dramatic, then, which is best
brought home by actual representation. In this regard imaginative
conceptions of human life differ essentially. Some are best conveyed by
the indirect but abundant suggestions of narrative; others have their
poignancy only through the few direct strokes of visible action.
Finally, tragedy is defined by its effect, the tragic catharsis. Tragedy
“through pity and fear achieves its purgation of such emotions.”[24] It
is complete, then, not only in action, but in emotion. Emotion is not
merely aroused; it is satisfied; it is carried through to a release.
Tragedy is thus thoroughly emotional, more emotional than any other form
of art. It is emotional not incidentally, but essentially; for it offers
not merely emotional excitement, but emotional satisfaction. As all
art enhances by imitation our impressions of life, so tragedy reveals
our motives and moves us onward through vicarious experience. We yearn
toward our fellows moved as we are, only more deeply; we fear in some
great crisis what obscurely threatens us all day by day; and we know the
inevitable end not with our minds, but with our awakened hearts.
From definition of tragedy by its essential characteristics Aristotle
proceeds to enumeration of its constituents. Of these the _sine qua non_
is plot. The insistence on this is so ample and so convincing as hardly
to need interpretation. Characterization comes second. Third is the
expression of thought, as distinct from the expression of emotion or of
character. The persons of the play not only reveal their individualities;
they have also occasion to expound or persuade, and here poetic leans
on rhetoric. For drama, though its movement is imaginative, though it
primarily expresses emotion and character, cannot dispense with logic.
Fourth is diction. Here again it is noteworthy that Aristotle puts this
fourth, though tyros, he says, can master it before they can manage plot.
Whether the diction be verse or prose he regards as negligible at this
point. With the same brevity he enumerates finally musical and scenic
accompaniments. What he enlarges upon is plot and characterization, and
upon plot as the essential and determining factor.
These distinctions made, let us thereupon discuss of what sort
the plan of the actions (the plot) must be, since this is both
the first and the greatest [constituent] of tragedy. We have
shown tragedy to be imitation of an action complete and whole
which has a certain magnitude. Though there is such a thing as
a whole without any appreciable magnitude, we mean by a whole
that which has beginning, middle, and end. A beginning is that
which does not itself follow anything by causal necessity, but
after which something else naturally is or comes to be. An
end, on the contrary, is that which itself naturally follows
some other thing, either by causal necessity or as a rule,
but has nothing following it. A middle is that which follows
something as some other thing follows it. Plots that are
well planned, therefore, are such as do not begin or end at
haphazard, but conform to the types just described.[25]
Plot, then, is what makes a play “complete and whole”; it is a planned
sequence of actions. Aristotle’s terms connote, not space and structure,
but time and causal movement. The beginning is the point at which the
cause is set in motion; the end is the result; the middle is the course
from the one to the other. Plot is thus a significant course of action
determined by permanent impulses; it imitates, not the mere surface
movements of life, but its undercurrents. It is not a “slice of life,”
such as the experience of this day or that, but a course of life, moving
from a “serious” crisis of determining emotions, through actions that
carry these emotions out, to the final action in which they are seen
to issue. Plot gives us what we often miss in actual experience, and
consequently seek in the vicarious experience of drama, a sense of
progress to completion. Experience is interrupted and complicated; drama
moves steadily on a single course. Plot is the means by which dramatic
art simplifies life, in order from the facts of life to extract the truth.
Furthermore, plot means technically management of a significant course of
action within a practicable time. The tragedy must be long enough to show
the action as progressive, yet short enough to be grasped as a single
whole. “Beginning, end, middle” are thus very practical considerations.
Every playwright considers every plot in this aspect. Where is he to
take hold in order to make the situation clear? What final action is, for
his conception, the inevitable end? What are the stages between, leading
one to another, in which the action will best be seen as a progressive
course? Without limiting his consideration to the time-rules of the
actual dramatic competitions of his day, Aristotle seeks
the limit determined by the very nature of the act; the
greater, within the limits of clearness, the finer by its
scope. To define roughly, that scope is sufficient within which
the sequence of events according to probability or necessity
may change from ill fortune to good, or from good to ill.[26]
What Aristotle finds necessary is time enough to make the action
convincing, to carry out the dramatic consequences to their conclusion.
Compressed within too short a time-lapse, the plot may remain
fragmentary; stretched out too long, it may sag or trail. “Beginning,
end, middle,” then, constitute a formula for plot.
A plot does not gain unity by being, as some think, all
about one person.... For as in the other imitative arts, the
imitation is unified by being of one thing, so also the plot,
since it is an imitation of an action, must be the imitation
of an action which is one and entire and whose parts are so
composed of acts that the transposition or omission of any part
would disjoin and dislocate the whole [That, indeed is what we
mean by a part]; for a thing whose presence or absence makes no
visible difference is no part of the whole.
From what has now been said it is plain that the function of a
poet is this, to tell not the things that have happened, but
such things as may happen, things possible as being probable
or necessary. The historian and the poet differ not by writing
in verse or in prose. The work of Herodotus might be put into
verse, and none the less it would be history, with verse or
without. No, the difference is in this, that the one tells
the things that have happened; the other, such things as may
happen.[27]
Consistency of plot, consistency of characterization also, as Aristotle
goes on to show, imply that the poet interprets. He is not merely a
recorder. The acts (πράγματα) of his _personæ_ are not statistics;
they are parts of the consistent presentation of a single whole. Every
one of them, quite differently from the acts of real life, is seen to
be significant. In thus including the significant and excluding the
insignificant, the poet interprets according to his conception of the
springs of action. He simplifies life according to his view of causes and
motives, “according to probability or necessity.”
In this the poet differs from the historian more generally. Tragedy is
true to life not by rehearsing what men have done, but by revealing in
significant action what men do, what they must do, being the men that the
dramatist shows them to be. History records a man’s deeds, and reasons
from this evidence; drama directly represents the doer doing what he
should do “according to probability or necessity.” Plot, then, implies
actions shaped to a unifying consistency. It imitates life: but it
imitates by creative interpretation.
Therefore poetry is something more philosophical and more
serious than history; for poetry speaks rather in universals,
history in singulars. By universal I mean what such or such a
man will say or do according to probability or necessity....
It is evident from these considerations that the _poet_ must
be rather a _poet_ of plots than of verses. He is a _poet_ by
virtue of imitation; and what he imitates are actions. Even
if he chance to _make_[28] history, none the less for that is
he a _poet_; for nothing hinders some historical events from
being just what they should be according to probability or
possibility, and it is [only] in that aspect of them that he is
their _poet_.[29]
That dramatic composition is thus primarily the devising of a convincing
sequence is seen conversely when the sequence is defective.
Of all plots and actions the episodic are the worst. By an
episodic plot I mean one in which the sequence of the episodes
is not determined by probability or necessity. Actions of this
sort are composed by bad poets through their own fault, and
by good ones on account of the players; for as they compose
for competitive presentation, and stretch a plot beyond its
capacity, they are often compelled to twist the sequence.[30]
The essential dramatic force, then, is sequence, steady onward movement
to a convincing issue. Scenes merely episodic, however vivid or clever
each may be in itself, weaken this essential force. The episodic fault,
whether it arise from weakness in the composer or from an actor’s
insistence on having a “part” to suit himself rather than to suit the
play, makes the worst plays because it is a fault at the source.
Finally on cogency of plot depend the tragic pity and fear. The catharsis
depends on our feeling the issue to be inevitable. Unexpected to the
actors it may be, and most strikingly; but it cannot be fortuitous. While
it is surprising to them, it must be satisfying to us as the outcome of
their action.
Considering the imitation as not only of a complete action,
but also of events arousing fear and pity, we find these too
at their height when they are [at once] unexpected [by the
_dramatis personæ_] and consequential. For so we shall be more
struck than by what happens of itself or by chance.[31]
[“Reversal[32]” or “recognition,”[33] Aristotle goes on in
chapters x and xi, if the plot is so far complicated, must
arise from the plot itself, not be merely added.]
Two parts of the plot, then, reversal and discovery, are such
as has been shown; a third is [actual] suffering ... action
destructive or painful, such as deaths on the stage, tortures,
wounds, and the like.[34]
This latter passage is tantalizingly brief. So far as the context shows,
_suffering_ is used here to denote single scenes of unusually violent
action. Why should such a scene be called a “part of the plot”? The
word πάθος is used generally—and in the plural it is used repeatedly
throughout the earlier chapters of this work—to mean emotion. Emotion is
not a part of the plot in the sense that reversal or recognition may be
a part. Rather it is a pervasive principle and an object. _Suffering_,
to translate the singular noun so, may be regarded as a part of the plot
in the sense that it may be an element of tragedy. So taking it, we may
suppose Aristotle to countenance here such scenes of violence as were
more familiar on the Elizabethan stage than on the Greek.[35] At any
rate, Aristotle here inserts a chapter[36] on the formal parts (prologue,
episode, exodus, etc.), before proceeding with the methods by which the
plot may be worked out.
Chapter xiii insists that the vital principle of plot is causal
consistency. This rules out mere reversal. A turning-point (περιπέτεια)
is, indeed, characteristic of drama. There is usually and typically a
crisis, in which the hero’s fortunes turn from good to bad; but this
reversal will not suffice by itself. The mere turn of fortune does not
achieve the catharsis of pity and fear.
There remains, then, the [hero] between [the typically virtuous
man and the typically depraved], a man neither exceptional in
virtue and righteousness nor falling into adversity by vice
and depravity, but by some error, a man among those who live
in renown and prosperity, such as Œdipus or Thyestes or other
illustrious men of such families.
The perfect [tragic] plot, therefore, must be single, not,
as some say, double;[37] the change of fortune not from
adversity to prosperity, but on the contrary from prosperity to
adversity; not through depravity, but through great error on
the part of a man either such as we have described or rather
better than worse.[38]
Why this insistence on character in the midst of the discussion of
plot? Why the iteration of “not through depravity, but through error”?
Because, as Aristotle shows below,[39] plot implies consistency of
characterization, but more fundamentally because consistency of plot has
for its very beginning and mainspring the realization of a central figure
like ourselves progressively winning our sympathy. The essence of plot is
motivation. What moves us is never mere luck, never mere surprise, but
the causation that springs from human will. Consistency of plot means
clear causation; and causation in drama is the working of will. So the
first consideration is the title rôle, the main “part.” He or she should
be illustrious because the action is thereby conspicuous and partly known
in advance; but his course of action must be moved by springs that we
feel in ourselves. Macbeth is a warrior of an elder day and a king; but
we, though neither warriors nor kings, feel the perversion of his manhood
as like enough to our own to purify us through pity and fear.
Fear and pity may, indeed, be aroused by mere spectacle, but
they may also be aroused from the very plan of the actions,[40]
and the latter is superior and shows a better dramatist.
This is the second consideration of consistency. First, the best tragedy
springs from a great personal will gone wrong; secondly, it springs from
a compelling progress of actions, from the plot itself. It depends not on
the shock of this violent deed or that, but on the causal movement of the
whole.
Character is discussed in chapter xv as a distinct topic, but still
with reference to plot. For throughout this section, especially from
chapter xiii on, the topic is consistency.[41] Consistency, though it
refers primarily to plot, must also include characterization. In general,
characterization must be consistent with the morality of the individual
purpose, with the moral habit of the social group, with the received idea
of the person, and finally with itself.[42] In particular,
it is necessary in the characters, as in the plan of the
actions, to seek always the inevitable or the probable, so that
the saying or doing of such-and-such things by such-and-such a
person, just as the happening of this event after that, shall
be inevitable or probable. Evidently, therefore, the solutions
also [as well as the complications] of plots must come about
from the plot itself, and not, as in the Medea ... by the _deus
ex machina_.[43]
In a word, consistency of characterization is part of the causal weaving
of the plot.
Chapter xvi applies the principle of consistency to “recognitions,” or
“discoveries.”[44]
Best discovery of all, however, is that which arises from
the actions themselves, when the surprise comes as a
natural result, as in the _Œdipus_ of Sophocles and in the
_Iphigenia_.[45]
Chapters xvii and xviii turn to the actual processes of dramaturgy, to
the work of the playwright. This is concerned mainly with plot; but first
Aristotle urges the fundamental necessity of visualizing.
One must compose plots and work them out in the “lines” by
putting [the scenes] before his eyes ... and as far as possible
by acting out, even with the gestures.[46]...
His stories, whether already made or of his own making, he must
first set out in general (i.e., make a scenario), then put in
the incidents and carry out.[47]...
Every tragedy has both complication and solution, the events
that precede [the opening scene] and often some of those
within the play constituting the complication, and the rest
the solution. By complication I mean all from the beginning
to that scene which is just before the change in the hero’s
fortunes; by solution, all from the beginning of the change to
the end [of the play].[48]...
It is necessary to remember what I have said often and not make
a tragedy an epic system—by epic I mean aggregative—as if one
should dramatize the whole story of the Iliad.[49]...
The chorus too should be regarded as one of the actors, be
a part of the whole and share in the action, be not as in
Euripides, but as in Sophocles.[50]
Visualizing actively at every stage, the playwright is to compose his
plot before he works out his lines. He is to determine his play by the
method of solution, to avoid the extensiveness of epic, and to make even
the chorus contributory to the plot.
The bearing of the meager observations on the logical element and
on diction (xix-xxii) will be clear from the tabular view.[51] They
are not distinctive except in the saying “the greatest is the being
metaphorical”;[52] and they have surprisingly little on dramatic rhythms.
The third section of the _Poetic_ (xxiii-xxvi) defines epic and compares
it with tragedy.
As to metrical narrative, its plots [severally] should have the
movement of drama in focusing on an action whole and complete
with beginning, middle, and end, that [each] may give its
proper pleasure as an organic unity, and not be composed as
history, which has to exhibit not a single action, but a single
time, whatever chanced to happen in this period to one person
or to more.[53]
The general likeness of epic to drama, then, is in interpretative focus,
as distinct from the chronicle method of history. Story, as well as
drama, selects in order to unify. Moreover (xxiv) story, too, as well
as drama, has its crises, its recognitions, its emotional outbursts. The
epic poet, if he have something of Homer’s skill, can make his characters
express themselves without intruding his explanations. These are general
likenesses throughout the whole poetic field. For characteristic
differences, epic has the advantages of scope and variety. It gains from
the marvelous, which can generally be suggested better than it can be
represented.[54] These points are as significant to-day as in the time
of Aristotle. Not so the defense (xxv) of epic against certain typical
objections which smack more of the schoolmaster than of the critic. To
argue whether a given epic story were possible or probable or promotive
of good morals was in fact one of the regular elementary exercises of the
later schools. The closing exaltation of drama over epic[55] is summary,
indeed; but that is natural, since the points, having been made before,
are here simply reviewed comparatively. The idea of intensity through
unity is a logical conclusion of the _Poetic_ as a whole.
II
From Aristotle’s introductory grouping of drama with music and dance,
throughout his long discussion of plot, runs the idea of movement. The
dramatic mode of imitation is to set human life in motion before us and
to heighten our sense of living by carrying it through to a significant
issue. Has this idea animated other drama than the Greek? Is its vitality
shown by its permanence? Is it essential? As all art heightens our
impressions of life and our sense of living, so the art of the dramatist
in particular heightens and extends our sense of human life by vicarious
experience. Its object is to make us feel human experience more widely
and more intensely. All the technic of the stage, whether ancient or
modern, whether simple or elaborate, has for its main object this sort
of creative imitation. The dramatist tries to induce and to hold the
illusion of actual experience. In so far as he succeeds, we forget that
we are in the theater; we imagine that we are seeing a reality more real
than we can piece out of our fragmentary glimpses at men and women; and
in his greatest successes we almost pass from spectators to actors.
Toward this result how important is Aristotle’s idea of movement, his
doctrine that plot is a progressive synthesis of actions, unified but
never static?
Those who have superficially thought of Greek drama as static, who may
even have pictured it as statuesque, can hardly have studied the great
play of Sophocles that Aristotle offers as an example, _Œdipus the King_.
Laius, King of Thebes, and his wife Jocasta cast out their
infant son Œdipus to die. But the shepherd commissioned to do
away the child gave it instead to a stranger, who carried it
to Corinth. There the little Œdipus, fostered by a Corinthian
couple, was brought up as their son. In the strength of his
manhood setting forth to make his own way, he met in a narrow
pass another traveler who haughtily bade him yield passage.
The dispute warmed to blows. Œdipus killed him. It was his
own father Laius. Proceeding to Thebes, Œdipus found the
throne vacant and the city in terror of the monster Sphinx.
He silenced the Sphinx, and, hailed by the people as their
deliverer, he became their king and married the widowed queen
Jocasta, his own mother. But Apollo having in time sent a
pestilence upon Thebes, Œdipus was besought by the people to
be once more their savior. His emissary to the oracle, Creon
his brother-in-law, brought back word that Thebes must put
away the unclean person who had slain Laius. By searching
investigation Œdipus discovered that he himself was the
pollution, that he had slain his own father and married his own
mother, that not only he but his children were accursed, that
the outlawry which he had invoked upon the guilty fell upon his
own head. Thereupon he put out his eyes in an agony of horror,
after Jocasta had killed herself, and groped his way from
Thebes led by his wretched daughters.
This is the legend. Its events extend over many years. Which of them
shall be chosen for the stage as having most dramatic value? Which to
an audience can be made most significant; and how shall these vital
scenes be arranged in such continuous and progressive movement as will
convey, and at the same time enhance, our sense of the movement of life?
Sophocles with his own dramatic skill, but in the form typical of all
the best Greek tragedy, arranged his whole action within the compass of
its last poignant hours. Omitting nothing that is emotionally essential,
nothing that is essential to clear understanding, he yet relegated some
events to the background in order to represent fully the great crisis. He
gathers together the whole visible action into an hour and a half on the
stage and a half-dozen persons; and in this brief compass he unfolds that
action with increasing intensity by making every scene move from the last
and to the next, on to the awful close.
The Theban people, represented by the chorus supplicating their savior
king, rehearses his great achievements for their deliverance. Œdipus in
the strong confidence of his power and his mission stands before his
palace like a god. At the end of the play he is led slowly from that
palace a broken man. But the composition of the play is not mere reversal
for contrast. Between the first scene and the last, action moves without
haste, but without delay or interruption. The vigorous and self-reliant
king chafes at the cryptic response brought from the oracle by Creon; he
is indignant, then furious, at the tragic silence of the seer Tiresias.
His quick intelligence scents a plot between the two. Breaking through
the interposition of Jocasta, he wins from her false hopes while he gives
her no less unwittingly the premonition of doom. Once suspecting, however
darkly, he must know, he will know, he knows a dreadful part, he knows
more, he knows all. So this great play, though it is focused on a single
day, though it excludes all the past history and the development of
character, is never static. It is never for a moment tableau. Because of
its compression it moves not less, but more.
For that is why Aristotle insists that the dramatic action should be
self-consistent, limited in scope. The object of dramatic unity is not
bareness, but fulness and continuity. It is to give time for full and
intense realization of what actual life merely hints interruptedly.
It is to give us human life undisturbed and uninterrupted, so that we
may see it clearly and whole. We are to have the illusion of actual
experience, yes, but of larger and deeper experience than we can get
from the mere reproduction of facts or from the cross-currents of life
itself. Like every other art, drama is a simplification of life because
it is an interpretation. The dramatic simplification is seen by Aristotle
to consist essentially in moving from revealing crisis to revealing
crisis up to a final revelation. It excludes all the accidental and
the irrelevant that embarrass our actual movements; it tells what has
happened through what is happening; it cuts to the quick. It takes those
moments only in which a man is himself, suppressing those in which he is
indistinguishable from other men. But it does not leap or halt between;
it brings out our real sequences. It reveals life to us by showing the
emotional connection of its great moments.
That such dramatic unity became sometimes a bondage in
seventeenth-century French classical drama was due not to any defect
of the Aristotelian principle, but partly to making the practise too
rigidly a code, and still more to stiffening the movement into tableau.
The classical French application of the principle of dramatic unity
is not, as has often been pointed out, altogether Aristotelian. Least
of all is it Aristotelian when it hinders dramatic movement. French
classical tragedy when it is cold—and to think of it as generally cold
is a prejudice—is static; it is feeble in movement. The free movement,
not to say the loose movement, of Elizabethan plays, which was hailed
by Hugo and other Romanticists as a deliverance from the classical
code, is indeed better than tableau; but it is compatible with bad
playwriting. He would be rash who should assert that Elizabethan plays
are in general more effective dramatically than French classical plays.
Rather, since the two traditions bring out different dramatic values,
each has something to learn from the other. But it is plain that the
progress of the Elizabethans in dramaturgy was in the direction of unity,
of more highly organized movement. To see this we need go no farther than
Shakspere. The difference between his earlier plays and _Othello_ is
largely a difference in unification. _Othello_ by itself is sufficient
proof of the value of dramatic unity for dramatic intensity. And with
or without unity, with the Greek and the French focus of time or the
Elizabethan lapse of years, drama demands movement from scene to scene.
The value of unity is only to heighten this sense of movement.
Drama, of course, has its differences of age and of race. We are not
to think that at its best it must always be Greek. One of the large
differences between ancient drama and modern is, indeed, a difference
of emphasis. Ancient drama relies more on plot, modern drama on
characterization. The ancient playwright had above all, for his theater,
to realize the emotional values of a situation by seeing that his play
was well put together; the modern playwright has sometimes, in a theatre
giving opportunity for facial expression, relied far more on realizing
his persons, on writing what the actor calls a good part. Nevertheless,
though playwriting does not always need the compactness of Greek form,
many modern plays have chosen this compactness, this closely organized
movement, for intensity.[56]
Undoubtedly such dramatic composition demands of the playwright
definiteness of interpretation. His selection, his limiting of time and
place, his leading from scene to scene, are only the technical means
of realizing his emotional intention. He is trying to show us human
life, not in random and interrupted glimpses, not in the jumble and
discord of its surface, not in aimless and frustrated movements, but
in the animating emotions of its crises. In order to represent crises,
he is compelled to show us wherein they are critical; in order to give
to emotion full expression, he must make it significant. Rather it is
this significance which first caught his attention, which gave him the
conception of his play and guided his realization. If his dramatic
movement halts or lapses, the reason may lie deeper than technic in
uncertainty of intention; and if on the other hand he is able to sustain
it and carry it through, the fundamental reason is that his conception of
its issue is strong and clear.[57]
This presumption has more than once been challenged. Why must the
dramatist have an intention, a theme? Why may he not simply represent
life? Represent life he not only may, but must, to the extent that
he must reflect life, not reflect _on_ it; but what is represented?
Life in its multitudinous complexity, its unfulfilled intentions, life
as it whirls past and escapes us? That is a task beyond drama. No
playwright has ever represented life except as he saw it, or made his
representation intelligible without interpretation. And as the dramatist
has to interpret in order to compose, so the audience wishes to be led
up to some issue. We desire not mere emotional excitement, but emotional
release. Else the pity and fear, to use Aristotle’s words, will not bring
us purgation. A play shows us life in critical moments, and these are
moral moments, moments of the clash of wills. Drama assumes free will,
and its movement is by motives. Motivation, on which Aristotle so much
insist, is to make the issue convincing. The dramatic representation of
life is creative imitation largely in proportion as it thus moves to an
end; and the typically dramatic end is not blind fate, but poetic justice.
Poetic justice sums up what Aristotle means by saying that “poetry is
something more philosophical and more serious than history.” It means
the truth revealed beneath facts, the real cause and effect moving
beneath the surface. An audience, desiring deeper emotional experience
than it achieves through daily observation, desires especially to see how
its sharper conflicts issue. It asks of the dramatist not only sight, but
insight. It is not satisfied with “mere reversal.” “The mere spectacle
of a virtuous man brought from prosperity to adversity moves neither
pity nor fear; it merely shocks us.” The same criticism is implied in
Stevenson’s objection to Meredith’s _Richard Feverel_, that it “began to
end well” and then cheated us.
The convincing close, expressing the playwright’s intention and resulting
from the whole course of action, is thus a fair measure of what used to
be called problem plays. It measures how far they are in Aristotle’s
sense serious, how far they are penetrative and significant, in a word
how far they are tragic. Each disclosure, each critical scene of the
dramatic progress, having its full emotional value separately and for
itself, leads on to the next. Such planning for momentum is not only
Aristotelian; it is permanently dramatic.
Creative imitation of human life, thus moving us along that course of
actions which is both the means and the measure of creative power,
makes drama of all the arts most poignant. Whether it is, as it has
always seemed to its devotees, the highest form of poetic, at least its
appeal is at once the largest and the most direct. In the very persons
of men and women it speaks to us by face and gesture, by the message,
the imagery, and the rhythm of words, most of all by the order of its
actions. Plato, indeed, would have us draw from this the moral that our
own lives should be ordered poetically, that is creatively, that we
should control and direct our lives to harmonious movement.
For we are ourselves according to our power poets of a tragedy
at once fairest and best. Every social order[58] becomes for us
an artistic creation[59] of the fairest and best life, which we
say to be essentially the truest tragedy.[60]
FOOT-NOTES:
[1] The best recent editions of the _Poetic_ for English readers are:
(1) S. H. Butcher, _Aristotle’s Theory of Poetry and Fine Art_, text,
translation, notes, essays, London, 1895, 4th edition, 1911 (text with
translation issued separately); (2) Ingram Bywater, _Aristotle on the
Art of Poetry_, text, translation, introduction, commentary, Oxford,
1909. For other translations and for a select bibliography see Butcher.
Lane Cooper has added to his “amplified version with supplementary
illustrations for students of English,” Boston, 1913, an essay (1923) on
_Meaning and Influence_.
[2] _Reconstruction in Philosophy_, New York, 1920, chapter iii.
[3] _L’évolution créatrice_, chapter i.
[4] I say this without forgetting that the _Poetic_ as we have it is
probably but a part. If a part, it is still self-consistent, as I have
tried to show in the tabular view below.
[5] viii, 206, 232.
[6] See Chapter i.
[7] See page 4.
[8] See page 42.
[9] See page 27.
[10] This analysis is intended to supplement, and in some cases to emend,
the outlines of Butcher and of Bywater by bringing out the significance
of the parts in relation.
[11] ποιητικῆς. The adjective means generally active, productive,
creative, _efficiens_, as commonly in Aristotle’s philosophy, in
Dionysius and Demetrius, and in Plotinus. Specially it means poetic, as
of diction. The noun ἡ ποιητικὴ (with τέχνη understood) includes all
imaginative composition in words.
[12] Bywater (page vii), protesting against too generalizing
interpretations, goes to the other extreme of undue restriction. That
the treatment is philosophical and intends to suggest large inferences
appears from both its plan and its language. Certainly the _Poetic_ is
technical; but no less certainly it is theoretical.
[13] The interpretation of Bywater.
[14] ἤθη καὶ πάθη καὶ πράξεις, 1447 a, where Aristotle is speaking of
dancing.
[15] See foot-note 11 above.
[16] In Chapter ix, 1451 b, Aristotle says: “It is evident from the above
that the poet should be rather the poet of his plots than of his verses,
inasmuch as he is a poet by virtue of his imitation, and it is actions
that he imitates.”
[17] Butcher (pages 110-124) in pointing out that the Greek phrase for
the fine arts is _imitative arts_ (μιμητικαὶ τέχναι or μιμήσεις), says
that Aristotle applies it specifically only to poetry and music. In this
opening chapter of the _Poetic_ he evidently means to include dancing.
That Aristotle had no thought of “bare imitation,” of that reproductive
copying which Ruskin confused with artistic truth, has been remarked
also by other critics. Butcher adds suggestively, though not with strict
reference to the text, that to imitate nature was for Aristotle not to
evoke the mere background which romanticism has taught us to spell with
a capital N, but to work in nature’s ways. Nature (φύσις) in Aristotle
is not the sensible world, but “the creative force, the productive
principle.” So the immediate objects of poetic imitation are human
characters, emotions, and actions, not as objective phenomena, but as
expressions of human will. “The common original,” Butcher concludes, “is
human life ... essential activity of the soul.” Though this is true to
the underlying idea of the _Poetic_, Aristotle does not use any single
phrase corresponding to “imitation of nature.”
[18] 1449 b.
[19] 1450 a.
[20] 1450 b.
[21] Σπουδαῖος, which of persons means _earnest_; of things, what we
mean by _serious_ in such phrases as a _serious proposal_ and _serious
consideration_.
[22] Bywater makes one item, “as having magnitude, complete in itself.”
Butcher makes two items, “complete, _and_ of a certain magnitude.” The
former seems closer to the Greek text and, on the whole, more consistent
with the context; but both renderings give much the same meaning
ultimately.
[23] The distinction has lately been pointed by Mr. Hardy’s _Dynasts_.
This, whatever else may be thought of it, is not “complete as to size,”
but indeterminate. Doubtless that is why it is styled an “epic-drama.”
Certainly, for all its “enhanced utterance” and occasionally striking
dialogue, it is not, by any definition, a drama.
[24] Bywater, pages 152-161, has discussed this phrase amply, and in an
appendix, 361-365, has compiled with their dates the successive critical
translations.
[25] vii. 1450 b.
[26] 1451 a.
[27] viii-ix, 1451 a-1451 b.
[28] The verb here translated _make_ corresponds to the noun _poet_.
The insistence brought about by the repetition will be made clear by
rendering the words italicized _creator_ and _create_, or, to revive an
older use, _maker_ and _make_.
[29] ix. 1451 b.
[30] ix. 1451 b.
[31] ix. 1452 a.
[32] περιπέτεια.
[33] ἀναγνώρισις.
[34] xi. 1452 b.
[35] Both Butcher and Bywater so interpret; but Butcher’s rendering
“tragic incident” seems hardly to meet the context. Bywater’s rendering
“suffering” seems preferable if we may venture to interpret it as
meaning, more generally than Bywater suggests, the working out of the
plot to its full emotional expression. So taken, it corresponds to the
climax of pity and fear, as “reversal” and “recognition” correspond to
the preceding complication.
[36] xii. 1452 b. This has been challenged as an interpolation. It is at
least meager and, as it were, impatient, as is the corresponding section
in the _Rhetoric_ (III. xiii. 1414 b) on the formal parts of an oration.
[37] διπλοῦν. The context seems to show that this means _divided_ in
interest and issue, insufficiently focused. Aristotle does not mean that
the plot should not be complicated; for at the opening of this chapter he
says that the plot of the perfect tragedy is not simple, but complicated
(μὴ ἁπλῆν ἀλλὰ πεπλεγμένην). What he adds here is that the complication
should not be such as to divide our sympathy. The plot should not,
indeed, be simple; but it should be single.
[38] xiii. 1453 a.
[39] xv.
[40] xiv. 1453 b. ἐξ αὐτῆς τῆς συστάσεως τῶν πραγμάτων.
[41] See the tabular view, page 136.
[42] I follow Bywater’s note, pages 227-228.
[43] 1454 b.
[44] ἀναγνώρισις. 1454 b. “This and the next two chapters form a sort
of Appendix; they discuss a series of special points and rules of
construction which had been omitted in the sketch of the general theory
of the μῦθος.” Bywater, page 233. I am not convinced of an interruption
here. What seems to me the bearing of this chapter and the following on
the discussion of consistency from Chapter xiii on is indicated in the
tabular view on page 136.
[45] 1455 a.
[46] xvii. 1455 a.
[47] xvii. 1455 b.
[48] xviii. 1455 b.
[49] xviii. 1456 a.
[50] xviii. 1456 a.
[51] Page 138. As to whether xx is an interpolation, see Bywater.
[52] xxii. 1459 a.
[53] xxiii. 1459 a.
[54] A most striking exemplification of this is _Paradise Lost_.
[55] Sainte-Beuve, _Étude sur Virgile_, vii. page 151, disputes the
superiority of drama to epic.
[56] The most familiar instances are certain plays of Ibsen. Of plays
recently on the stage, Bernstein’s _Voleur_, Mirbeau’s _Les affaires
sont les affaires_, Besier’s _Don_, Kenyon’s _Kindling_, show that this
type of dramatic movement is not confined to any particular school.
Of plays that on the contrary dispense with this and rely mainly on
characterization the most familiar to Americans is the dramatization of
_Rip Van Winkle_ used by Joseph Jefferson.
[57] The paragraph is adapted from the author’s _College Composition_,
page 248.
[58] πολιτεία.
[59] μίμησις.
[60] _Laws_ 817 b; quoted by Bywater on Aristotle’s _Poetic_, 1450 a.
CHAPTER VII
POETIC IN ANCIENT DRAMA AND NARRATIVE
The classical practise of poetic in the two modes distinguished by
Aristotle, dramatic and narrative, has a twofold significance. It has
the claim of all great art for its own beauty; and it reveals certain
fundamentals of literary form and literary influence. Classical
influences on later art have been defined sometimes vaguely, sometimes
amiss, for lack of clear grasp of classical practise. Yet the vitality
of classical poetic art is hardly more proverbial than its definiteness.
Without circumscribing in formulas its creative variety, we can discern
quite clearly its artistic habits in these two enduring modes.
Into such a survey recent questions as to literary forms need not enter.
How far a literary form may be modified or extended without losing
its character, how suggestive a recognized form is to the composing
imagination, are questions important rather for those modern times in
which the artist is much concerned with individual self-expression than
for the centuries in which he was more the spokesman of a community.
Even if Brunetière’s transference of the word _genre_ from biology to
literature be only analogy, even if Croce’s denial that a literary form
is directive of the artist be justified, we must still use the terms
drama and epic. From Aristotle down, criticism has used them not only for
convenience, but because in fact there were two typical ways of extensive
imaginative composition in words, varying in detail but constant
essentially, and always sharply distinct. Whether these should rather be
called types or modes than forms is a question for later consideration.
For the purposes of the present review the terms drama and epic connote
only habits of composition universally recognized.
The two discussed by Aristotle as types are in fact seen as types to
persist. The habits of drama have remained typically distinct from those
of narrative, and have changed far less. To add Senecan tragedy to its
Greek prototype, and to mark the distinctive traits of Latin comedy,
will both fill out Aristotle’s summary and show in what forms classical
influences came first to modern drama. Narrative in the ancient world
developed along few lines. Its poetic art long remained epic. This art
was at once followed by Vergil and recreated. The _Æneid_ is the great
exemplar of all that is fruitful in literary influence. The Hellenistic
art that Vergil rejected was cultivated by Apuleius and ran to seed
in the Greek prose romances. Meantime it was practised with facile
brilliancy by the Latin poet whom the middle ages knew better even than
they knew Vergil—Ovid. Setting aside, then, all minor forms, and in
the two major forms all but what is typical, we may venture to survey
ancient poetic, first in Greek tragedy, with Senecan tragedy for contrast
and Latin comedy for supplement, then in Vergilian epic, with Ovidian
narrative for contrast and Apuleius for divergence.
I. DRAMA
A. GREEK TRAGEDY[1]
At first glance Greek tragedy strikes the modern student as finished.
Its historical period is definite. It grew; it matured; it died. Its
strictly dramatic influence appears to be sharply limited. Inoperative
as a mode of representation, indeed almost unknown, in the middle ages
and the early Renaissance, it seems at first to have been revived in
modern times only for archæological reproduction, as the models of
Greek architecture in museums. Even if such a view were just—and it is
not—Greek tragedy would compel attention by sheer artistic eminence.
It can no more be ignored than Gothic architecture. It is one of the
great artistic achievements of the human spirit. But no such artistic
achievement is ever finished in the sense of being relegated to a museum.
Its eminence constitutes a presumption of vitality. Gothic architecture,
though held in abeyance and even forgotten for centuries, is again
operative. It compels attention to-day not only in reproductions, but in
creation. Greek tragedy has profoundly influenced modern playwriting.
Its increasing reappearance to-day in revivals, and the distinction of
certain imitations such as _Samson Agonistes_, are less important than
its influence on modern dramaturgy, as in Racine and again in Ibsen and
finally in certain striking plays of our own time. This vitality implies
that the Greek experience, in especially happy conditions of stage and
audience, through a period of extraordinary artistic competition, was
fruitful not merely in skilful adaptation to those conditions, but in
dramatic principles.
(1). _Theater and Audience_
The emotions that are enhanced by representation before a crowd are
typically such as are best felt by the crowd together, such as are
communal.[2] Greek drama began, according to tradition, in the rites
celebrated by the whole village to honor Dionysus, the god of fertility
and enthusiasm. In the shouting, singing chorus there were at first no
actors in the modern sense; but that was because in a broader sense all
were actors. There was rude, impromptu mimic action. There was probably a
good deal of improvised verse by individuals, and probably a good deal of
recurring refrain by the whole crowd. Out of this communal impersonation
of the story of Dionysus grew very naturally individual impersonations
of the god and of his more prominent mythical attendants, the crowd
responding with impromptu variations of the familiar refrain. Every crowd
produces a leader. The leader of the Greek chorus became an actor in the
modern sense of taking, a fixed part. In time other fixed parts were
assigned to individuals, till the mimic action had a definite dialogue;
but the chorus persisted as representative of the whole community.
Then, as always, came the individual genius to discern the capacity of
what had grown up among the people, to reveal and enlarge that capacity,
and to fix a great form of art. The shaping of drama by Æschylus and its
development by Sophocles and by Euripides expressed, indeed, individual
genius; but no less they expressed the ideals of the Greek race and
remained answerable to the original popular impulse. The Greek audience
during the great period of drama felt not only that the chorus chanting
in the orchestra was its representative, but that it was itself as a
body assisting at a communal celebration. Always the enacting of legend
or history known to every spectator by heart, the drama was always
judged sternly not only by its poetic beauty, but by its faithfulness to
communal beliefs and feelings. Its success was measured by the feeling of
the community.
So the great open-air Greek theater was made for the community. It
superseded the unfurnished hillside as the community passed more and
more from participants to spectators; but it remained, to a degree
rarely realized in modern times, communal. For Greek tragedy, even at
its height, never lost its reminiscences of ritual. Every representation
being an act of religion, the theater crowd, united by a common rite, was
the more sensitive to common sympathies. That the theater is for the
crowd, not for the individual, has been realized by playwrights of every
age; but the first great age of drama opened this peculiar opportunity of
dramaturgy widest because its crowd was unified. The communal sense of
tradition was focused by religion.
(2). _Diction_
Remembrance of this fact has led many modern readers who have never seen
a Greek play to conceive Greek tragedy as formal and rigid. This is much
the same error as supposes Greek architecture and statuary to have been
white. It is an illusion of time. Greek buildings and statues became
white when no hands were left to restore their colors. Greek tragedies
became formal and rigid when they passed from the stage to the closet,
when they lost the rhythms of dance and of phrase. With every revival of
them upon the modern stage the illusion is dispelled. Indeed, it can be
broken by merely reading them aloud.
Nevertheless, though they show to an exceptional degree that larger
movement which Aristotle found to be a dramatic essential, they were
stately in gesture and in lines. Even without the associations of
religion, the very size of the theater would have precluded the facial
play that is a main reliance of modern acting, and induced in the
open air a delivery sometimes oratorical and always large. The tragic
mask and cothurnus were adaptations to a great open-air space. To the
same physical conditions were adapted the rendition and the lines
themselves.[3]
The diction of Greek tragedy, though varying widely of course from poet
to poet, has certain recognizable constants. It is generally sonorous,
sententious, and, to a degree never surpassed, direct. It realizes
fully the emotional appeal of rhythm; for though its dialogue has less
rhythmical variety than Shakspere’s, it rarely lapses into monotony,
and it is relieved by the abundant imagery and metrical variety of
the chorus. Greek tragic dialogue is typically austere. It rarely
amplifies, for it is poetry, not oratory;[4] but it makes every word
count dramatically. The ideal of economy is felt even in the diction.
Passages of narrative, such as those of messengers, are made dramatically
effective not only by situation, but by variations of tone and tempo.
Effects of style may seem to have preoccupied criticism too much
unless we remember that the Athenian audience was habitually sensitive
to rhythm, and that it was never distracted by novelty of story from
attention to the dramatist’s art. That the final touch of this art was
the rhythmical finishing of the lines there can be no doubt.
Nor is dramatic verse a mere traditional convention.[5] Obviously it
is appropriate to historical dignity; but beyond this we become aware,
even from reading, much more from hearing, that the verse subtly and
constantly enhances the emotion by enriching the connotation. It is not
merely rhythm added to force, though how much rhythm, even in prose, is
worth dramatically every good actor knows. It is not even poetry added
to drama. It is an element permeating and integral. Good dramatic verse,
to say nothing of the best, is not a lyrical addition, not a decoration,
but as truly a dramatic means as the other means of characterization.
That is why the tradition of every great stage, such as the Comédie
Française, lays distinct stress on rhythmical rendition; and that is why
the dramatic rhythms of Greek tragedy are still inspiring.
Nor is even this the final value of verse in Greek tragedy. Such verse
enhances the characterization not only in detail by widening the
opportunity of the actor to convey mood and emotion, but generally by
enhancing the poetry. The typical method of Greek tragic characterization
is to idealize. The mighty figures of the past, remote from the urgencies
of our confusing present, confirm our faith that man may dominate and
direct his world for good, or, when they too fail, reveal with larger
truth the tragic flaws of humanity and the hope of its regeneration.
Modern history plays, as well as ancient, are poetic in diction
ultimately because they are poetic in conception, as Greek drama was at
once tradition and poetry. The word audience, which in its etymological
suggestions has seemed inappropriate to a modern crowd gathered rather
for seeing than for hearing, is entirely appropriate to the Greek
theater. The visual values of representation were, indeed, realized
in gesture and pose, though less in scenery and spectacle; they were
realized as never, perhaps, since in group movements; but the auditory
values, the sounding line, the phrase harmony of the chant, always
enhanced representation by strong rhythmical suggestion. A Greek tragedy
was in a real sense, though its music was simply melodic, a symphony.
(3). _Chorus_
The symbol of the communal import of Greek tragedy and of its
characteristic form is the chorus. From being almost the whole the
chorus dwindled dramatically to a subordinate part. The inference,
however, that it was outgrown, that except for historical study it is
negligible, is unwarranted. Even Euripides used the chorus dramatically;
and Aristotle urges, not that it be abolished, but that it be made an
integral part, one of the actors. Nor were the practise and the theory
mere concession to Greek convention. The chorus was in fact dramatic.[6]
Too readily conceiving it in terms of our meager modern experience, as
in opera, critics often seem to have forgotten that the Greek chorus
furnished not primarily tableau or grouping or even pageantry in a wider
sense, but chanting and dancing. That dancing may be highly dramatic we
have but recently rediscovered. Aristotle[7] knew dance as compassing
the whole range of bodily expression. Far from being merely a lyric
interlude, the chorus offered distinct dramatic possibilities.
To begin with, the combination of choral dance and chanting has a direct
appeal to the simpler emotions that are communal; and in Greek drama it
enhances the idealizing of communal fears and beliefs and aspirations.
The idealism of Greek tragedy is conveyed largely by the chorus. Then the
chorus is used to enhance the emotion of a preceding scene by iterating
it sympathetically, or by recoiling in protest, or by reflecting on it
_sub specie æternitatis_. Thus are achieved the relief of variety and
also an intermediary effect, the effect of spectators of the action
itself interpreting to the spectators of the play. The variety brought
about by the choral throng was the more marked because the actors were
few. In the chorus were many opportunities for representation of the
human world about these isolated individuals, and for dramatic symbolism
through the group movements of the dance. The choral dance, always
symbolic, had been developed from simple, primitive forms to a fine art.
The preliminary to every dramatic production was the public granting of
a chorus; and the training of this chorus by the dramatist himself was a
main part of rehearsal. The chorus is associated in every one’s thought
of Greek tragedy inevitably and fitly. It is not merely an archaic
convention; it is not merely a lyric accessory to drama; it has dramatic
possibilities which may yet, if large open-air theaters win again a place
in communal life, be revived.
(4). _Themes and Personæ_
The rhythmical effects of diction and of choral dance are hardly more
characteristic of Greek tragedy than its unvarying use of legendary
themes and persons. Euripides is thought to have chafed within these
confines, to have been hampered by the conventional prescription of
old bottles for his new wine. In any age the playwright who insists
on ideas in advance of his crowd thereby sacrifices something of the
communal appeal. But even Euripides kept outwardly the unwritten law,
and Aristotle[8] accepted it as part of his theory. It is evident that
such themes and such persons were a tragic convention; but the convention
was still recognized in the middle ages;[9] it was accepted by the
Renaissance; it was formally adopted by the French seventeenth century;
and its being a convention does not prove it any the less dramatic.
Without disparaging the gain to modern tragedy from the widening of the
tragic field we may take account of the typical values of the field of
tradition.
The field of tradition is _ipso facto_ the field of communal memories and
aspirations and, even in modern times, of myth. Though the re-creation of
myth may be artificial and remote, that it need not be so, that it may on
the contrary originally express both the poet and the conceptions of his
audience, has been proved many times, and very convincingly in our own
time by William Vaughn Moody’s _Fire-bringer_. The fire of Prometheus is
there seen, even after Æschylus, even after Shelley, to be undying. The
modern science of anthropology, indeed, gives good ground for thinking
both that myth is constantly human and that by its very persistence, as
of a primitive trait, it opens opportunities for drama.
The modern study of folklore, by recovering some lost echoes in Greek
tragedy, has enhanced its significance. Folk superstitions, though they
retire from public gaze before more sophisticated conventions, are slow
to die. Those which have become mere curious lore are of course dead
dramatically; but those which express persistent human yearnings may
be all the more vital dramatically because they are primitive. Such,
for instance, is the folk-tale of the fairy mistress, the woman of
unearthly beauty who has the magic to enrich the man she loves with joy
and power. Widespread over western Europe in the middle ages, it has
roots in remote antiquity. Euripides made it, not as the medieval writers
the story of the delusion of the man, but the tragedy of the woman. In
varying forms it has recurred again and again. In Walter Map’s amazing
tale of Gerbert[10] it concludes upon penance and renunciation. In
Fouqué’s _Undine_ its native force is dissipated in sentiment. A dead
superstition, on the other hand, has no dramatic appeal. Though we admire
the steadfast piety that agonizes over the unburied body of a brother,
we can no longer appreciate the situation of Antigone as fully tragic;
for we have lost irrevocably the ancient superstition from which it
springs. But Medea with her power to bless and ban her lover, and with
her unearthly capacity for suffering, who will venture to say that she
is dead? That she is primitive gives her only the more power to walk the
stage to-morrow.
Mythical idealizing is readily symbolic. But in Greek tragedy direct
symbolism, except in the chorus, is not common. Rather than as
symbolical, the legendary figures appear as typical. It is as typical
that the “illustrious persons” are recommended by Aristotle and
represented by the dramatists that he expounds. Prometheus, Heracles,
Agamemnon, Medea, are chosen as eminent not in rank, as some French
dramatists are accused of thinking, but in typically human traits.
They show grandly and conspicuously what obscurely is suffered by us
all. “There you and I and all of us fell down.” They are race heroes;
we communally feel in them the race ghost. And the more mythical they
are, the more we can feel the struggle of all human kind. For the very
limitations on themes sets Greek tragedy in sharper relief against modern
as exhibiting the dramatic vitality of legend.
Personages so fixed do, indeed, tend to preclude both novelty and
subtlety of characterization. In this regard Euripides, especially in
his Medea, is sometimes exceptional. Generally the characterization of
Greek tragedy is broad and simple. The _personæ_ are taken full-blown,
at some revealing crisis. But modern experience with plays and with
novels confirms the impression that broad characterization is generally
more effective before an audience; subtle, minute, or cumulative, with
an individual reader. In this application, too, we may take Aristotle’s
saying that plot is more important in drama, character in epic. But
lest we separate character from plot unduly, we must remember that the
movement of Greek tragedy is not merely of events, but of human will.
Will is the exhibition of character in action. It is the mainspring of
every tragic crisis. At once the simplest and the strongest expression
of character, it animates Greek tragedy because it animates almost
all tragedy.[11] Æschylus in _Prometheus Bound_ promises the victory
of heroic fortitude. Sophocles in _King Œdipus_ conveys the agony of
assertive individuality at finding the struggle for self-fulfillment
vain, and brings even innocent willfulness to wreck. Euripides sees the
tragic conflict of the traditional bloodwite with reverence to a mother
as leading to madness. Within the compass of the few dramas left to
us from the Greek stage the tragedies of human will in a few typical
personages are seen to be as various as they are convincing. Even the
rich variety of the great Elizabethan period does not make them seem
meager.
Rather they exhibit the dramatic richness of the typical. By the
very fact of being embodied in flesh and blood any “illustrious
person” begins to be real. Even the allegorical figure of Everyman
in the mediæval morality—and the Greek _dramatis personæ_ were never
allegorical—has held modern audiences because each spectator recognized
himself with his secret foes and friends. That the persons of the Greek
stage were few and familiar, then, was not of itself a disadvantage. The
tragedies of a few famous families can strike pity and fear into all
families who know the bitterness of hate. Moreover, the restriction to
familiar themes, the exclusion of novelty from plot, focused attention
upon conception and movement. Playwright and audience alike looked for
originality not in subject, but in art. Comparison of play with play was
readier and more specific; and the competition of the stage was almost
purely artistic.
(5). _Plot_
Plot in Greek tragedy, the movement of the whole play, is discussed so
extensively by Aristotle that little need be added. For his preoccupation
with Sophocles hardly makes his exposition the less comprehensive. Later
criticism has generally accepted Sophocles as historically midway between
the occasional archaism of Æschylus and the occasional modernism of
Euripides, as typical of Greek dramatic habits, and as the greatest Greek
master of plot. Sophocles, as has been often pointed out, intensified
drama by making his unit not the trilogy, but the single play, by
developing a single theme with a clear conflict, and by making its
interaction self-sufficient through the use of a third actor. Euripides,
on the other hand, seems to care less for totality, though he achieves it
in some plays, notably in the _Medea_. His use of a separable prologue
instead of dramatic exposition within the play has been condemned as
impatient;[12] and the vividness of his lines, especially in description,
has been disparaged as distracting. In all this the art of Sophocles is
no more eminent than it is typical. He is the shining example of Greek
artistic economy.
This characteristic economy of Greek tragic art makes it permanently
inspiring to playwrights. Modern audiences, being less conscious of
art, may find the economy sometimes too close; but playwrights discern
in it both a triumph of technic and an example. For the revolt against
even the “unities” of the French classic stage spent its force long ago.
Meantime the war of the romanticists against the classicists should make
clear, what the greatest dramatists have always understood, that unity in
drama is valuable only as a means to coherence. Its only _raison d’être_
is to clear the way for steady movement and to lead that movement to a
convincing issue. Now in this compelling force of movement Greek drama,
especially in the hands of Sophocles, remains by common consent a model
of tragic art. That even audiences habituated to variety and tolerant
of looseness will still feel this force is suggested by revivals of
increasing frequency, by the eminence, even in a period of very different
dramatic habits, of such plays as _Othello_, and by the deliberate
preference of some recent dramatists[13] for the Greek model. But whether
single, steady movement through a limited time be a permanent dramatic
principle or not, at least it is characteristically Greek. What one
editor says of the _Antigone_ of Sophocles might be said of Greek tragedy
generally: “there is no halting in the march of the drama.”[14]
This effect is brought about technically by focusing on a single scene
and a continuous critical period.[15] The whole tragedy, as has been
quaintly said, is compressed within the fifth act; or, to speak in
still more modern terms, the Greeks composed their tragedies as long
one-act plays. Such a play differs from _Henry IV_ or _A Winter’s Tale_
essentially; it differs from _Othello_ only in removable accidents. The
characteristic is not brevity, nor even unity, but continuity. That the
habit of continuity was fostered by Greek stage conditions, the habit
of discontinuity by Elizabethan, there can be no doubt; but neither
can there be any doubt that the Greek stage conditions were modified
more than once by a dramatist, or that the Elizabethan stage conditions
did not determine the growth of Shakspere’s art. In both great ages
a dramatist took the stage as he found it, but built up his dramatic
technic as he chose. The continuity of Greek tragedy is not merely a fact
of archæology; it is an achievement of technic.
The limiting to a single place and time has been objected to as forcing
off-stage some events that the audience would like to see, and as
unnaturally crowding the action. In a word, the one-act form, for an
action of some magnitude, has been called artificial. Any form may seem
artificial if it is realized imperfectly; and the limits of this form
impose merely a higher degree of the difficulty inherent in any dramatic
form, the difficulty of focus. Even a five-act play imposes limits,
prescribes selection, by the very conditions of the stage itself. The
peculiar opportunity arising from the stage conditions of the Greek
theater was discerned to be emotional intensity. Intensity has even been
urged as the characteristic opportunity of all drama. Whether this be
granted or not, undoubtedly the Greeks conceived drama so, and developed
their technic accordingly. They worked for intensity. Though they were
not content with two actors, they were content with one stage set and
with one period of time. Not only so, but the difficulties of their
form stimulated their art. In these conditions playwrights heightened
intensity by a technic of progressive continuity.
So much for the idea behind the objections. The particular charges seem
hardly to hold. What is forced off the stage of Greek drama, or of any
drama? Surely nothing that the dramatist wishes to have on-stage, or his
art is imperfect. That the frequent murders are only heard, not seen, is
due not to any exigencies of form, but to social convention and to the
idea that dying is less tragic than death. For the rest, to put shifting
human life on a fixed stage, even with liberty to represent more than
one place and time, always involves foreshortening. Art cannot have the
diffuseness of life. It works by selection. The Greek tragic artists
chose to carry selection to the highest degree. That this event or that
of the tragic story is reported by a messenger, not enacted before
our eyes, is not a hindrance to the tragic march, not the makeshift
conceded to an intractable form. Let the speech of a Greek messenger be
read aloud, or better, let it be acted; and it will no longer be called
undramatic.[16] Add its dramatic value in context, its relation to the
scene that it enters; and no doubt will remain. The possibilities of
narrative on the stage, though they seem to have been forgotten by many
English playwrights, are clear. But the Greek dramatist did make a
virtue of necessity. He sometimes used a messenger, dramatically indeed,
but perforce. What we hear from a messenger we could not see without
change of scene. This was the dramatist’s sacrifice, not to formalism,
but to continuity. To that end he would have made even greater sacrifice.
The speeding of the action beyond the normal pace of life is not confined
to this form. It is a condition of all drama. Nor does Greek drama seem
either crowded or hurried. Though events may follow thick and fast, the
Greek movement is typically unhurried. It has steadiness from careful
preparation; it gains momentum as it advances; it culminates swiftly; it
diminishes to a slow and quiet close.
That tragedy should have a full close, carrying the action through to a
καταστροφή, or state of rest, must have been with the Greeks a principle;
for it was an almost invariable habit. Though the tragedies of other and
later nations do not always end so, they too have the full close often
enough to suggest that audiences generally desire it.[17] Whether or not
this is true of audiences, it seems true of playwrights in proportion as
they work, as the Greeks worked, for singleness. In Greek tragedy the end
crowns the work in the sense that the close completes the interpretation.
The close of the action is the issue of the characterization.
Characterization in Greek tragedy, more consistently than in any other,
is motivation. In some Greek plays it offers hardly anything else.
The characters are drawn for the play, not for themselves. The “part”
is subordinated to the theme. When we see that this is true even for
Medea, a “part” to be coveted by any modern actress, we realize that the
significance of the whole play was habitually in the Greek conception
the main object. This explains the full close as the goal of a steady
movement, and as the final stage of the idealization which habitually
shaped both characters and plot. And where a modern playwright has worked
with the same intention, we find again and again, as in _Othello_, the
same full close.
The ultimate technical question, then, is What is continuity worth?
Euripides composed sometimes as if it were worth less than salience. He
has even been called romantic; and the influence of Greek tragedy, since
it was overwhelmingly his among the Romans and in the middle ages, may
seem after all to be hardly the influence of Sophoclean movement. But
the great influence of Euripides is largely of his poetry apart from his
dramaturgy. It reigns through a time when tragedy was waning, and through
a later time when there was hardly any drama at all. He is still the most
interesting of Greek dramatists to read. On the other hand, those of his
plays which are now most effective as stage performances have the typical
Greek continuity; nor does he often depart from the type very far. That
the type has a controlling idea of continuity is evident. To the Greek
dramatists generally continuity seemed to be worth much technical labor
and even much sacrifice. The crown of their technical skill was to carry
the theme, to develop it, to fulfill it at the last.
Behind this technic is an ideal of singleness. The sacrifice to
continuity springs from that _ascesis_ which has been remarked in other
fields of Greek art. It has aroused—it will always arouse—the protest of
the romantics. An art of singleness, lucidity, cogency, seems to them, as
perhaps it seemed already to Euripides, too far removed from life. And
not the romanticists only, but after them the realists, have demanded a
drama more like life itself, freer, more various, less composed. Perhaps
there is no ultimate reconciliation, or perhaps the two conceptions are
complementary; but the Greek tragedians seem to answer from their plays:
art is not life; it is idealization.
B. SENECAN TRAGEDY[18]
How far the Latin tragedy of the actual stage followed the great Greeks
we can only speculate from a few fragments and from the references of
critics. That the lost _Medea_ of Ovid was Greek in more than name the
habit of composition seen in the _Heroides_ leaves much doubt. Certainly
the tragedies of Seneca, while they revive the great names of Agamemnon,
Hippolytus, and Medea, never enter the great art of Athens. Indeed,
their relevance at this juncture is for contrast. A Senecan prologue is
not only a separable prefix; it may be a summary of the whole plot, as
the prologue of Latin comedy. Separable the Senecan chorus is always in
providing lyric interludes. It would thereby interrupt the action if the
tragedy had the Greek onward course; but instead Seneca’s violent scenes
are themselves separable, and his dialogue is sometimes a collection
of speeches. Seneca wrote tragic scenes and spaced them with lyric
pauses;[19] he did not gather momentum for a total impression. He made
his _personæ_ utter their feelings; he did not make them interact. The
familiar names, the familiar stories, only heighten the contrast. Senecan
tragedy is like Greek tragedy only in non-essentials. The essentials of
Greek dramatic composition are not here.
What is here is not poetic, but rhetoric. That these pieces were written
for recitation, not for acting, the external evidence is strong, though
not conclusive,[20] but the internal evidence is abundant.[21] Most
significant is the feebleness of plot. More obvious is the rhetorical
method of characterization by typical traits,[22] the method of the
character sketches (ἠθοποιίαι) in schools for boys as it was expanded
in the schools for men under the masters of _declamatio_. A method
essentially oratorical, it developed under the _declamatores_ of
the Empire not creative conception, but inventive ingenuity and a
preoccupation rather with striking expression than with consistency. Most
obvious of all, written large on every page, is the swelling rhetoric of
the style. Not for nothing did this poet bear the name of Seneca.[23] To
deny that such writing has a certain force is to forget what it might
become in the mouth of a trained speaker and before an audience taught
to admire its distinctive effects; to forget also how eagerly Seneca was
appropriated fifteen centuries later; to forget finally that oratory
in the theater has not yet lost all its appeal. But while we grant to
rhetoric some share in the poetic art, we cannot put Senecan tragedy
beside the tragedy of Athens without seeing unmistakably that such art as
it has is not the distinctive art of drama.
C. LATIN COMEDY
The plays of Plautus and Terence keep the dramaturgy known as the New
Comedy,[24] the comedy of Menander. Its figures, alike in Greek and
in Latin, are types. Such individualizing as may be discerned, in
the _Menæchmi_ for instance, or the _Self-tormentor_, stands out as
exceptional. Comedy, perhaps, tends more than tragedy to the typical.
At any rate, Latin comedy has a set of _personæ_ quite fixed:[25] two
fathers, two sons in love and in debt, two daughters of romance or of
pleasure, and two slaves to stir the intrigue. There might be a matron, a
slave-trader, and a braggart soldier; and there would be pretty surely a
parasite.
Stock figures involve conventionality also in plot. One of them may have
a double,[26] and the plot may consist largely of mistaking one for the
other; or the long-lost daughter, as in the _declamationes_ and the
Greek romances, may have been kidnapped by pirates. Typical is the plot
of Terence’s _Phormio_:
One Chremes had a brother Demipho,
who wishing for some cause abroad to go,
had left his son young Antipho at home
at Athens, while it pleased him thus to roam.
This Chremes had a wife and daughter too
in Lemnos domiciled, that no one knew;
another one at Athens, and an heir
that desperately loved a harper fair.
From Lemnos came the mother with the maid
to Athens, and there died. The daughter paid
the last sad rites (now Chremes was away).
And so it came about that on that day
young Antipho the orphan child espied,
fell deep in love and took her for his bride.
(’twas through a parasite ’twas brought about).
The brothers coming home with rage broke out,
gave thirty minæ to the parasite
to take her off and marry her outright.
With this they buy the girl that Phædria prized;
the other keeps his bride now recognized.[27]
In essentials this is the plot of any Latin comedy. That the Greek
originals of the New Comedy were less crystallized is suggested by larger
fragments recovered recently; and that Menander was a creator of plots
may be inferred from the saying reported by Plutarch: “I have made my
comedy; for the plan is arranged, and I have only to write verses for
it.”[28] Even with so few situations as in Latin comedy there is room
for variety of handling. Early commentators distinguish the _modus
motorius_,[29] the kinetic mode, from the _statarius_, or static, and
find that Terence, except in the _Phormio_, tends to the latter. But even
the movement of Plautus is rather bustle and go than onward progress.
Dramatic movement will hardly be compelling where motivation is so much
from circumstances and so little from character. _Modus motorius_ seems
to imply rather liveliness than sequence. To the large, miscellaneous,
and turbulent Roman audience, it has been plausibly suggested, there
would have been little appeal in cogency of plot.
A certain dulness in the audience is suggested by the fact that Terence
was reproached for combining two Greek plots in one Latin play. He
protests, naturally, that this is his right; and the _Phormio_ shows his
ability to weave an intrigue clearly and attractively. The dramatic lack
mistakenly ascribed to his stories is rather of salience, especially of
visibly significant action before our eyes. That this can vivify even
conventional characters in a conventional plot is the chief dramatic
message of Plautus. He trusts the intelligence of his audience so little
as to make his prologue an oral program, a _catalogue raisonné_, explicit
to the last degree.[30] With Terence he resorts to the aside, the
soliloquy, and the convention of people on the stage together who do not
see each other—all these when they could be obviated by a little dramatic
ingenuity. Where Plautus spends his ingenuity is on lively realism of
detail, on abundance of stage “business.” He holds a scene, turning and
returning a situation, until he has used its whole value. Though this is
sometimes tiresome for reading, it shows good theatrical sense of the
actual audience. He may have learned it from acting. Nothing is more
instructive to playwrights than this filling of a simple outline. The
habit is almost the opposite of the compression of Greek tragedy, and the
New Comedy is doubtless inferior to tragedy in every point of plot; but
none the less it vindicates clearly the value and the Plautine method of
imaginative amplification.
FOOT-NOTES:
[1] All the larger histories of Greek literature appraise Greek tragedy,
trace its history, and cite monographs for special study. The study of
Greek tragedy as drama should begin with the plays themselves. These
should be read—and with happily increasing frequency they may even be
seen—before reading further about them; for they are now available not
only in many editions, but also in many translations. Translation, though
it must fall short or go wide of the original diction, conveys the
larger dramatic movement, the characteristic dramaturgy; and Sir Gilbert
Murray’s translation of Aristotle’s main example, _Œdipus Rex_, seeks
especially the dramatic values. Very instructive comparisons may be made
by reading all eight tragedies presenting the story of Orestes and his
house, the “Oresteia”: the _Agamemnon_, _Choephoræ_, and _Eumenides_ of
Æschylus, the only extant trilogy; the _Electra_ of Sophocles; and the
_Orestes_, _Electra_, _Iphigenia in Aulis_, and _Iphigenia in Tauris_
of Euripides. Beside the _Œdipus Rex_ of Sophocles most critics would
place his _Antigone_; and beside the _Medea_, the most popular play of
Euripides, his _Alcestis_ and his _Trojan Women_. But it is no great task
to read all extant Greek tragedies.
The general character of Greek dramaturgy and its historical place are
outlined at once concisely and suggestively by Brander Matthews in his
_Development of the Drama_ (New York, 1903), chapter ii, to which may
be added chapters iii, v, viii, ix, and xiii of his _Study of the Drama_
(New York, 1910). T. D. Goodell’s _Athenian Tragedy_ (New Haven, 1920) is
admirable. Gilbert Murray’s _Euripides and His Age_ (London and New York,
1913) discusses Greek dramaturgy generally in chapters iii, viii, and ix.
More inclusive works for English readers are A. E. Haigh’s _The Attic
Theatre_, 3d edition revised by A. W. Pickard-Cambridge (Oxford, 1907),
and R. C. Flickinger’s _The Greek Theatre and Its Drama_ (Chicago, 1918).
These few books are selected as specifically informing and suggestive
for dramaturgy. A longer selective list will be found in L. VanHook’s
_Greek Life and Thought_ (New York, 1923), pages 310-312. A comprehensive
bibliography, so many are the historical significances of Greek tragedy,
would fill a volume.
[2] This paragraph and the following are adapted from the author’s
_Writing and Speaking_, pages 412-415.
[3] “The words are so composed that their full effect can be appreciated
only through the clear and rhythmical enunciation of an actor who relies
mainly on his voice.” J. T. Sheppard, _The Œdipus Tyrannus of Sophocles_
translated and explained, Cambridge University Press, 1920, page ix.
[4] See pages 126, 127 above on the distinction made by pseudo-Longinus
(xi-xii) between poetry and oratory.
[5] Parts of this paragraph and the following are taken from the
author’s _A Note on the History Play_, in _Shakesperian Studies_,
Columbia University Press, 1916.
[6] This has nowhere been better expounded than in the ninth chapter
of Gilbert Murray’s _Euripides and His Age_, London and New York (Home
University Library), 1913.
[7] _Poetic_, 1447 a. See above, pages 140, 143.
[8] _Poetic_, 1453 a. See above, pages 135, 144, 155.
[9] For instance, Chaucer’s Monk says in his prologue:
Tragedie is to seyn a certeyn storie,
As olde bokes maken us memorie,
Of him that stood in greet prosperitee
And is yfallen out of heigh degree
Into miserie, and endeth wretchedly.
_Canterbury Tales_, B. 3163.
[10] _De Nugis Curialium_, IV. xi. Map’s collection contains several
other forms of the same story or of related stories.
[11] Brunetière’s point (_Annales du Théâtre_, 1893) is well interpreted
by Brander Matthews, _The Development of the Drama_, page 20, and again
in _A Study of the Drama_, chapter v.
[12] As to this see Gilbert Murray, _Euripides and His Age_, page 205.
[13] See above, page 163.
[14] E. S. Shuckburgh’s edition of the _Antigone_, Cambridge University
Press, 1908, page xvii.
[15] Not that there were never lapses of time or shifts of place (see
Matthews, _A Study of the Drama_, Chapter xiii, and Goodell, page 82),
but that Greek tragedies move habitually without time-break and in a
single stage-setting.
[16] Murray, _op. cit._, page 212.
[17] See above, pages 147, 149, 150, 161.
[18] The plays ascribed to L. Annæus Seneca (distinguished as “the
younger” or “the philosopher,” circ. 4 B.C.-65 A.D.) are _Œdipus_,
_Phœnissæ_, _Medea_, _Hercules Furens_, _Hippolytus_ (or _Phædra_),
_Hercules Œtæus_, _Thyestes_, _Troades_, _Agamemnon_. Their authorship is
discussed by E. C. Chickering in _An introduction to Octavia Prætexta_,
New York, 1910 (Columbia dissertation), which also contains a brief
account of Roman tragedy, reviews the question of the stage production
of Seneca, and discusses his rank as tragedian. Ella I. Harris’s _Two
tragedies of Seneca, Medea and the Daughters of Troy, rendered into
English verse_, Boston, 1898 (all ten, New York, 1904), summarizes
Senecan influence on English drama. See further J. W. Cunliffe’s _The
influence of Seneca on Elizabethan tragedy_, New York, 1893. All the
Senecan tragedies are included in _The tragedies of Seneca translated
into English verse, to which have been appended comparative analyses of
the corresponding Greek and Roman plays_ ... by F. J. Miller, introduced
by an essay on the influence of the tragedies of Seneca upon early
English drama by J. M. Manly, Chicago, 1907. Miller’s translation is
published also in the Loeb Classical Library.
[19] Chickering suggests (page 45) a resemblance to grand opera.
[20] It is reviewed by Chickering.
[21] “Ce sont des exercices de déclamation, des recueils factices de
morceaux de bravoure écrits pour la lecture.” G. Michaud, _Le génie
latin_, Paris, 1900, page 116.
[22] See above, pages 71-2 and foot-note 8. “Quant aux caractères c’est
du stoicisme découpé en personnages.” E. Nageotte, _Histoire de la
littérature latine_, page 469.
[23] Seneca “the elder,” or the rhetorician, in his collection of
_Controversiæ_, is the chief source of our knowledge of _declamatio_. See
Chapter IV. II.
[24] See Legrand, P. E., _Tableau de la comédie grecque pendant la
période dite nouvelle_—κωμῳδία νέα; translated as _The New Greek Comedy_
by James Loeb, with introduction by John Williams White, London and
New York, 1917. An earlier study quoted below is Lallier, R., _La
comédie nouvelle, introduction à l’étude du théâtre de Térence_ (leçon
d’ouverture), Toulouse, 1876.
Recent English translations of Plautus are: by Paul Nixon in the Loeb
Classical Library (2 volumes issued); by E. H. Sugden of _Amphitruo_,
_Asinaria_, _Aulularia_, _Bacchides_, _Captivi_, London, 1893; by H. O.
Sibley and F. Smalley of _Trinummus_, Syracuse, N. Y., 1895; by B. H.
Clark of _Menæchmi_, New York, 1915. W. H. D. Rouse has reprinted William
Warner’s Elizabethan translation of _Menæchmi_ with the Latin text for the
study of Shakspere’s _Comedy of Errors_, London, 1912.
A second edition of F. Leo’s _Plautinische Forschungen zur Kritik und
Geschichte der Komödie_ appeared in Berlin, 1912. More recent studies
are: Brasse, M., _Quatenus in fabulis Plautinis et loci et temporis
unitatibus species veritatis neglegatur_ ... Greifswald, 1914 (Breslau
thesis); Schild, Erich, _Die dramaturgische Rolle der Sklaven bei Plautus
und Terenz_, Basel (thesis), 1917; Blancké, W. W., _The dramatic values
in Plautus_, Geneva, N. Y., 1918 (Pennsylvania thesis); Cole, Mrs. H. E.,
_Deception in Plautus_, a study in the technique of Roman comedy, with
bibliography, Boston, 1920 (Bryn Mawr thesis).
A complete translation of Terence was privately printed for the Roman
Society, 1900, 2 volumes, with brief notes and partial bibliography.
The most useful available translation is that of the _Phormio_ by M. H.
Morgan, Cambridge, Mass., 1894, with the Latin text and reproductions of
the Vatican miniatures of costumes. This play has been translated also
by Clark, B. H., New York, 1915; _The Self-tormentor_, by Shuckburgh,
E. S., Cambridge, 1869, and by Ricord, F. W., New York, 1885. The Loeb
Classical Library publishes the translation of John Sargeaunt in 2
volumes. See also Michaut, G., _Sur les tréteaux latins (histoire de la
comédie romaine)_, Paris, 1912; Knapp, C., _References in Plautus and
Terence to plays, players and playwrights_, Classical Philology, xiv,
number 1 (Jan., 1919); and a charming popular study by Lemaître, J.,
“Térence et Molière,” in _Impressions de théâtre_, vi (1898) 15-27. The
better to define ancient conceptions of comedy, Lane Cooper reconstitutes
_An Aristotelian Theory of Comedy, with an adaptation of the Poetics and
a translation of the ‘Tractatus Coislinianus,’_ New York, 1922.
[25] See the quotation from Apuleius on page 228. The _Onomasticon_ of
Julius Pollux enumerates 44 masks sufficient for all the rôles and all
the situations of the New Comedy: 10 for old men, 10 for young men, 7
for slaves, 3 for old women, 14 for young women. There are even stock
names, e.g., Davos and Chremes. _Miles gloriosus_ was taken over by
Latin comedy and again by French seventeenth-century comedy, though in
fact neither society had this Athenian type. Over against him is the
parasite, often the mover of the intrigue. The slave and he are the most
active of the _personæ_. (This note is derived from Lallier.)
[26] The extreme case is the _Amphitruo_ of Plautus with its two
Amphitryos and two Sosias. In _Menæchmi_ the servants are doubled; in
_Bacchides_, the courtesans.
[27] Greenough’s translation of the argument, prefacing Morgan’s
translation of the play.
[28] Plutarch, _Mor._, De gloria Atheniensium, 347 F.
[29] Michaut (139) cites Evanthius _De Fabula_ IV. 4 and Donatus.
_Statarius_ seems to be used, in the prologue to the _Adelphi_ and in
a passage cited by Michaut from Cicero’s _Brutus_ xxx. 116, of acting.
Knapp cites the prologue to the _Self-tormentor_.
[30] “Qui sim, cur ad vos veniam paucis eloquar,” prol. to _Bacchides_;
and the play opens with both ladies together on the stage, so that there
can be no mistake. Terence, who devotes his prologue usually to rebuttal
of detraction, sometimes devotes his whole first act to exposition.
II. NARRATIVE
A. THE _ÆNEID_
(1). _Epic_
Epic is now often divided into “primitive,” “authentic,” or “popular”
epic, such as the _Iliad_, and “artistic,” or “literary” epic, such as
the _Æneid_. Of the former the great example is Homer. The _Iliad_ and
the _Odyssey_ remain, for us as for the ancients, supreme. Meantime the
western European nations emerging in the early middle age expressed
themselves in epics of original native force: the _Roland_, the
_Beowulf_, the _Nibelungenlied_, and some of the Norse sagas. To put
these beside Homer is to become aware of specific differences within a
general likeness. Homer is both more ample and more finished. Primitive
he certainly is not in any sense now recognized by anthropology.
Even the word popular has for us implications quite inapplicable to
the circulation of his day. The classification of certain epics as
primitive, authentic, or popular is based on the idea that these are
characteristically communal, expressing more the emotions of a whole
homogeneous community, less those of the individual poet. It has even
been held[1] that such epic began in aggregation of tribal lays, and that
even the form in which it has come down to us is less the creation of
any individual than the final artistic shaping of successive anonymous
versions. The theory of communal composition, in this literal and
extreme sense, has been sharply challenged. Without denying the use
of traditional material and form, one may remain convinced that the
_Iliad_ or the _Odyssey_ is the work of a single man, whom we may as
well continue to call Homer, and that he was not merely the mouthpiece
of a community, but a conscious and skilful artist. That his art was not
wasted on his community, that this community was far from primitive,
there is ample evidence in the remains of its other arts.
The same direction of study leads to a similar conclusion for the
later epics of this class. The more we know of the middle ages, the
less warrant we find for calling these epics primitive. True, they are
less finished than the _Iliad_; true, they show clearer traces of old
war-songs; but neither their art nor the society for which it was shaped
can accurately be called primitive. Alike the literary conventions of
the poems themselves and the social conventions of their times rule
such a characterization out. The “Gothic night” fancied by supercilious
eighteenth-century critics, the “dark ages” of imperfect historians, are
found to have had considerable illumination.
Nevertheless the twofold classification of epic, in spite of the
inaccuracy of its terms, has some significance. Earlier epic, what
we might call primary epic, is in fact more directly answerable to a
homogeneous community. Its unknown poets evidently felt themselves to be
spokesmen of communal emotions and achievements; and the world that they
saw they expressed with less intervention. As if they were transmitters
rather than creators, they expressed not themselves so much as their
people. This people, too, was in that stage of civilization in which
foray and warfare by small groups brought out individual heroes and kept
life precarious and simple. Booty and food, a fine sword and a fine web,
still had immediate appeal; and the physical sensations of battle-strain
and sweat, of ceaseless surf and darkening deep, were still common
experience. Thus primary epic, communal and objective, has the directness
of immediacy. Arising from those simpler emotions which we all feel
together, primitive perhaps in that sense, and expressing them in terms
of familiar physical sensations, it has its own inimitable flavor.
Later, or secondary, epic is not the transmission of legends still
active, but the re-creation of a past already remote. Still appealing
to a communal sense of the heroic, it adapts the old epic mode to an
audience more sophisticated not only in life, but in poetic art. The
poet is thus at once more imitative and more original. He binds himself
by traditions of subject-matter, of form, and of style; but within
this recognized mode he composes with more individual freedom and to a
more definite end. Relying less on scenes in a series, he selects and
manipulates toward more artistic sequence. Since his descriptions must be
less immediate, he develops the art of narrative. Endeavoring to remain
the spokesman of his people—for otherwise he must forfeit the communal
mainspring of epic—he interprets their past by his own message for their
future. Thus he may be all the more a poet, or maker. He cannot hope for
the fresh immediacy of primary epic; but in compensation he has greater
opportunity to move his people by his own vision. Milton’s conception,
vast as is its scope, is essentially the same. He interprets the Bible as
the epic of mankind in terms of a Puritan theocracy. Tasso re-creates a
departed chivalry to animate a vision of devotion and redemption. Vergil,
the great example of secondary epic, makes of the Trojan story, of Roman
legend, of myth and cult and drama and history, of all that enriched the
Roman past, a progressive vision of Roman destiny.
Primary epic and secondary epic, though thus distinguishable, are both
epic. They are complementary. They reveal different capacities of a
single artistic mode. Epic is constant. It was; it was again; it is; for
aught that we can see, it will be. Extended poetic narrative of great
deeds for communal inspiration, though it has never been common, has
never been extinct. Primary epic seems inevitable. The minstrel in the
hall of Hrothgar is poetically identical with the minstrel in the hall of
Alcinous.[2] Both hint to us of what epic was made, and how; both show
us its constancy. This primary form of epic can never, of course, recur.
It has been civilized away. But meantime it has established a poetic art
that is permanent. The word epic still connotes a distinct mode. To this
Vergil deliberately conformed, and Milton. Secondary epic is still epic.
What, then, are seen to be in ancient practise the essentials of
epic? First, its inspiration and its appeal are communal. By contrast
the modern novel, which is also extended narrative and also within
Aristotle’s definition of poetic, is seen to be individual; or, where in
exceptional cases it is broader and simpler,[3] is often distinguished
by criticism as having epic appeal. Then, epic is in style objective. It
narrates habitually without interposition, by images visual, auditory,
motor. Its scenery is merely the background of heroic activity. Its
speeches are in primary epic for characterization, not for plot. There
is no plot in the dramatic sense for the whole; and such as there is for
component parts is only to bring out persons. The object of epic being
persons, its commonest descriptive details are of personal activity:
attitude, movement, speech, gesture. The method is to suggest that heroic
life by its physical sensations, to make the characters, as Aristotle
says,[4] reveal themselves. Epic gives few reflections. It does not
comment even on Helen’s coming to the Scæan gates, or on Hector’s parting
from Andromache; it merely describes. This objectivity is a main means of
epic directness.
The characteristic form of epic[5] is for scope and variety. Drama is
intensive; epic is extensive. It has time to give us a sense of the
fulness of life; and its movement does not preclude excursions. We meet
many people and see them in various aspects. We can linger over a scene
for itself without being urged forward. Continuity may be but leisurely
succession from scene to scene. A scene may within itself have dramatic
progress; but the movement of the whole has not the dramatic causal
compulsion. Drama has its characteristic force through unity. Unity in
epic is neither compelling nor compulsory. In fact, to stretch the term
unity over epic tends to deprive it of all force. No epic poet has ever
composed more carefully than Vergil, or with keener awareness of the ways
of drama. The _Æneid_ was composed as a whole; its parts were carefully
adjusted to a plan, and its plan was controlled by a single idea. Epic
has never gone further toward unity; and Homer never dreamed of going so
far. But even such dramatization of epic as Vergil’s has time for the
funeral games, and does not sacrifice to the story of Rome the story
and the person of Dido. In poetic, unity means nothing unless it means
unity of form. This epic cannot have as a whole. Nor does any one regret
the lack, or think it a fault. The unity of drama is for intensity; the
object of epic is the realization not of a crisis, but of great persons
in a long and various course.
So the style of epic is typically sonorous and high. Height of style may
be attained by simplicity, and epic is simple often, but not always. To
speak of epic as characteristically simple is to belie much of Homer
and most of Vergil and Milton. Epic is not characteristically, nor even
usually, simple. It may be very elaborate. It begins by assuming a
language recognized as on a higher plane than that of ordinary speech.
The epithets of the _Iliad_ or the _Beowulf_ are a poetical convention;
and the style of epic proceeds always by conscious art. Here is the poet
who, daring to sing great deeds, means to sing them greatly. That the
effort may end in frigidity or bombast means only that there is bad epic
as well as good; it does not mean that epic should be simple. Epic poets
have never thought so. The poets of primary epic, no less than Vergil or
Milton, were occupied with style. For the term epic has always implied
greatness. It is a word of praise. It means a story of greatness told
greatly.
Homer was for the ancient Greek world, and Vergil became for the Roman
world, a Bible of style. Both were conned in school not only for
the examples of their great persons, but for the study of language.
That their connotation was immeasurably enriched, their “sublimity”
heightened, not only by rhythm, but by verse, no one will deny. It is
even possible to feel in Milton’s verse a beauty separable from that of
his ideas, and greater, lifting his narrow and political theology to
wider import. Aristotle[6] remarks upon the appropriateness to epic of
the Greek dactylic hexameter. Dionysius[7] even finds control of rhythms
to be Homer’s main poetic means. We are more inclined to admit this view
for Milton; but the ultimate truth is that we should not, except for
analysis, separate verse from the other elements of style. That every
great epic poet has been a masterly metrist means rather that for “the
height of this great argument” he felt the need of all that verse can add
of suggestiveness. Though prose epic, as Aristotle admits by implication,
is quite conceivable, it has to move on a lower plane. The Norse sagas
are more direct even than Homer, starker in narrative force as if
stripped for action, equally expressive of communal emotions, equally
vivid in characterization. They have all the epic means but one. That
single lack does not, indeed, relegate them to a different class; but it
shows by contrast that for its full realization epic demands verse.
(2). _The Conception and Scope of the Æneid_
The whole poetic art of ancient epic is exhibited in the _Æneid_. Setting
aside those interesting historical questions of epic origins, growth,
and transmission which in the study of Homer can hardly be ignored,
and on the other hand including the whole range of epic, secondary as
well as primary, we can learn best from the great poet who devoted his
mature years to conceiving, planning, and reshaping the epic of Rome.
The artistic scope of the _Æneid_, as well as its artistic eminence,
long secure beyond cavil, has been reaffirmed by recent criticism.
Sainte-Beuve calls Vergil “le poète de la Latinité tout entière.”[8]
Mackail, whose studies have been primarily Greek, exalts the _Æneid_
afresh.[9] Woodberry, whose criticism has been mainly of English
literature, says: “The distinctive feature of the ‘Æneid’ is the arc
of time it covers, the burden of time it supports,” and again, “The
‘Æneid’ is, I think, the greatest single book written by man because of
its inclusiveness of human life, of life long lived in the things of
life.”[10]
The idea of Roman destiny, animating the _Æneid_ throughout, is something
larger than the nationalism of other epics. It is imperialism, and of
a spirit generous enough to win the sympathy of Dante. It has not the
occasional character of such a nationalist story, for instance, as
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s _Historia Regum Britanniæ_. In a time of corrupt
politics it is above political opportunism. Its Rome is not merely the
throne of Augustus; it is the government of the world. Its Romanism
is less political than religious. “Pius Æneas” is more typical than
“much-enduring Odysseus” of the struggle of man for an abode of justice
and peace. This, more than the personal glory that humanism centuries
afterward read from the classics, is the conception of the _Æneid_. The
destiny of Rome reveals the hope of mankind; and the _Æneid_ has the
whole epic scope. Hardly less than Milton, Vergil justifies the ways of
God to man.
(3). _The Narrative Movement of the Æneid_[11]
That the _Æneid_ has a controlling idea implies that it is artistically
shaped to stricter continuity than appears in the Homeric model. The
_Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ are everywhere freer. Homer writes a scene for
itself; Vergil also for its significance in a progress.[12] Salience
is sought by careful subordination. The Carthaginians, for instance,
are not elaborated as are the Italian tribes.[13] The slaughter of the
last night of Troy is confined to a few vivid scenes. Using Hellenistic
versions and evidently studious of their art, Vergil deliberately rejects
their decorative detail and sentimental dilation. He reduces the mating
of Æneas with Dido to a grave summary,[14] in order to give salience to
those other emotions which for the _Æneid_ as a whole were leading. Æneas
does, indeed, in the fourth book yield his position as protagonist to the
queen who among Vergil’s _personæ_ is the great individual; but even so
strong an impulse of creative inspiration does not drive the poet from
his main purpose. One of the few great love-stories, the fourth book is
still held, as it were by force, to the larger story of mission.
The same art deals with the gods. They were for Vergil necessary to epic;
they embodied at once the traditional sense of supernatural response in
natural forces and Vergil’s own sense of divine guidance. But they rarely
interpose, and never interrupt. They work through men; and the course
of events is always amply explained by human motive. The foundations of
Troy were shaken by divine wrath; but we see them dislocated by human
agency. The revengefulness of Juno, the protection of Venus, seem the
more plausible because they operate through the passion of Dido. The one
yields in the end, and the other prevails, because Æneas realizes his
mission. Olympus, now ordered within itself under a calm and absolute
ruler, expresses and animates, not interrupts, the progress of human
order. Thus Vergil’s gods are more than “epic machinery,” and more
than personification. The thoughts of men are not merely expressed
conventionally in archaic personal shapes; they are seen at once as
determining each decisive action and as inspired by divine purpose. For
not only has the _Æneid_ a more consistent theology than the _Iliad_; it
is also more religious.
The most frequent examples of Vergil’s subordination are in his fine
art of description. Picturesque with brilliant color, as well as with
the Homeric light and motion,[15] and as precise as they are vivid, his
descriptions are rarely separable. Not only are they contributory to the
action; they are also inwoven.[16] Vergil’s sensitiveness to the details
of nature transpires in a sentence, even in single words,[17] which
describe while they narrate. Here he discerned the artistic rightness by
which Homer describes every thing movable as in motion,[18] and applied
the principle with more careful attention to narrative continuity.
He dispenses with Homer’s superfluous mechanism of transition.[19]
Memorable as are the descriptions—and nothing in the _Æneid_ is better
remembered—very few can be detached from the context for separate
admiration.[20] The detailing of architecture and decoration, though
it unduly seized the fancy of the middle ages, is hardly an exception.
The Carthaginian pictures of Troy, the palace of Latinus, are there
not for scene-painting, but for historic suggestion. They serve the
story. Thus Vergil’s descriptive art is at once less ample than Homer’s
and more specifically subsidiary. The Hellenistic tableau—ἔκφρασις
is its ominous name—appears in the glittering conventional pauses of
Ovid. Vergil had put it aside. This is the more remarkable because the
ancients seem generally to have regarded certain scenes—battle, for
instance, conflagration, storm, thwarted love—as rather description
than narration.[21] Vergil, while he works even more than Homer to make
us realize a scene by sharing in it as actors,[22] works also to avoid
interruption of the story.
Similar is the constant care to avoid interruption of time or place.[23]
Vergil’s unremitting prevision and revision have obviated any time-lapse
that is insignificant for the action. The Homeric device of bringing in
antecedent action by retrospective narrative is used more artistically.
While it covers ground, extending the time-lapse beyond the stage, the
narrative of Æneas heightens the love of Dido before our eyes.
She loved me for the dangers I had passed;
And I loved her that she did pity them.
It is a larger achievement, one of the greatest,[24] to heighten epic
by suggesting vast reaches of time, from tribal wanderings through wars
of conquest to the reign of law. Here is the artistic significance of
the visit in Book VI to the world of the dead and the unborn, which,
as Mackail says, “slips in the keystone.” To compare the visit of
Odysseus to the shades is to see Vergil’s higher art of composition. But
the suggestion of the great loom of time (_tot volvere casus_) is not
confined to a single artistic device; it is pervasive from the opening
words through a hundred careful allusions; and it makes the _Æneid_ wider
than the _Iliad_ or the _Odyssey_ by making it constantly suggestive of
the whole struggle of history. It reveals more explicitly the struggles
of heroic men as the struggle of man.
Thus the oft-repeated objection that the _Æneid_ breaks into halves is
superficial. The break would not have been thought of if Vergil had
not been seen to be working for a continuity stricter than Homer’s.
Stated baldly by Tyrrell, the idea that the _Æneid_ is an _Odyssey_
plus an _Iliad_ presupposes a sort of imitation to which Vergil shows
himself everywhere superior. It would be as near the truth to reply
that the _Æneid_ is neither an _Odyssey_ nor an _Iliad_. But prototypes
aside, how and how far is the _Æneid_ held together? Surely by the most
careful articulation ever seen in epic, but surely not to the degree
of drama. Among the evidences of revision are indications that the
plan for the wanderings of Æneas was first achieved[25] when much of
the poem was already written. The adjustment of this part to the whole
course, a technic hardly explored by Homer, and the abbreviations of the
wanderings by careful selection, are of a piece with the consistent
connection by repetition of the theme, from the opening lines,
Trojæ qui primus ab oris
Italiam, fato profugus,
throughout the whole poem. True, the seventh book invokes Erato for
scenes of battle.
Maior rerum mihi nascitur ordo;
Maius opus moveo.
The following scenes are different, but not the theme. The art that
deliberately avoided Homer’s succession of battles by interposing such
scenes as Evander’s achieved more than variety. It suggests again
and again what the battles were for. The close upon the tragic death
of Turnus becomes more than the personal victory of the hero; it is
the triumph, over _violentia_, over such individual prowess as Homer
glorified, over personal ambition thwarting the state, of fortitude
bringing in religion and law.
But to ask therefore that the whole movement of the _Æneid_ should be
unified is at once to recognize Vergil’s art of continuity and to demand
for epic the strictness of drama. That Vergil understood drama, that his
art learned not only from Greek epic, but from Greek tragedy, was pointed
out by Nettleship and is important to remember. But he is too great a
master of his chosen form to sacrifice epic scope.
How, then, is the _Æneid_ dramatic? In the composition of the whole only
by such preparations and recurrences as add to the vividness of parts
suggestions of their bearing. Having planned a progress of events, not
merely a series, Vergil marks that progress by such articulation as
had been used to this extent only in drama. In the composition of the
parts singly his art is more dramatic. The _Æneid_ as a whole is not
dramatically unified, and could not be. What is unified is each book.[26]
For purposes of recitation, epic had to be composed, whether as a whole
or not, in distinct parts. Of this necessity Vergil made a virtue. He
advanced the narrative art of situation by applying some of the technic
of drama. This is conspicuous in his frequent use of peripety. Again,
the memorable and well remembered Laokoön scene is interposed between
the Sinon scenes. Each is made to heighten the other, and both to give
first suspense and then compelling motive to the bringing in of the
fatal horse. Again and again Vergil will be found thus to intensify his
narrative by the technic of drama. The most obvious instance is the
distinct group of scenes at Carthage. The entrance of Dido is in the
dramatic sense and by dramatic methods prepared. First, Æneas hears of
her from his goddess mother, and is kindled by her having achieved his
own epic mission—_dux femina facti_. Follows his view of the city, big
already in achievement, big also to every Roman listener with menace.
Then the decorative pictures at once review the tragedy of Troy and
reveal in this strong queen a propitious sympathy. Upon all this, as to
a waiting stage and a waiting audience, _enter Dido_.[27] Moreover in
the Dido scenes, instead of contenting himself with that mere strife
of emotions which was familiar in Hellenistic poetry[28] and became a
rhetorical commonplace with Ovid, Vergil advances and heightens the
leading emotion steadily, as in a play, up to its tragic close. The
close is the inevitable result of something more than thwarted passion
because Dido has been presented dramatically, without concession to the
Hellenistic narrative dilation, by what she said and did. Vergil’s Dido
is a creation every way beyond the Medea of Apollonius. She must be
placed beside the Medea of Euripides. In her consistent tragic nobility,
in the higher morality of her appeal, perhaps she must be placed above.
For the fourth book of the _Æneid_, as fully as the _Antigone_, is tragic
in its purgation of pity and fear.
Thus to apply drama to narrative without sacrificing the typical epic
opportunities of fulness and scope is among the greatest achievements
of poetic. It is an art so far beyond any other ancient narrative as to
remain solitary until Dante; and Dante’s guide was Vergil. It guided
also the creative hand of Milton. And not for epic only, but for all
imaginative story, the art of the _Æneid_ remains a test and a guide. In
this sense he who became for medieval Latinists _the_ poet, as Cicero was
_the_ orator, remains Master Vergil.
(4). _Characterization in the Æneid_
To turn from the narrative movement to the persons is to descend. At once
we feel that the achievement is less and that the method is less fruitful
for narrative art because it is less distinctively poetic. Vergil’s
narrative composition has universal validity; but his characterization,
for the most part, is only Latin. It had none the less influence on the
middle ages—perhaps all the more; but it had the less inspiration for
later creations.
To estimate Vergil’s characterization fairly, it is necessary first to
remove certain misconceptions. He has been reproached for leaving in our
minds few outstanding figures: Turnus, Evander, Mezentius, Pallas, Nisus
and Euryalus. Some of these, like the Camilla whom Dante remembers, are
only sketched; and most of them are secondary. Now though this is paucity
beside the populous pages of Homer, we must remember that Vergil’s whole
roster of heroes is smaller deliberately because, much more than Homer’s,
they are _dramatis personæ_. He makes the dramatic innovation of focusing
on a few and of subordinating the development even of these to the
development of the theme.
A more frequent objection is that throughout the latter part of the
poem the hero is no longer Æneas, but Turnus. This is to use the word
hero in a sense that Vergil would hardly have understood. Seeing Turnus
through centuries of romance, we are so occupied with his _bravoure_ as
readily to forget that Vergil’s Æneas is not meant to have the interest
or the significance of King Arthur. Nor, we should add, is he meant to
have the interest of Achilles. His individual prowess is only incidental
to his dominant fortitude. The achievement of personal glory is behind
him. “He has outlived his personal life.”[29] His work is to found the
Roman people. The characterization of Æneas, moreover, shows a certain
development.[30] He shows more growth than “much-enduring Odysseus.” The
battle frenzy of the return to the doomed city (_arma amens capio_), the
vacillation at Carthage, are put forever behind. He becomes progressively
more steadfast. Always _pius_, he enlarges his _pietas_ into calm
assurance of mission. As for the story, so for the characterization of
the hero, the sixth book is the critical stage of a progress.
The creative power of Vergil is amply vindicated by Dido. One may feel
that she is too vivid for her function, that she takes the stage, as
actors say, away from Æneas, that through her the nice planning of the
whole is quite warped. We shall doubtless never be able to judge this
as Romans. Perhaps even they were more absorbed than Vergil intended
in his tragic queen.[31] Perhaps Vergil himself was swerved by his own
creation. But all this only reinforces the testimony to a compelling
characterization. There may be difference of opinion as to Dido’s part in
the story; there can be none as to Dido herself.
But our estimates thus duly corrected, we cannot but feel that Dido
stands out among the figures of the _Æneid_ because she is exceptional.
We feel her to be drawn not only better, but often differently. And this
should lead to scrutiny of Vergil’s habitual method. To begin with, it
is everywhere apparent that he cares less than Homer for individuality.
A certain expansiveness in Homeric dialogue often keeps the story
waiting to give the individual his say. Vergil shifts the proportions.
He rejects long dialogues because he is more interested in narrative
economy than in personal expressiveness. Further, the speeches are often
more reasoned than Homer’s, more orderly, less like conversation and more
like oratory.[32] Sinon’s are very naturally elaborate pieces of special
pleading, and the rhetoric of Drances against Turnus is appropriate
in a deliberative assembly; but the making of successive points, and
the careful adaptation of style not only to the speaker, but to the
hearer, are habitual, as even in the speech of Allecto to Turnus. In
this reasoned order, rather than in any mere elaboration, Heinze finds
Vergil to be rhetorical. Instead of following the pace of emotional
utterance, abrupt and disjointed, he sometimes holds even violent emotion
to a steady course. By thus composing emotional expression he sometimes
sacrifices directness of characterization.[33]
Indeed, Vergil is generally less concerned than Homer with creating
individuals, and more concerned with showing his persons as types.
Whether the loss in individual distinctness is compensated by a gain
in common consent opens a long debate. Modern taste inclines rather
to Homer than to Vergil; but between stretch centuries of Latin
habit, and that habit, best exemplified in Vergil, is to characterize
typically. This method of idealization may in Vergil’s case have Stoic
preoccupations;[34] but more generally it is rhetorical. To characterize
by age, sex, race, occupation, etc., is a prescription of rhetoric[35]
fixed in recipes and school exercises. It was dilated into ingenious
fictions by the _declamatores_. Ovid’s characterization hardly rises
above the schools. Vergil was too great to move on that level; but even
he is preoccupied with that ideal and generally content with that method.
He carried the method as far, perhaps, as it will go. That except in
subordinate sketches he departed from it only in one surpassing instance
is doubtless the fundamental reason for our finding his characterization
inferior to his composition.
(5). _Epic Diction_
Generations have felt in the _Æneid_, first of all, high and constant
beauty. No other great poem has seemed more infallibly beautiful.
The beauty has sometimes, indeed, been acknowledged with a certain
disparagement, as if it implied the less strength; but so perverse an
antithesis cannot delay attention except to the fact that Vergil is
beautiful even to his detractors. The worst that has been said of his
style is that it is sometimes inappropriately elaborate.[36]
atque arida circum
Nutrimenta dedit, rapuitque in fomite flammam.
Tum Cererem corruptam undis Cerealiaque arma
Expediunt fessi rerum; frugesque receptas
Et torrere parant flammis et frangere saxo.
I. 175.
This, it must be admitted, seems comparatively remote and unreal beside
similar meals in Homer, and absolutely too high a style for camp cookery.
Nor is it safe to urge that Vergil is holding his style to the epic
level; for that plea opens the way to such mere etiquette as centuries
later quite deviated the discussion of epic from its main issues, and,
besides, Vergil himself does not thus describe Dares and Entellus. No,
the plea must be rather of confession and avoidance. Such passages
are not beautiful, and their style is not epic; but they are so few
that to call them characteristic is quite unfair. Nor are they to be
ascribed to preoccupation with rhetoric. Vergil is, indeed, sometimes
more oratorical[37] than we wish; but he is not, in our modern sense
rhetorical, and his rhetoric, no less than his poetic, must have found
such passages inferior. Rather we may think that these few “rubs and
botches in the work” were what led him to wish it burned; for after all
his revision he was acutely conscious that it was unfinished. Unfinished
in form it certainly is not. Unfinished in style it is here and there.
But what a sense of beauty had the artist who could not bear even so few
blemishes!
Not elaborateness, then, is characteristic of Vergil’s style, but
certainly elaboration. His tireless revision is testified by the
tradition that he composed first in prose, and that he spent on the
_Æneid_ ten years.[38] No style is more highly charged. It is made
to suggest at once vivid descriptive imagery and the sanctions of
history and religion. Not only the story, but the diction, is full of
Rome. His use of the language of Roman ritual[39] is characteristic of
an expression piously preservative of cult. “By instinct and temper
a ritualist,”[40] he is continually suggesting the significance of
traditional forms. The _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ are in a special
dialect. The _Faery Queene_ has a language of its own. To achieve such
suggestions in the _Æneid_ with but the slightest resort to archaism
is in itself a great achievement of language; but it is only part of a
consistent allusiveness, an extraordinary connotation, ranging the whole
gamut from sharp physical sensations to spiritual significance. A style
eminently classic in precision and harmony is yet felt to be above all
rich. No other poet seems more nearly infallible with the right word; no
other so well to have charged classic restraint with romantic exuberance
by the energy of his expressiveness. The influence of Vergil, immediate,
wide, and long, is indubitably the influence of his style. Later ages,
unappreciative of the poetic art of his composition, felt the spell of
his imagery and rhythm almost as an incantation. “Virgil is that poet
whose verse has had most power in the world.”[41]
(6). _Originality in Imitation_
The notion that imitation must be subversive of originality betrays a
crude conception of both. Yet it lingers in such criticism as thinks the
_Æneid_ to be a Latin _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_. To measure it so is to miss
not only the art of a single great poem, but much of all poetic art. For
since all art works in forms received and recognized, less by invention
than by transformation, it is of cardinal significance to distinguish,
in a poem conspicuously imitative and conspicuously original, just what
artistic imitation is. Therefore what has been implied in the preceding
sections may here be drawn together in summary.
Imitation is always of movement or style; it has nothing to do with
material. To preface this should be superfluous; but many quests for
“sources” have left some confusion. Vergil took much of the Trojan story
from Homer. To be sure, he used other sources too. Nothing is more
remarkable in the _Æneid_ than the wealth and variety of its material.
Its sources are beyond the dreams of Homer. But even if Vergil’s material
were all Homeric, he would not on that account be the more imitative.
Ancient literature, and mediæval too, generally make freer with preceding
stories than modern. The material is not thought to be any one’s
property. In this respect Vergil is singularly independent. He uses more
sources; he is more selective; and what he adopts is often a composite.
He works in the modern way rather than in the ancient; but he is not on
that account either more or less imitative. Some of Shakspere’s plays
derive their plots from single sources; some are in plot composite; but
all are alike original. A modern French tragedy took the plot not only of
an ancient story, but of the best known of all ancient plays. It is none
the less original; and its imitation, as all artistic imitation, is of
the ancient technic.
Imitation in art, then, means following certain artistic ways. To begin
with, Vergil evidently set out to write an epic, and undoubtedly looked
to Homeric epic as a type. This is important not only in his case, but
throughout literary history. Though its importance may be exaggerated
in Brunetière’s _évolution des genres_, evidently epic meant something
controlling to Vergil because of Homer, and has meant something wider
ever since because of Vergil. To any poet, to Tasso and Milton as to
Vergil, epic necessarily implies a pattern. It directs and limits
_personæ_ and diction; but it does not hamper artistic progress, for it
does not limit interpretation. Vergil remade not only the epic material,
but the epic form, to a new end. His Sinon[42] is a typical instance of
artistic rehandling. Drawn doubtless from several ancient sources, he
has become through his new function and motivation creatively original.
Battles there must be in epic, even battles of the Homeric sort; but
Vergil does not rely on the general _mêlée_; he modifies it subtly in
the direction of the more organized Roman fighting, and he changes the
Homeric series into a progress. In short, even where he is perforce most
dependent on Homer, his imitation is never repetition. Imitation is
creative when it adapts the art of the past to the interpretation of the
present. The _Æneid_ is not a Latin _Iliad_; it is a Roman epic.
Vergil’s adaptation of the epic movement involves a departure from Homer
in the direction of drama.[43] How, and how far, imitation of drama can
serve extended narrative we learn fully from him because he imitates
selectively. He does not try to make his story a play, or merely a
series of plays; he finds how far epic can be conducted dramatically
without sacrificing its epic appeal. No less selectively he rejects the
Hellenistic technic of Apollonius.[44] Epic diction, he discerns, in
order to have the old communal appeal, must sound traditional; but echo
of Homeric style would make it sound merely conventional. He gives it
traditional connotation by means of his own. His diction, therefore, is
far less imitative than his composition. In fact, it is rarely imitative
at all. In the limits, no less than in the method, of his imitation his
art runs true. Through that obedience which great artists yield to the
art that they inherit he shows the way to imaginative freedom.
B. THE NARRATIVE POETRY OF OVID
Among the Latin poets Vergil has the siege perilous. He achieved that
high poetic emprise beside which others must seem less. In comparison no
one suffers more than Ovid.[45] Yet he who presented the gods without
seeing their divinity, and retold the myths instead of recreating them,
has literary qualities not only striking, but at once typical of his time
and very widely influential. Vergil has been revered; but Ovid has been
imitated and absorbed. Without attempting to measure his brilliancy, it
is necessary to distinguish the characteristic habits of a poetic whose
influence spread over western Europe.
That poetic is seen at once to be unfailingly expert in every artistic
detail. Its metrical facility, proverbial[46] from the first and
instructive of the verse of many centuries and many lands, is only
the most obvious skill of a man who loved style. Though he does not
make a habit of the elegiac tendency to rime, he plays variously upon
alliteration and other consonance;[47] and his use of refrain suggests
those stanza patterns set centuries later by French courtly makers in
rondel[48] and ballade.[49] For though he knows the subtlest spells of
sound, Ovid is never neglectful of such notes as must catch the ear. His
verse is more than popular; but it is popular, and many a Spaniard, Gaul,
and Briton has been grateful to feel its music running in his head.
Equally obvious is Ovid’s decorative description. Its bent is not
toward epic suggestion of character by attitude, gesture, and action,
but toward picturesqueness. Bright imagery garnishes the familiar.
Groves and streams and their tutelary nymphs, men, women, and gods,
are not individualized; they are merely realized. But what exuberance
of suggestion! To open dull eyes and spur jaded feelings, to vivify a
legendary scene, to dilate a conventional mood, to redecorate an old
landscape, Ovid had an inexhaustible fund.
For he elevated poetic convention to a fine art. A storm at sea[50] lacks
none of the properties; a fainting heroine or hero,[51] no appropriate
gesture. The pallor of love can move once more,[52] and the golden
age[53] make the over-civilized pensive. “Mortal art thou, or divine?”
was said by Odysseus to Nausikaa when gods walked with men; but Ovid had
the art to repeat it[54] when the gods were dead. Repeat? He himself
became the pattern of these things for centuries. Not only is he forever
the poet of “Gather ye roses while ye may,” but “Stay, dawn; why must
thou haste?”[55] echoed across Europe,[56] was heard in the cry of
Chaucer’s Troilus[57] and Shakspere’s Juliet,[58] and still reverberates.
The Alexandrian[59] dilation of such description[60] appears also in
the long-drawn emotions of soliloquy.[61] The fixing of this as a
literary type must have been promoted by the prevalence of the schools of
_declamatio_,[62] where Ovid had studied. Practised in elementary form
even by Roman schoolboys, developed by _declamatores_ in exhibitions of
virtuosity, the fiction of what so-and-so must have said on such-and-such
an occasion is still a rhetorical exercise. As an exercise it has some
value in promoting poetic appreciation; but it seems hardly the way
toward poetic creation. Ovid, at any rate, hardly creates persons. The
address of Sol, for instance, to Phaëthon,[63] is only a more extended
and more professional school theme; and the mixture of allegorical
personification with myth[64] shows him rather as a rhetorician[65] than
as a poet. That he is not a myth-maker, only a myth-teller, may be seen
by putting any of his demigods beside the Prometheus of Æschylus—or even
the Prometheus of Shelley. For re-creation Ovid lacked what the Great
Unknown[66] thought to be the primary source of expression, intellectual
vigor of conception. Thus his mythical persons, though always appropriate
and sometimes vivid, are not alive.
More has been claimed for his story-telling. Cruttwell[67] says of the
_Metamorphoses_: “The skill with which different legends are woven
into the fabric of the composition is as marvellous as the frivolous
dilettantism which could treat a long heroic poem in such a way.” The
skill of the weaving is indisputable; but is it more than an art of
transition? To call the _Metamorphoses_ a long heroic poem suggests
a cruel comparison with the _Æneid_, and partly begs the question.
What Ovid seems to have intended, and what he achieved, is a deftly
articulated collection. It is not a single poem in the sense of having
emotional progress or totality, nor is any other of Ovid’s collections.
His distinctively narrative art, therefore, is to be sought not in the
connection between stories, but in the composition of each one. It is
even probable that this art was the more popular because it offered, not
a long sustained narrative, but many separable short tales.
The “vivid inventiveness” and “unflagging animation” urged by Owen[68] as
characteristic of Ovidian narrative may be accepted without discussion,
and should not be undervalued. Inventiveness was overvalued, indeed,
in the melodramatic fictions of _declamatio_, and implies an art rather
facile than creative; but it is none the less sure of popularity. As
for animation, whatever else a story may be, it may not be dull. Here
Ovid often wins by his very levity. He makes no demands. No one can
be followed more easily; for he moves on the surface. Where he skates
on thin ice, he does so quite simply for excitement. There is none of
the modern pretense of exploration. His problems are purely artistic,
problems not of motive, but of interesting mood and attitude, of
appropriate and various utterance. His animation, partly rhythmical,
partly descriptive, is more largely unflagging expressiveness. Always
expressive, his people can always be understood without effort. He holds
attention without provoking thought.
The “rapid movement” claimed by Owen is often mere succinctness, rarely
the speed gained by modern narrative use of dramatic technic. For that
he usually has too much separable description, too much soliloquy, too
little motivation. He seeks intensity less often than expansiveness.
Nevertheless, though he pauses deliberately for description or _tirade_,
he does not lag. There is no clumsy prosing or deviation. He has the
art, more valued in ancient and medieval times than in modern, of lucid,
fluent narrative, the art of the tale. That he does not follow it oftener
is due to his readers’ fondness, and his own, for dilation. The onward
movement of poetic is thus sacrificed to rhetoric. The parts become more
important than the whole. For Ovid was a rhetorician, not only bred in
the schools, but habitually thinking of poetry less as composed movement
than as lucid and brilliant, as ample and harmonious style.
C. THE METAMORPHOSES OF APULEIUS
Sighting from the _Metamorphoses_ of Ovid through the _Metamorphoses_
of Apuleius,[69] one clearly discerns the coming of the Greek Romances.
So runs the Alexandrian narrative line from decorative description
and expansive emotion, through exciting incident and uncontrolled
variety,[70] to sheer violence. Ovid’s stories are sometimes like
dreams; the Greek Romances are nightmares. Apuleius, between the two,
already seeks the violent and the bizarre. His metamorphoses are no
longer mythical, nor in the least allegorical; they are mere sorcery.
The appetite of his time for horrors and other excitement had been both
fed and whetted by _declamatio_.[71] Ovid, too, knew _declamatio_; but
Apuleius, himself a rhetor, was less restrained by earlier literary
standards from giving rein to the sensational.
Though the bulk of his extant work is narrative, Apuleius devotes no
attention to onward narrative movement. Superficially continuous, his
_Metamorphoses_ are nevertheless often quite separable, as is evident
in the most famous of them, Cupid and Psyche. Such course of plot as
there is eddies in harangues, _tirades_ and decorative descriptions.
The abundant dialogue is uncontrolled by dramatic concision. Everywhere
Apuleius is orally expansive. A rhetor telling stories, he goes little
beyond the poetic of the platform: work for excitement, relying on lust
and witchcraft; expand what is showy, emphasizing each part without
regard to sequence; use dialogue for variety, letting _prosopopœia_
suffice for characterization; and if nevertheless the tale lags or
becomes confused, make a fresh start by bringing on brigands. This habit
of mind, and not the incidental satire, explains the narrative looseness.
Apuleius is no Rabelais; he is only a facile second-century rhetor
carrying the rhetorical fiction of his time to greater length. In style,
though habitually diffuse, he is sometimes charming and often lively; but
in composition he merely extends a meretricious convention.
During his lifetime Iamblichus wrote the _Babylonica_, or Rhodanes
and Sinonis (166-180); and, soon after, Chariton of Aphrodisias the
_Chæreas and Calirrhoe_ (before 200).[72] Thus was established the mode
followed later by Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius, the perverted narrative
known as the Greek Romances. Any one who has the patience for these
phantasmagoria of passion, horror, and adventure will see their likeness
to the _Metamorphoses_ of Apuleius, and will probably reproach him the
more for ignoring that onward causal movement without which the art of
narrative seems to lapse.
FOOT-NOTES:
[1] See F. B. Gummere’s _Beginnings of Poetry_. The controversy which was
spread by the Homeric studies of Wolf, has lately shifted to the popular
ballad. See G. L. Kittredge’s introduction to his one-volume selection of
the _English and Scottish Popular Ballads_ from the collection of Child,
Boston, 1904, and the recent studies of Professor Louise Pound. J. A.
Scott maintains _The Unity of Homer_ in his University of California
Lectures, 1921.
[2] C. S. Baldwin, _Introduction to English Medieval Literature_, New
York, 1914, pages 16-18.
[3] As I write, Knut Hamson’s _The Growth of the Soil_ has just been
called epic.
[4] _Poetic_, xxiv.
[5] Aristotle, _Poetic_, xxiv. See page 158 above.
[6] _Poetic_, xxiv.
[7] See above, page 106.
[8] Opening of the _Étude sur Virgile_.
[9] _Lectures on Poetry_, London, 1911.
[10] “Vergil,” in _Great Writers_, New York, 1912.
[11] W. Y. Sellar in _The Roman Poets of the Augustan Age, Virgil_,
Oxford (3d edition), 1908, analyzes under convenient headings Vergil’s
position in Latin literature. Henry Nettleship’s discussions in _Lectures
and Essays_, Oxford, 1875, 1885, have not been superseded, though they
have evidently been suggestive to more recent critics. Sainte-Beuve’s
_Étude sur Virgile_, Paris, n. d., and T. R. Glover’s _Virgil_, London,
1904 (4th edition, 1920), appeal more to the general reader. R. Y.
Tyrrell’s chapter in his _Latin Poetry_, Boston, 1895, is unsympathetic
with Vergil the artist. Most of the innumerable editions of the _Æneid_
have little to say of his poetic art. This is specifically the subject
of M. Marjorie Crump’s _The Growth of the Æneid_, Oxford, 1920, which,
though little developed, is a distinct contribution to technical study.
But _the_ book on Vergilian epic is the exhaustive work of Richard
Heinze, _Virgils epische Technik_, Leipzig, 1902 (2d edition. 1908, 3d
edition, 1915). References are to pages of the third edition.
[12] Heinze, 319, compares in this aspect the Homeric duel of Paris and
Menelaus with _Æneid_ xii. Typically, he points out, Vergil’s “Handlung
fortschreitet,” and the composition is “szenenhaft.”
[13] Paul LeJay, _L’Énéide_, Paris, 1919, page lix. Heinze, 381, shows
the minuteness of this care in cases where two scenes are chronologically
parallel. One of the two is always subordinated; and the first to be
presented is always carried to a state of rest before turning to the
second.
[14] Heinze, 361.
[15] The exactness, brilliancy, and range of Vergil’s color words are
studied by T. R. Price, _The Color-System of Vergil_, American Journal
of Philology, volume 4, number 13 (1882). See the more extensive work
of Hugo Blümner, _Die Farbenbezeichnungen bei den römischen Dichtern_,
Berliner Studien, volume 13 (1891).
[16] This is the technical secret of the distinction that Sainte-Beuve
expresses as “sobriété ... rien que le nécessaire,” _Étude sur Virgile_,
93.
[17] Glover, 16, repeats Henry’s praise of
Quale per incertam lunam sub luce maligna. VI. 270.
Surcharged precision intensifies
Lucet via longo
Ordine flammarum, et late discriminat agros. XI. 143.
But the same distinctness, at once precise and picturesque, may be found
almost anywhere in the _Æneid_; it is Vergil’s habit, and it is never
obtrusive.
[18] Lessing, _Laokoön_, especially chapters xvi and xvii.
[19] Heinze, 406.
[20] The famous description of the harbor under the cliffs (Est in
secessu longo locus. I. 159) is really less characteristic than
Adspirant auræ in noctem, nec candida cursus
Luna negat; splendet tremulo sub lumine pontus. VII. 8.
[21] Heinze, 396.
[22] Heinze, 374.
[23] Heinze cites the handling of Fama in IV, and of Allecto in VII.
[24] See above, page 199.
[25] Heinze, 94. Miss Crump analyzes the probable changes of revision.
Her theory that Book III survives from an earlier plan in which it stood
first, and that Vergil probably intended to revise it entirely, has
grave difficulties.
[26] Paul LeJay, _L’Énéide_, lxviii; Heinze, 263. For the detail of the
composition of single books and groups see also Heinze, 180, 448, 453.
For instances of peripety, see Heinze, 223, 323.
[27] Heinze, 120, is hardly extravagant in maintaining that this is
beyond any other ancient achievement of the kind.
[28] Heinze, 133.
[29] Woodberry, 132. See also J. R. Green, “Æneas, a Virgilian Study” in
_Stray Studies from England and Italy_, 227.
[30] Heinze, 271 seq.; W. Warde Fowler, _The Religious Experience of the
Roman People_, lecture xviii.
[31] Ovid (_Tristia_, II. 535) says that the fourth book was the most
popular.
[32] Sellar, 395. For careful discussion of this whole aspect of Vergil’s
diction, see Heinze, 410-427.
[33] That even Dido’s desperate plea, as well as the calm reply of Æneas,
proceeds from point to point, not all readers will agree with Heinze
(425-6, on _Æneid_ IV. 305). The variations of rhythm in this passage
would surely be used by a sympathetic reciter to suggest agitation.
But Vergil’s general neglect of the familiar means of asyndeton and
hyperbaton (see, for example, _De sublimitate_, xxi-xxii) to suggest
emotional disorder shows a characteristic distrust of incoherence.
[34] Heinze, 279.
[35] How freely Latin authors transferred it to poetic may be seen in
Horace’s _Ars Poetica_ (see below, Chapter viii). Compare Plutarch,
_Quomodo adolesc._, x, below, page 244.
[36] Sellar, 101, quotes Comparetti: “an elaboration of language which
disdains or is unable to say a plain thing in a plain way.”
[37] See above, page 210.
[38] “During all the years in which Virgil brooded over it and wrought
upon it, he kept his material ... in fusion, not crystallized and
hardened into final shape” (Mackail, 78); i.e., he continued to adjust.
[39] _Eximios tauros_, _farre pio_, etc., noted, among other critics,
by E. Nageotte, _Histoire de la littérature latine_, 334. Apropos of
Vergil’s incomparable command of the resources of his language, Nageotte
adds happily that a “tache de rouille antique a son effet prévu dans la
gamme des couleurs environnantes” (324).
[40] Woodberry, 125.
[41] Woodberry, 111.
[42] See above, page 206.
[43] See above, page 205.
[44] See above, page 203.
[45] Ovid has a large place in every comprehensive history of Latin
literature (e.g., in W. Y. Sellar’s volume on _Horace and the Elegiac
Poets_ in his _Roman Poets of the Augustan Age_, Oxford, 1892), and is
discussed at least briefly in the compends (e.g., C. T. Cruttwell’s
_History of Roman Literature_, American edition, New York, 1890).
The last edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica has an extensive
appreciation by S. G. Owen, whose critical edition of _Tristia_ provides
a bibliography of Ovidiana. Of English translations the most accessible
are those in the Loeb Classical Library: of _Heroides_ and _Amores_
by Grant Showerman, of _Metamorphoses_ by F. J. Miller, both with
introductions and bibliographical notes.
[46]
Sponte sua carmen numeros veniebat ad aptos,
Et quod tentabam dicere versus erat.
_Tristia_, IV. x. 25.
is almost as familiar as “lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.”
[47]
Morsque minus pœnæ quam mora mortis habet.
_Heroides_, x. 82.
[48]
Ilia, pone metus; tibi regia nostra patebit,
Teque colent amnes. Ilia, pone metus.
Tu centum plures inter dominabere nymphas;
Nam centum aut plures flumina nostra tenent.
_Amores_, iii. 6, 61.
Rime in Latin elegiac poetry is well summarized by K. P. Harrington in
his volume of edited selections, _The Roman Elegiac Poets_, New York,
1914, page 61.
[49] E.g., at the close of _Heroides_, ix, Impia quid dubitas Deianira
mori? in line 146 is repeated in lines 152, 158, 164, i.e., in every
sixth line.
[50] E.g., _Metam._ xi. 494.
[51] _Metam._ vii. 826.
[52] _Ars Amat._ i. 729.
[53] _Metam._ i. 89, _Amores_, iii. 8, 35.
[54] _Metam._ iv. 320.
[55] _Amores_, i. 13. 3.
[56] See, for example, Rudolph Schevill, _Ovid and the Renascence in
Spain_, University of California Publications in Modern Philology, vol.
4, number 1 (November, 1913), pages 24 and 95.
[57] _Troilus and Criseyde_, iii. 1415-1470.
[58] _Romeo and Juliet_, III. v.
[59] Owen in Encyclopedia Britannica speaks of Ovid as “the most
brilliant representative of Roman Alexandrinism.”
[60] A typical ἔκφρασις is “dira lues” in _Metam._ vii. 523.
[61] E.g., Byblis in _Metam._ ix. 474, Myrrha in _Metam._ x. 320.
[62] Discussed above in Chapter IV. II. Cruttwell says of the _Heroides_:
“They are erotic suasoriæ, based on the declamations of the schools.”
_History of Roman Literature_, 306; and Heinze, “die Gattung der
poetischen _declamatio_ inaugurierte.” _Virgils epische Technik_, 434.
Cf. Sellar, 331, 356; Carl Brück, _De Ovidio scholasticarum declamationum
imitatore_, Munich, 1909.
[63] _Metam._ ii. 33.
[64] Iris, Tisiphone, Luctus, Pavor, Terror. _Metam._ iv. 480. The method
seen more largely in Invidia (_Metam._ ii. 760), essentially a school
exercise, passed through the _Roman de la Rose_ into medieval habit.
[65] Heinze discusses more generally the rhetorical habit of Ovid in
_Virgils epische technik_, 434.
[66] See above, page 126.
[67] _History of Roman Literature_, 309.
[68] Encyclopedia Britannica.
[69] Apuleius, born about 125 A.D., and probably educated at Carthage,
where he passed much of his life, became a rhetor at Rome about 150, and
soon thereafter published the _Metamorphoses_. _Florida_ is the title
given to a collection of excerpts from what we should call his lectures
(see Chapter VIII, 230). Nettleship (in an essay on Nonius Marcellus,
_Lectures and Essays_, 282) calls him “a very striking representative
of his age.” Though his work is largely translation or compilation,
he has caught the fancy of several English _literati_, and was made
by Pater one of the _personæ_ in the twentieth chapter of _Marius the
Epicurean_. Adlington’s translation (1566) of the _Metamorphoses_ has
been reprinted with an introduction by Seccombe, and revised for the Loeb
Classical Library by Gaselee. The separable Cupid and Psyche chapters
(Books IV-VI), often translated, appear in the fifth chapter of Pater’s
_Marius_, and have been again translated by Purser (London, 1910), with
a suggestive introduction on Apuleius as a rhetor. Butler has translated
also the _Florida_.
[70] “L’art de composition faiblit, comme il arrive toujours quand la
sincérité du sentiment diminue; car c’est la préoccupation sincère
d’une idée dominante qui maintient d’un bout à l’autre l’unité de ton
et l’harmonie; quand le bel esprit l’emporte, il s’amuse aux détails,
il s’attache au ‘morceau,’ et n’a plus la force de lier l’ensemble.”
Croiset, _Histoire de la littérature grecque_, vol. V (_Période
Alexandrine_), page 158.
[71] See Chapter IV. II.
[72] These dates are taken from Wolff’s admirable summary of the Greek
Romances as an Alexandrian derivative in the opening chapter of his
_Greek Romances in Elizabethan Fiction_ (New York, 1912, Columbia
University Press).
CHAPTER VIII
RHETORIC IN ANCIENT CRITICISM OF POETIC
A. THE PERVASIVENESS OF RHETORIC
The Aristotelian distinction of poetic from rhetoric has been sometimes
blurred, sometimes ignored, by criticism. Such confusion as thus arises
became more common in ancient criticism with the waning of ancient art;
it was widespread in the middle age; it has reappeared many times since
the Renaissance.[1] For consistent development of poetic as a technic
distinct from rhetoric is beyond the occasion of most criticism, whether
ancient or modern. At an ebb tide of creation especially, the average
critic is likely to confine his observations to style; and there the two
technics have much common ground. Even in criticism of composition we
have seen often in our own time such familiar terms as unity, emphasis,
and coherence restricted to their rhetorical definitions, and yet imposed
in these senses on composition whose actual control was quite different.
The unity of the _Ancient Mariner_, for instance, has been interpreted as
the logical control of the proposition “He prayeth best who loveth best,”
though surely that composition was unified quite otherwise. Or the term
coherence is permitted to suggest that the progress of Burke’s speech
on _Conciliation_ from paragraph to paragraph is like the progress
of _Othello_ from scene to scene, though the two technics have little
resemblance. Such warping of poetic has sometimes been even urged by
ancient or modern schoolmasters and text-books. It has seemed thrifty
to make Molière, for instance, exhibit those principles of composition
which pupils must use in writing essays upon him. But even without
such pedagogical perversion it is easy to think of poetic in terms of
rhetoric; for rhetoric is in everybody’s head.
It was so much more a preoccupation of ancient thought that the
conception of poetic as a distinct movement seems to have become less
and less active. Though a few critics, even under the Empire, held the
Aristotelian distinction, generally ancient poetic was more and more
warped toward rhetoric. With rhetoric determining education, with even
Cicero and Tacitus discussing poetic as contributory, with the later
_declamatores_ habitually blending the two, with even poets yielding
to the common tendency, poetic could hardly be conceived often as a
distinct movement of composition. While Vergil’s art revealed a critical
conception unknown to Seneca and Lucan, Horace could repeat Aristotle
without following his distinctive idea. Cicero and Tacitus, best of Latin
critics, naturally contemplate in poetic rather its imagery than its
movement;[2] and Quintilian,[3] even more naturally, explores only its
treasures available for orators. That ancient criticism never lost the
Aristotelian distinction altogether appears in the anonymous and undated
_De sublimitate_[4] and in a few of the many words of Dio Chrysostom;[5]
but Plutarch’s poetic is indistinguishable from rhetoric.
B. CRITICISM FROM GRAMMARIANS
The overwhelming preponderance of rhetoric in ancient critical thought
followed naturally from the dominance of rhetoric in education.[6]
Formal schooling in poetic, what we now call primary instruction in
literature, began with _grammaticus_,[7] and he was committed in advance
to preparing his boys for their studies in rhetoric. With his task of
inculcating correctness in reading, speaking, and writing were associated
his lectures (_prælectiones_) on the poets. Though these may often, given
the highly selected group of students, have done much for appreciation
of literature, they can hardly have ranged far in poetic. _Grammaticus_
probably confined himself in most cases to what is known in French
schools as _explication des textes_. Within its limits this is admirable;
but given the age of the pupils and their specific object, it cannot
often have gone beyond words and sentences into the poetic composition of
the whole. Criticism _ad hoc_, the detailed study of a particular poem
passage by passage, is a method not only necessary for schooling, but
valuable more widely. By sheer prevalence it must always be influential;
illumination must in fact have come oftener from such interpretation
than from a systematic treatise on poetry. None the less it needs more
correction and extension from other forms of criticism than was usually
possible in the ancient world. By itself it tends toward a pedestrian
analysis of diction and toward emphasis on those aspects of poetic which
are available for rhetoric.
Criticism by labels, the classifying of authors by accepted adjectives,
is not, unfortunately, confined either to antiquity or to grammarians.
A certain amount of criticism, apparently, must always be devoted to
telling people what they ought to say. But the classifying habit seems
to have been especially prevalent in ancient criticism. At any rate, the
labels affixed by grammarians were widely repeated. Even so discerning a
critic as Quintilian thus makes his tenth book a convenient “survey.” The
satisfaction of an audience in neat and recognizable characterization is
given by Apuleius.
“Any speech composed by Avitus will be found everywhere
so consistently perfect that Cato would not miss in it
his dignity, nor Laelius his smoothness, nor Gracchus his
vehemence, nor Cæsar his warmth, nor Hortensius his clear plan,
nor Calvus his subtleties, nor Sallust his conciseness, nor
Cicero his richness.” Apuleius, _Apologia_.
Each orator has the right label, as in a cram-book; and the same
classifying neatness disposes of the poetic of Philemon.
“You who are sufficiently acquainted with his talent, hear
briefly of his end. Or will you hear somewhat also of his
talent? This Philemon was a poet, a writer of the Middle
Comedy. He wrote pieces for the stage in the time of Menander,
and in competition with him, perhaps not as an equal, but
certainly as a rival. In these contests, I am sorry to say,
he was often the winner. At any rate, you will find in him
much that is piquant, plots neatly woven, recognitions clearly
unfolded, characters adequate to the action, thoughts approved
by experience, humor not too low for comedy, seriousness not
involving tragedy. Seductions in his plays are rare; even
legitimate loves are treated as aberrations. None the less he
shows the perjured pimp, the passionate lover, the shrewd
slave, the deceiving mistress, the interfering wife, the
indulgent mother, the scolding uncle, the conniving crony, the
bellicose soldier, not to mention greedy parasites, stingy
fathers, and voluble harlots.” Apuleius, _Florida_, XVI.
Nor was the habit confined to rhetors. It was widespread in the “three
styles”[8] of oratory, in the ten canonical Attic orators, in “Asianism”
versus “Atticism,” in the bias of even Dionysius of Halicarnassus[9]
toward classification. True, it appears generally in criticism of
rhetoric, and is common enough in modern times; but in ancient criticism
it amounts to a preoccupation,[10] and is more readily carried over into
poetic.
Grammar in those wider reaches now comprehended in the term philology has
much to contribute to the criticism of older poets. Theon, for instance,
whose manual of school exercises (προγυμνάσματα[11]) has come down to
us from the time of Augustus, annotated with _scholia_ the tragic and
the comic poets. The tradition of the Alexandrian grammarians included,
besides syntax and exegesis, textual criticism. But such criticism
depends for much of its value on science little explored by the ancients;
and typically it makes little contribution to poetic.[12] By no good
fortune, then, “philology and poetry went hand in hand in the ancient and
classical literature of Italy.”[13] The result of this companionship was
not, indeed, always nor necessarily so arid and confined as the criticism
of the second-century lexicographer Aulus Gellius;[14] but at most it had
little range.
C. CRITICISM FROM PROFESSIONAL PUBLIC SPEAKERS
Not only did the prevalence of rhetoric make poetic generally subsidiary,
but the prevalence of _declamatio_[15] in later teaching and practise
tended actually to confuse the two. This rhetoric was itself largely
poetic, largely an art of appeal by description. Sometimes carrying
descriptive dialogue into a sort of oral fiction, it had no occasion for
poetic movement. The pattern of a speech sufficed as well as another
where the opportunity was less of the whole than of the parts.[16]
Immediate popular oral effects were then, as now, gained rather by
stinging epigrams and dramatic realizations than by any onward course.
The poetic that shall win a crowd on the spot is more likely than the
poetic that shall be savored by individual readers to be sensational.
Sensational in fact it was commonly, to judge by examples ranging all the
way from Seneca’s _Controversiæ_ well into the Christian centuries.
Even those rhetors who were not sensational in their own practise were
little more likely, in a time of such preoccupations, to conceive poetic
distinctively; and rhetors purveyed, among other things, literary
criticism. Besides teaching and exhibiting at home, the more popular
rhetors traveled as occasional orators and lecturers. Though their
speeches were oftenest, of course, occasional, and, when they were
rather lectures, were commonly in the fields of philosophy and ethics,
still professional public speakers must have purveyed, at home and on
their journeys, a good deal of the current literary criticism. Where
this was incidental, it need not be taken too seriously. No device of
public speaking is more persistent than the flattering of an audience
by literary allusions and accepted adjectives of admiration.[17] Such
passages, in ancient speeches or in modern, show merely what is regarded
as the right thing to say, and are almost always limited to style. But
where a rhetor develops a literary topic, even for a paragraph or two, he
may be as significant as any other literary critic.
The particular rhetor might be a teacher of rhetoric primarily,
or secondarily, or hardly at all. Though he hardly ranked as a
philosopher,[18] yet he was an active purveyor of philosophy. An expert
in public address, he professed a variety of considerable range.
Occasional oratory of itself invites ranging in both emotion and thought.
Conventional as he appears when considered merely as one of a numerous
class, he might nevertheless be an outstanding individual; and even as a
type he was at least accomplished and influential.
Apuleius, lively and daring enough in his narrative,[19] seems in the
excerpts preserved from his oratory quite conventional. The _Florida_
show certain typical _encomia_, two passages of critical labels, three
long pieces on philosophy, and several of those _exordia_ which traveling
lecturers prepared, and still prepare, for extempore adaptation. If
the Great Unknown’s _De sublimitate_[20] was a public address—and its
suggestiveness is strongly oral—its author rose quite above the type
without losing the typical opportunity of oral criticism. One may fancy
the close of that noble appeal echoing long in the ears of a rapt
audience. But without any flight of fancy one may read the possibilities
of ancient oral criticism in certain of the orations of Dio of Prusa,
often called Dio Chrysostom.[21]
(1). _Dio of Prusa_
Dio’s speech known as the Olympic, and having for subtitle The Primary
Conception of God, opens with a proem characteristic of the form, an
introduction separable, adjustable, ostensibly impromptu, but none the
less following a type. A fable of the owl—occasional oratory seems
inevitably to begin with a story—leads to other proverbs, to historical
allusions, to the speaker’s profession of modesty, sincerity, and
homeliness. “I am just come from the Getæ. Shall I tell you about this
interesting people?” A rhetor’s offering the choice of theme to the
audience might be merely conventional; for Dio effectively recalls it by
adding: “Here at Olympia, beside your wondrous statue of the Olympian,
shall I not rather speak of Zeus himself?”
So is approached a discourse upon embodiments of deity in poetry and
in sculpture, a lecture carefully conducted from point to point, and
delivered doubtless in these words, certainly by this plan, in more than
one welcoming city. Such a prepared address needed only the adjustment of
the proem to the place and the occasion.[22] The lecture itself remained
substantially the same. This one makes first the following points.
The knowledge of Zeus comes through nature; men become aware of
him as the nourisher of them all. To such realization is added
that of poetry, of cult, and finally of the arts of painting
and sculpture, not to mention the theories of the philosophers.
Limiting ourselves to poetry and sculpture, let us begin
(49) with Phidias, whose marvelous statue here compels our
admiration. Does this statue embody deity truly?
That question was answered to the Athenians of the same generation quite
differently, by a speaker less different than his conclusion, a Roman Jew
of Tarsus, one Paul. Dio goes on, after an encomium of Phidias:
Phidias might well reply that it is true to tradition as that
is conceived and defined by the poets (55-57), that since
we yearn for a personal divine, the human body is its best
expression, and that Homer too (62) made his gods human.
There follows a comparison of sculpture with poetry (70). Though this
stresses unduly, perhaps, the mere range of verbal suggestion, it make
none the less clearly a fundamental distinction.
“Again, besides this, the very conditions of working out a
conception in sculpture impose one form for each statue, a form
immovable and permanent, [yet] such as to comprehend in itself
the god’s whole nature and power; but poets may easily include
in their poetic many forms and all sorts of shapes, for they
add such movements or repose as they think appropriate to each
moment, actions too, words, and finally, I think, the illusion
of time.”
So (Phidias is supposed to go on) my Zeus, embodying in a
single representation the typical Greek conception (74) of
the ruler of an ordered world, shows him as gentle, grave,
serene, as giver, father, savior, protector, and yet does not
exclude his other aspects (75). How could I represent him (78)
continually hurling the thunderbolt, sending rain or stretching
the rainbow, renewing battle-lust? Our art is adjusted to the
immediate and clear test of actual seeing (79).
An encomium of Phidias, a _discours de circonstance_, has been made
to involve two large principles of artistic theory. The first is
ethical, expressing a fundamental relation of art to human life. Art,
and especially poetry, is a revelation to us of what we vaguely feel
to be divine; it interprets communal experience as communal vision.
The second is æsthetic, deriving a difference of technic from the
fundamental difference between stimulating mental images by successive
verbal suggestions, visual, auditory, motor, and actually representing
to the eye alone all together and all at once. While poetry ranges
through successive suggestions, sculpture focuses statically by typical
representation. Though it is easy to read into these principles from
modern criticism more than Dio intended, they can hardly be regarded as
less than penetrative and fundamental. The first, often reaffirmed in
modern times and sometimes apparently rediscovered, is often implied in
ancient criticism. Dio’s contribution is to formulate it explicitly, and
to express it with unusual warmth. The second is clear, though less
explicit, in Aristotle’s _Poetic_. It is ignored by both Horace and
Plutarch.[23] As Dio’s words went down the ancient wind, so Lessing’s
almost identical distinction[24] has not precluded much bland modern
confusion of the arts.
More and more a moralist as his life advanced, turning from rhetor
into preacher, Dio nevertheless maintains a variety reminding us that
this form of oratory had great range. The prelude of his _Euboica_,
extensively descriptive of simple frontier life, is almost a short
story. Quite different from the conventional expatiation, which Dio
elsewhere does not despise, it shows him expert not only in the theory
of narrative, but also in its practise. Some of his discourses are
less speeches than what we should call essays. The one on Practise in
Speaking[25] is in topics, plan, and style quite conventional. The
remarkable one on Greek drama is as it stands an essay in literary
criticism. By the insertion of recited passages it could easily and
effectively have been expanded into a lecture; but even without these it
is both sustained and suggestive.
DIO CHRYSOSTOM, ORATIO LII
ÆSCHYLUS, SOPHOCLES, AND EURIPIDES, OR THE BOW OF PHILOCTETES
1. [I rose early, walked, meditated, prayed, exercised, bathed,
breakfasted.] 2. I chanced upon certain tragedies of the
masters, Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, all upon the
same theme. It is that of the theft of the bow and arrows of
Philoctetes—perhaps one should say the seizure. At any rate,
Philoctetes was deprived of his arms by Odysseus, and himself
brought to Troy, largely of his own free will, partly also by
the persuasion of necessity, since he was bereft of the arms
which provided at once his living on the island, his courage
in such disease, and his glory. 3. Well, I feasted on the
spectacle, and I reflected that even if I had been at Athens
in their time, I could not have seen all three great men in
competition. Some, indeed, did see the competition of the young
Sophocles with the old Æschylus, and of the older Sophocles
with the younger Euripides; but Euripides was quite outside of
the generation of Æschylus, and competed with him seldom, if
ever, in the same drama. My having all three to read together
seemed a revel, and a fresh consolation for my inability [to
see them].
4. Well, I imagined myself putting the plays on quite
splendidly, and tried to fix my attention as a judge of the
first tragic choruses. But though I had taken my oath, I could
not have given a decision; nor, for all me, would any of those
masters have been held inferior. The greatness of mind in
Æschylus and his sense of tradition, as well as his austerity
of thought and expression, seemed appropriate to tragedy and to
the ancient heroic ethics—nothing contrived or glib or low. 5.
Even Odysseus he introduced as shrewd and crafty in the way of
that time, [a way] so far removed from the baseness of to-day
that what is really traditional [in Æschylus] seems beyond
those who now try to be simple and high-minded.
When Athena transforms him, nothing more is needed to keep
Philoctetes in ignorance of who he is. So Homer made the story,
and after him Euripides. Therefore, if some unfriendly critic
should accuse Æschylus of taking no care as to how Odysseus
shall be convincing without being recognized by Philoctetes,
(6) his defense, I think, would be as follows. While the
time was not, perhaps, so great that the character could not
be sustained (i.e., through ten years), yet the disease of
Philoctetes, his misery, and his having passed the interim in
a desert are sufficient to make plausible his not recognizing
Odysseus. For many have experienced the same lapse, some from
weakness, some from misfortune. No, the chorus had no need,
as in Euripides, to excuse themselves to him. 7. Both [poets]
represented the chorus as composed of Lemnians. Euripides has
made them at once apologize for their former neglect because
for so many years they had not come to Philoctetes or helped
him at all. Æschylus simply brought on the chorus—a method far
more tragic as well as simpler, whereas that of Euripides is
more oratorical and precise. If [dramatists] could escape all
absurdities in their tragedies, perhaps there would be reason
for not neglecting this; but actually they make their heralds
accomplish in one day several days’ journey. 8. Now the case
was not quite that none of the Lemnians came to him or gave him
any care. Probably he would not have passed ten years without
finding any help at all. Probably he did find it, though
rarely and of no great account; and no one chose to take him
in and tend him because of the loathsomeness of his disease.
Euripides, forsooth, out of his own head introduces Actor, one
of the Lemnians, as an acquaintance who went out to Philoctetes
and often helped him.
9. Neither does it seem to me that any one can justly find
fault with making [Philoctetes] narrate to the chorus, as
if they did not know it, his abandonment by the Achæans and
everything else that happened to him; for an unfortunate is
wont to recount his mishaps often, even to those who know them
in detail, and wearies those who have no need to hear his woes
by telling them over and over again. Moreover the deceit of
Odysseus toward Philoctetes, and the arguments by which he
induces him, are not only more in character, such as befit a
hero and unlike the pleas of Eurybatus or Patæcion, but also, I
think, more convincing. 10. For what need was there of manifold
art and device with a sick man, and a bowman at that, whose
strength became useless so soon as one but stood near? And
the announcing of the mishaps of the Achæans, that Agamemnon
was dead, that Odysseus was to blame most disgracefully, that
the army had perished utterly—all this is not only useful for
putting Philoctetes in a good humor and disposing him to accept
the speech of Odysseus, but is not in any wise improbable,
considering the length of the campaign and what had happened
not long before through the wrath of Achilles, when Hector
almost went to burn the beached ships.
11. The intelligence of Euripides, that unfailing care which
neither leaves anything unconvincing or unprovided nor simply
uses actions but [uses them] with all force in the expression,
is as it were the converse of the habit of Æschylus, being
most oratorical, most rhetorical, most available for the use
of debaters. At the very beginning, for instance, Odysseus
has been represented in the prologue as revolving in his mind
political enthymemes and at first doubtful of himself, lest
while he seems to the crowd to be wise and distinguished in
intelligence, he may be the opposite. 12. It is open to him to
live unfretted and inactive; but his wish is to be always in
deeds and dangers. The cause of this, he says, is his emulation
of men goodly and noble. For these who are bent on good report
and universal fame willingly undertake the greatest and most
difficult toils. “Nothing is born so proud as man.” Then
sapiently and precisely he discloses the plot of the drama and
why he has come to Lemnos. 13. He says he has been transformed
by Athena so that when he meets Philoctetes he shall not be
recognized. (Euripides imitates Homer in this; for Homer had
Odysseus transformed by Athena when he met not only others,
but even Eumæus and Penelope.) He says an embassy is about to
come from the Trojans to Philoctetes, to ask that he offer them
himself and his arms in return for the kingship of Troy. [Thus
Euripides] makes the action more various and invents occasions
for the arguments by which, when he turns them the other way
around, Odysseus seems most resourceful and most sufficient for
anything.
14. He has represented Odysseus as arriving not alone, but with
Diomed (Homeric this, too). All in all, as I said, through
all the drama, he displays the greatest intelligence and
plausibility in action, extraordinary and marvellous force
in the speeches, dialogue at once sapient and natural and
oratorical, and lyrics that not only please, but also strongly
move to virtue.
15. Sophocles seems to be between the two, having neither
the austerity and singleness of Æschylus nor the precision
and sharpness and oratorical cast of Euripides, but a grave
and magnificent poetic embracing all that is most tragic and
most eloquent, uniting the greatest charm with sublimity
and gravity. For his action he has used the best and most
convincing plan, representing Odysseus as arriving with
Neoptolemus, since it was fated that Troy should be taken by
Neoptolemus and by Philoctetes using the bow of Hercules. [He
has] Odysseus concealed, but Neoptolemus sending to Philoctetes
and advising him what to do. He has made the chorus not, as
Æschylus and Euripides, Lemnians, but shipmates of Odysseus and
Neoptolemus.
16. The characters are marvellously grave and free. That
of Odysseus is much gentler and more single than Euripides
has made it; that of Neoptolemus, surpassingly single
and high-bred, first when he wishes to get the better of
Philoctetes not by craft and deceit, but by force and in the
open, then when at the instance of Odysseus he has deceived him
and got possession of the weapons. When Philoctetes becomes
aware and urges a cheated man’s reproaches, Neoptolemus is
so moved that he is about to give them back; and even when
Odysseus intervenes, still at last he gives them, and as he
gives them tries by argument to make Philoctetes go to Troy of
his own free will.
17. When Philoctetes will in no wise yield nor be persuaded,
but begs Neoptolemus to keep his promise of taking him back
to Greece, he undertakes that and is ready to do it, till the
intervention of Hercules wins the consent of Philoctetes to
embark for Troy. The lyrics have not so much of the sententious
and hortatory as those of Euripides, but a marvellous charm
and magnificence. Not at random Aristophanes said of him: “The
mouth of Sophocles is anointed with honey, as if he had licked
the box.”
Conventional as this is in making the usual contrast between Æschylus and
Euripides, with Sophocles as a golden mean, it defines these distinctions
afresh with suggestive precision. Moreover, the essay is free from the
usual preoccupation with diction. What is said on that point, though
not original, is tersely subordinated. If the manuscript is complete,
therefore, the close upon the quotation from Aristophanes gives a false
emphasis; for the criticism as a whole is quite different from the usual
comparison of style with style.
Plot, indeed, is not developed extensively as a separate item; but it
is clearly implied in the treatment of characterization. The constant
theme is motivation, the bringing out of character through the movement
of the plot, the dramatic management of persons through interaction.
Thus Dio has made his criticism singularly consistent. Instead of merely
appreciating one dramatist after the other, he has made his comparison
progressive. The oral criticism uttered by Greek and Roman rhetors of
the Empire, we may guess from what has survived in manuscript, was not
often either so sustained or so free from the bias of rhetoric. Perhaps
Dio’s unusual grasp came from his missionary sense of the tradition of
Hellenism.
D. PLUTARCH’S _HOW YOUTH SHOULD READ POETRY_[26]
Literary criticism has often taken direction from philosophy. In ancient
criticism such a slant was habitual. Most ancient critics show definite
preoccupation with some school of philosophy.[27] For example, there
was a Stoic theory of style; and “the æsthetic theories of Panætius are
reproduced in the first book of Cicero’s _De officiis_.”[28] Such cases
are typical even to the involving of æsthetics with ethics; for ancient
literary criticism, more generally and avowedly than modern, is ethical.
Aristotle is almost alone in proposing for poetic principles frankly
æsthetic. The general tendency of ancient criticism is to give poetic
a moral color. This ethical direction of critical thought confirmed
the tendency to conceive poetic in terms of rhetoric. Not only are the
implications of rhetoric inevitably moral, but the theories of rhetoric
associated with ancient theories of morals were often extended to include
even poetic expression. Ancient poetic was thus rhetoricated partly by
being moralized.
An extreme instance of this ancient habit is Plutarch’s Greek treatise of
the first century, _How Youth Should Read Poetry_. Here the familiar idea
that poetry is a means of ethical education is so expounded as to reveal
the limits of Plutarch’s conception. He is not merely, as _grammaticus_
commenting Homer in school, offering poetry as a propædeutic to
philosophy; he is repeating a narrow and commonplace æsthetic. His
treatment of imitation, ignoring Aristotle’s use of that term,[29] has
in mind faithfulness to fact. Ignoring also the Aristotelian idea of
poetic movement, he repeats the commonplace and misleading analogy from
painting[30] with a barren literalness.
“We shall still more thoroughly ground the young man, if, on
introducing him to poetry, we explain to him that it is an
imitative art and agent, analogous to painting. Not only must
he be made acquainted with the common saying that poetry
is vocal painting, and painting silent poetry, but we must
also teach him that when we see a painting of a lizard, an
ape, or the face of Thersites, our pleasure and surprise
are occasioned, not by the beauty of the object, but by the
likeness of the painting to it.... In such instances it is
especially important that the young man come to understand that
we do not praise the action imitated, but the art, provided the
subject is treated accurately.”[31]
Poetry is pictorial in this sense not to authors whose creative bent
is distinctively dramatic or narrative, but to the describers and
expatiators, not to Vergil, but to Ovid.
For this narrow conception of poetic truth Plutarch’s recurring
terms[32] are not merely narrow; they are distinctly rhetorical. They
are the very ones commonly used by rhetoricians to describe success in
_prosopopœia_,[33] or characterization according to type. That Plutarch
means them so is clear in section x on characterization in Homer.
“It is worth while, in this connection, to notice the conduct
of Agamemnon; for he passes Sthenelus by without noticing him,
yet he does not neglect Odysseus, but answers him, ‘seeing how
he was wroth, and took back his saying.’ Had he apologized to
all, he would have appeared undignified and servile, and had he
disdained all, arrogant and unreasonable.... It is also a good
idea to take notice of the difference between the ways in which
a discreet man and a pompous soothsayer addresses a crowd. Thus
Calchas.... One should notice as well the differences in racial
characteristics. For example, the Trojans rush ferociously to
battle with savage cries, but the Greeks ‘in silence feared
their captains’; for to fear officers in the presence of the
enemy is the mark of heroism and obedience.... Hence foresight
is Grecian and civil; rashness, barbaric and rude; the one to
be emulated, the other to be avoided.”
In a word, Plutarch’s moralizing of poetic is definitely rhetorical.
For the schools of philosophy generally poetic was incidental to the
consideration of diction; for him it was indistinguishable in method.
E. HORACE’S _ARS POETICA_
That the unsystematic epistolary reflections of a Latin poet on poetry
should for centuries have influenced criticism of poetic more than the
searching analysis and consecutive synthesis of the greatest Greek
philosopher has seemed strange to the point of irony. Not only was
Horace quoted while Aristotle was forgotten, but even after the recovery
of the _Poetic_ he was quoted still. He is quotable. He abounds in
_sententiæ_; and they have a long life. Though he would have been himself
the first to smile at the putting of his epistle to the Pisos beside
Aristotle’s _Poetic_, he knew none the less the sort of criticism that
people like. We have been often reminded that _Ars Poetica_ is neither
Horace’s title nor accurately descriptive. But it is a title naturally
given by grammarians who hardly conceived poetic as a distinct technic,
and naturally accepted by readers who found Horace’s epigrams no less
suggestive because they were detached. Certainly the epistle is not an
_ars_; but certainly its criticism has enough shrewdness, lucidity,
brilliancy, adaptability to the short flights of ordinary thinking on the
subject, to explain all its popularity. One need not be cynical to think
that the poetic of a Horace will usually be more popular than the poetic
of an Aristotle.
At the risk of wronging Horace, his editors and other critics have tried
to brief this epistle. Wickham,[34] for instance, finds three parts: (1)
1-118, “the original principles of poetry, unity of conception, choice
of words, style of diction;” (2) 119-284, characterization in drama,
the Greek practise of drama; (3) 285-end, “the two aims of poetry, the
necessity of excellence.” But this is not a division at all. Wilkins,[35]
admitting difficulties of sequence, even digressions and repetitions,
nevertheless finds “three main sections”: (1) 1-72, unity of style
and conception; (2) 73-288, application of “these general principles
... to the various kinds of poetry, and especially to the drama”; (3)
189-476, requisites for cultivating poetry, and difficulties. None of
these coincides with any of Wickham’s. Plessis[36] more cautiously
says: “His principal counsels are three: the importance of composition
and of the harmony of the parts, the supremacy of taste, perfection of
craftsmanship.” Three again, and again not the same three. Could there be
clearer proof that the epistle is not logical, nor even consecutive?
Since it is in fact one of the least consecutive of Horace’s epistles, so
expert a composer must have meant it to be taken, as it has been taken,
not as a logical progress, but as a collection of _sententiæ_. These,
whatever their particular source or sources,[37] may safely be taken as
generally current in Græco-Roman literary circles. Thus they have the
more significance; for Horace’s originality is hardly in conception. His
contribution to criticism, like Cicero’s, is in finality of phrase. The
maxims that have echoed so often down the corridors of criticism have the
carrying power of simplicity.
Denique sit quodvis, simplex dumtaxat et unum (23).
Lucidus ordo (41).
Non satis est pulchra esse poemata; dulcia sunto (99).
Si vis me flere, dolendum est
Primum ipsi tibi (102).
Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet (127).
Difficile est proprie communia dicere (128).
Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus (139).
Semper ad eventum festinat et in medias res
Non secus ac notas auditorem rapit (148).
Aut prodesse volunt aut delectare poetæ,
Aut simul et iucunda et idonea dicere vitæ (333).
Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci (343).
Ut pictura poesis (361).
Mediocribus esse poetis
Non homines, non di, non concessere columnæ (372).
Commonplaces some of these must have been even in Horace’s time; but they
have persisted in criticism because he stamped them.
The one that is most clearly a distinctive principle of poetic is the
familiar “_Semper ad eventum festinat_,” etc. (148). The idea of so
adjusting the time of the plot as to insure a significant beginning and
a continuous and accelerated movement up to an issue is central in Greek
drama. That Horace applies it to epic evinces no sharp discrimination
of technic. _Ut pictura poesis_ (361) is not, as in Plutarch,[38]
a comparison of the technic of poetry with that of painting; it
merely insists that a poem, as a picture, be judged according to its
kind, according to its specific object. Horace may, indeed, imply a
vindication of his own poems beside those of longer reach and more
sustained power; or he may be merely repeating his dominant idea of
appropriateness; but in either case he is not formulating a principle of
poetic. The rule of five acts (189), wherever he got it, is not vital.
Though he spends more time on drama than on any other mode, though he
uses Aristotle, he does not carry out the principle of dramatic movement.
The conception of characterization is clearly rhetorical,
“It will matter much whether a god speak or a hero, ripe age
or the ardor of budding youth, a matron of authority or an
anxious nurse, a traveling merchant or a farmer bound to his
field, a Colchian or an Assyrian, a Theban or an Argive. Follow
tradition, or invent what fits each character. If perchance
your poem revives time-honored Achilles, let the active,
touchy, stubborn, fierce hero think that laws were not made
for him, and rest his claim on arms. Let Medea be cruel and
unconquered, Ino tearful, Ixion faithless, Orestes gloomy.”
(114-124.)
“Each time of life demands your study of its habits. As natures
and years move on, you must assign to each what is appropriate.
The boy who is old enough to answer when he is spoken to, and
steps off firmly, yearns to play with his mates, takes offense
as quickly as he lays it by, and changes from hour to hour. The
beardless youth....” (156-178.)
and so on through Horace’s seven ages of man. Thus stripped of their
style, these counsels might have come from any classical rhetoric.
Nothing was more firmly fixed in the tradition of the schools than
characterization according to age, sex, race, occupation. Such
characterization by type suffices for _prosopopœia_ in school, for the
fathers and sons and pirates of _declamatio_, for even the spendthrifts
and slaves and parasites of Latin comedy; it does not suffice for Œdipus
or Neoptolemus, for Medea or Dido. Nor is the difference merely in
degree; it is in the distinctively poetic habit of creating. Poetic
movement, if Horace indeed glimpses it as distinct from that of rhetoric,
he does not fully define; poetic characterization he seems not to regard
as distinct at all.
Indeed, most of the _Ars Poetica_ applies equally to _ars rhetorica_.
Aut prodesse volunt aut delectare poetæ,
Aut simil et iucunda et idonea dicere vitæ (333-4).
If _oratores_ be substituted for _poetæ_ we have the familiar _docere_,
_delectare_ of rhetoric, as we have it in the summary _miscuit utile
dulci_ (343); and with Horace the _movere_ that remains hardly suggests
a different technic. _Si vis me flere, dolendum est_ (102) will be
found in Cicero and Quintilian. The counsel of congruity with which he
begins, and to which he reverts again and again, is a preoccupation of
ancient rhetoric. No better phrase has been found for the progress of a
speech than _lucidus ordo_ (41); and the _iunctura_ (47) to which it is
immediately applied is a term of _compositio_. In the thought of Horace’s
circle the distinction between rhetoric and poetic as two movements,
two ways of composing, seems to have been inactive. Rather Horace seems
to think of composition as generally constant throughout various forms,
and as involving mainly the control of conception by congruity and plan,
of expression by adaptation and finish. That such ideas were salutary
when _declamatio_ had begun to threaten both rhetoric and poetic, and
that they are salutary still, no one should deny; but they make no
contribution to the distinctive development of poetic.
Grammarians, rhetors, philosophers, men of letters seem thus to converge
under the Empire toward a poetic strongly tinged with rhetoric, no
longer distinct as a movement having its own technic. The inference,
though not conclusive, is suggestive as an hypothesis. Less conclusive,
but still suggestive, is the further inference that this habit of
critical thought was intensified in the specifically Latin tradition.
In sustained emotional movement the _Æneid_ is solitary; and even while
it was revered, its poetic seems less influential than that of Ovid.
Vergil had turned for his poetic from the newer Greek ways adopted by
his countrymen to the tradition interpreted by Aristotle. That older
tradition is no longer active in the poetic descending from the Roman
Empire through the Holy Roman Empire.
The ancient experience with rhetoric and with poetic is seen in
retrospect as typical. The theory of rhetoric as the energizing of
knowledge and the humanizing of truth is explicitly the philosophy of
Aristotle and implicitly that of Cicero, Tacitus, Quintilian. What the
later ancient professors of rhetoric had rather in mind is the training
of immediate personal effectiveness; and this theory of rhetoric as the
art of the speaker is at once as old as the other and as permanent. Its
name is sophistic. Aristotle deprecated it in his first chapter; St.
Augustine turned his back on it at the end of the ancient world; but
meantime it had been for centuries, and it has been again and again, a
popular pedagogy. Further discussion of these traditions, and of such
details as the persistence of classical metric after the beat of more
popular stress rhythms had become insistent, is properly historical.
Historical interpretation of the ancient lore of composition and of
its influence in the middle ages is relegated to another volume. The
expository task of this one concludes naturally with the completion of
the ancient experience.
FOOT-NOTES:
[1] See D. L. Clark, _Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance_, New York,
1922 (Columbia University Studies in English and Comparative Literature).
[2] So, e.g., does Petronius, _Satyricon_, 118.
[3] See above, page 80.
[4] See above, Chapter V. B.
[5] Section C. 1, below.
[6] To what has already appeared from the preceding chapters may be added
the opinion of George Converse Fiske: “from the Hellenistic period on,
and throughout the Roman world of letters, the study of rhetoric was a
prerequisite for literary composition in every field.” _The Plain Style
in the Scipionic Circle_, page 62 (University of Wisconsin Studies in
Language and Literature, number 3, 1919).
[7] See above, page 68.
[8] See above, pages 56, 57.
[9] See above, page 102. What Alfred Croiset says of him seems true
rather of the habit of his time: “questions arrêtées d’avance et toujours
les mêmes; c’est dresser son signalement suivant un formulaire, qu’il
s’agit simplement de remplir.” _Hist. de la litt. grecque_, V. 368.
[10] Nettleship, _Literary Criticism in Latin Antiquity_ (Lectures and
Essays, Second Series).
[11] See above, page 63.
[12] See the scornful comment of Croiset, V. 358.
[13] Nettleship, _Lectures and Essays_, I. 176 (on Horace’s _Ars
Poetica_).
[14] See Nettleship, op. cit., 248. Saintsbury, _Loci Critici_, 74,
quotes his _Noctes Atticæ_ xvii. 10, on Vergil’s _Æneid_, III. 570.
[15] See pages 68-73, 94-97.
[16] See foot-note 50 to Chapter IV, foot-note 70 to Chapter VII.
[17] See the quotations from Apuleius in the preceding section.
[18] For the varying relations of the “second sophistic” to rhetoric on
the one hand and to philosophy on the other see the introduction to H.
von Arnim’s _Leben und Werke des Dio von Prusa, mit einer Einleitung,
Sophistik, Rhetorik, Philosophie in ihrem Kampf um die Jugendbildung_,
Berlin, 1898; and, for later periods, A. Boulanger, _Ælius Aristide et la
sophistique ... au IIe siècle_, Paris, 1923; W. C. Wright, _Philostratus
and Eunapius, the Lives of the Sophists_, London and New York (Loeb
Library), 1922, introduction; L. Méridier, _L’influence de la seconde
sophistique sur l’œuvre de Grégoire de Nysse_, Paris, 1906, chapter i.
Philostratus, _Vit. Soph._ ii (Wright, p. 34), says that Hippias of Elis
discoursed (διελέγετο) on painting and sculpture.
[19] See page 221.
[20] See Chapter V. B.
[21] The definitive discussion of Dio is that of H. von Arnim cited
above in foot-note 18. The latest complete edition is that of J. de
Arnim, Berlin, 1893. A translation by W. E. Waters is announced for
the Loeb Classical Library. Meantime Professor Waters’s translation of
Oratio XII (discussed below) is printed in Volume XIV (1919-1922) of the
_Colonnade_, published by the Andiron Club of New York University, 1922,
pages 183-201. The translation below of Oratio LII is my own.
[22] H. von Arnim (op. cit. 171) finds manuscript evidence of several
such adjustable preludes. Compare those preserved in the _Florida_ of
Apuleius, e.g. page 227, above.
[23] See the following sections.
[24] For the significance of the well-known passage in the _Laokoön_,
and of the psychological formulation of Lemaître, see my _College
Composition_, page 183. For further discussion of this oration, see
Ehemann, _Die XII Rede von Dio Chrysostom_, Kaiserslautern, 1895. See
also W. A. Montgomery, _Dio Chrysostom as a Homeric Critic_, Baltimore,
1901 (Johns Hopkins dissertation).
[25] Περὶ λόγου ἀσκήσεως, Oratio XVIII, de Arnim, II, page 250.
[26] _Quomodo adolescens poetas audire debeat_, in the collection
generally entitled _Moralia_. For English translations of the _Morals_
see the preface to F. M. Padelford’s modern translation of this
particular essay, _Essays on the Study and Use of Poetry by Plutarch and
Basil the Great_, New York, 1902 (Yale Studies in English, XV). Padelford
has added a concise and suggestive introduction on Plutarch’s theory of
poetry.
[27] This bald statement may be confirmed by the more comprehensive
histories of Latin literature.
[28] G. C. Fiske, _The Plain Style in the Scipionic Circle_, University
of Wisconsin Studies in Language and Literature, 3, page 62.
[29] See above, page 141.
[30] See Nettleship, _Lectures and Essays_, Second Series, page 49 (on
Dionysius of Halicarnassus). For the pictorial habit of much ancient
description see above, page 217, on Ovid, and compare Croiset, _Hist. de
la litt. grecque_, V. pages 771 and following.
[31] III, in Padelford’s translation, which is followed in this and the
other quotations.
[32] ὅμοιον, εἰκός, πρέπον, πιθανῶς. Padelford, page 24, points out their
narrowness.
[33] See above, pages 71-73, and also pages 99, 218.
[34] _The Works of Horace_, Oxford, 1891, Volume II, page 384.
[35] _The Epistles of Horace_, London, 1889, page 334.
[36] _La poésie latine_, Paris, 1909, page 320.
[37] Nettleship’s hypothesis, that Horace, “writing with a Greek treatise
before him, was using it for practical application to the particular
circumstances of his own time,” and that the Greek treatise was probably
by Neoptolemus of Parium (_Lectures and Essays_, I. 168), is rejected by
Wickham (page 385).
[38] See above, section D.
TABULAR INDEX OF LATIN AND GREEK RHETORICAL TERMS
The references are to pages. The terms are also included alphabetically
in the General Index, and may be explored in the indexes of the Cope and
Sandys Aristotle, the Wilkins Cicero, the Rhys Roberts Dionysius, and the
other editions cited in the bibliographical notes at the head of each
section.
The plan is generally that of Quintilian (see pages 63-66).
The Greek terms of drama and epic may be found in the General Index and,
through the tabular view of Aristotle’s _Poetic_ on pages 135-139, in the
Greek index of Bywater’s edition.
I. προγυμνάσματα, 63, 68, 228
A. grammatica, 66, 68, 73, 102, 226-229, 240
1. prælectio, 63, 64, 66, 226
2. μῦθος, chria, χρεία, κατασκευή, etc., 63, 68, 72
3. pronuntiatio (see VII below)
B. rhetorica, 64, 68, 71, 73, 88, 90, 94 (see sub-headings)
1. fabula, argumentum, historia, 64
2. laudatio, ἐγκώμιον; comparatio, σύγκρισις, 64, (234-238)
3. materia, 66, 69, 73, 78, 88
4. amplificatio, exaggeratio, αὔξησις, 25, 44, 55, 64, 98, 124, 127
5. ethopœia, ἠθοποιία, 68, 71, 187; prosopopœia, προσωποποιία, 71,
72, 73, 99, 218, 222, 241, 245
6. declamatio, μελέτη, 46, 48, 68-74, 87, 88, 89, 90, 94-97, 100,
101, 187, 190, 210, 218, 220, 221, 225, 229, 245, 246
(a) suasoriæ, 64, 70, 72, 73, 88, 90, 91, 218
(b) controversiæ, 62, 64, 70, 72, 73, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91-96
II. genera dicendi, 8, 14, 15, 35, 64
A. deliberativum, συμβουλευτικόν
B. iudiciale, δικανικόν, 93, 100
C. demonstrativum, ἐπιδεικτικόν, 33, 130, 230-238
III. ratio dicendi
A. docere, δηλῶσαι, διδασκαλία, 24, 51, 56, 95, 246 (Cicero)
B. conciliare, delectare, 51-52, 58, 120; cf. ἦθος, 11, 12, 18, 50
(Cicero)
C. movere, 51-52, 58, 65, 120, 246; cf. πάθος, 12, 18, 25, 32, 50
(Cicero)
A′. sententiæ, 1, 45, 97, 99, 100 (Seneca)
B′. divisio, 83, 97, 98, 99, 100 (Seneca)
C′. colores, 97-100 (Seneca)
1. ἔκφρασις, 68, 203, 218
IV. inventio, εὕρεσις, 21, 42, 43, 47-51, 64, 65, 67, 76, 85, 100, 104,
123, 135
A. status, στάσις, 36, 49-51, 65, 67, 74-76, 77, 98
1. coniectura, status coniecturalis, στοχασμός
2. finis, status definitivus, ὅρος
3. qualitas, status generalis, ποιότης
B. πίστεις, 8, 10, 46
1. ἄτεχνοι
2. ἔντεχνοι
(a) ἦθος, πάθος, 50 (and see above under III)
(b) τόποι, 14, 15, 20; sedes argumentorum, 51, 74
(c) confirmatio (see below under V)
V. dispositio, collocatio, τάξις, οἰκονομία, 22, 33, 34, 42, 47, 52,
64, 65, 77, 85, 100, 103, 104, 107, 123, 135 (cf. σύνταξις, 127)
A. exordium, προοίμιον, 33, 47, 53, 65, 76, 78, 95
B. propositio, πρόθεσις; partitio, 34, 65
C. narratio, διήγησις, 34, 35, 47, 53, 65, 68, 76, 95, 99
D. confirmatio, ἀπόδειξις, 65 (for sub-headings see Quintilian V)
1. ἐνθύμημα, 36
2. παράδειγμα, 20, 36
E. refutatio, λύσις, 20, 65
1. petitio principii, post hoc, reductio ad absurdum, 20
2. altercatio, 65
F. peroratio, ἐπίλογος, 36, 65
VI. elocutio, λέξις, 21-33, 42, 44, 53-55, 56, 64, 78-82, 100, 102-131
A. genera, 56, 58, 59
1. tenue
2. medium
3. grande
(a) sublimitas, ὕψος, 122-131 (cf. δίαρμα _vs._ αὔξησις, 127)
B. electio, ἐκλογή, 25, 53, 65, 103, 104
1. proprietas, 53
2. perspicuitas, 24, 53
3. ornatus
(a) imagines, φαντασίαι, 23, 24, 81, 127
(b) tropi, τρόποι (for classification of tropes see Quintilian
VIII. vi)
(c) figuræ, σχήματα (for classification of figures see
Quintilian IX)
C. compositio, σύνθεσις, 25-33, 53, 58-61, 65, 67, 79, 83, 102-122,
125, 202, 210, 246
1. numerus, ῥυθμός, 25-31, 56, 58-61
(a) periodus, ambitus, circuitus, περίοδος, 27-30, 60
(1) membra, κῶλα, 28, 60
(2) incisa, κόμματα, 28, 60
(b) clausula, 27, 28, 60, 61, 79
2. decorum, τὸ πρέπον, 25, 32, 119, 241
3. ἐνέργεια, 31, 32
4. ἁρμονίαι: αὐστηρά, γλαφυρά, εὔκρατος, 119
D. facilitas, 66, 79, 80, 81, 95
1. cogitatio, meditatio, 73, 80, 83
2. silva, 80
VII. pronuntiatio, actio, ὑπόκρισις, 21-24, 42, 48, 53, 64, 67
VIII. memoria, μνήμη, 42, 53, 66, 67, 82-84, 90, 95
GENERAL INDEX
[The references are to pages. A parenthesis indicates that the Latin or
Greek term occurs in the original of the translation or summary on that
page.]
Achilles Tatius, 222
acting, 22, 23, 73, 147, 156, 173, 175, 176, 187, 191
_actio_, (21-24), 42, 64, 67, (156), (173), (174)
action, 140, 141, 145, 147, 151, 161, 184, 186, 192
adaptation, 8, 17, 18, 19, 20, 24, 32, 53, 66, 72, 73, 74, 76, 104,
114, 115, 119, 245, 246
_Æneid_, 192, 195, 197-215, 216, 219, 225, 241, 247
Æschylus, 169, 171, 177, 180, 219, 238
ἀηδής, 29
Alcidamas, 82
Alexandrian, 218, 221, 222, 228
allegory, 180, 218, 221
alliteration, 216
allusion, 204, 212, 213
_altercatio_, 65
Ammon, G., 104
amplification, 25, 39, 44, 55, 64, 98, 124, 127, 173, 192, 201, 209,
217, 220, 222
ἀναγκαῖος, (150), (151), (152), (155) (see causation)
ἀναγνώρισις, (145), 152, 156 (see recognition)
analogy, 20
ἀνθηρός, 119
antithesis, 31
ἀπόδειξις, (_confirmatio_), 65
Apollonius, 207, 215
appropriateness, 24, 119, 145, 245, 246 (see adaptation)
_a priori_, 20
Apuleius, 221-223, 227-228, 230, 231, 232
Archilochus, 124
argument, 36, 65, 128
_argumentum_, 64
Aristotle, _Rhetoric_, 2, 4, 5, 6-36, 38, 40, 43, 58, 59, 67, 79, 83,
100, 112, 120, 126, 129, 130, 131, 247;
_Poetic_, 112, 132-168, 172, 175, 176, 179, 180, 196, 198, 225,
234, 240, 242, 245, 247
ἁρμονία, 26
Arnim, H. von, 80, 230, 232
_Ars Poetica_ (Horace), 210, 225, 234, 242-247
articulation, 204, 205, 219
artificiality, 71, 211, 217
ἄσκησις, 185, 234
Attic, 61, 228
audience, 11, 12, 17-20, 23, 164, 171, 174, 184, 191, 192
Augustine, St., 75, 97, 131, 247
Aulus Gellius, 229
αὔξησις (_amplificatio_), 127
αὐστηρός, 119
Bacchylides, 124
Bacon, 128
balance, 31, 58
Baldwin, C. S., 8, 30, 107, 114, 234
Beowulf, 192, 195, 197
Blair, 4
Boissier, 87
Bornecque, H., 37, 87, 89, 90, 97, 98, 99, 100
Boulanger, A., 230
Browning, 117, 127
Brunetière, 167, 179, 214
Butcher, S. H., 132, 135, 141, 142, 153
Bywater, I., 132, 134, 135, 140, 146, 147, 153, 155, 156, 157, 166
Cadence, 27, 28, 59-61, 79
Cæcilius of Calacte, 105
Capperonier, 74
Carlyle, 119
catharsis, 145, 147, 152, 154, 155, 164
causation in drama, 148-152, 154, 155, 197, 207
Causeret, C., 38
character in an audience, 18, 19
characterization in oratory, 71, 72, 76, 98, 99;
in drama, 134, 141, 145, 148, 154-156, 161, 163, 174, 176-180,
184, 187, 188, 189, 191, 239;
in Vergil, 207-211;
in Ovid, 219;
in Apuleius, 222;
by types, 210-211 (see _prosopopœia_)
Chariton, 222
Chaucer, 107, 176, 218
Chickering, E. C., 186, 187
chorus, 157, 173, 174-176, 186
_chria_, 63, 68, 78
Cicero, 5, 37-61, 75, 78, 87, 88, 90, 103, 105, 109, 120, 124, 127,
191, 207, 225, 239, 244, 246, 247
Clark, D. L., 224
clauses, 21, 28-31, 58, 60, 114, 118, 119, 120
_clausula_, 27, (28), 60, 61, 79
close (see conclusion)
_cogitatio_, 80, 83
coherence (see consecutiveness)
Colin, l’Abbé, 37, 59
_collocatio_ (see _dispositio_)
_colores_, 97, 98, 99, 100
comedy, 140, 144;
—Latin, 188-192;
—New, 188, 190
communal, 170-172, 174-176, 177, 192-196, 233
_comparatio_, 64
comparison and parallel, 64, 234-238
complication, of plot, 156
_compositio_, (25-33), 53, (58-61), 65, 67, 79, 83, (102-122), (124),
125, (173), (202), (210), 246
_conciliare_ (one of the three tasks of oratory), 51-52, 58, 65
conclusion, 146, 147, 150, 152, 158, 160, 161, 164, 165, 181, 184,
185, 194, 207, 244 (see peroration, καταστροφή)
concrete for vividness, 12, 20, 22, 24, 35, 40, 81, 128, 129, 194,
202, 212-213
_confirmatio_, 65
_coniectura_ (_status coniecturalis_, see _status_)
connotation, 173, 198, 203, 212-213 (see allusion, concrete, rhythm,
verse)
consecutiveness, 34, 52, 77, 78, 98, 127, 134, 135, 149, 150, 152,
160-162, 182, 184, 185, 187, 194, 200, 202, 203, 205, 219, 221,
222, 223, 229, 244, 246
consistency, 150, 151, 154, 155, 156, 200, 201, 204
continuity (see consecutiveness)
_controversiæ_, 62, 64, 70, 72, 73, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91-94, 95, 96
convention, 217-218, 234
Cooper, Lane, 122, 132, 189
Cope, E. M., 6, 7, 10, 19
correlation, 6, 9, 11, 14, 16, 40, 68
creation, 141, 142, 143, 151, 159, 164, 194-195, 209, 215, 220, 246
crisis, 2, 154, 158, 160, 161, 164, 204, 209 (see περιπέτεια)
criticism, 56, 102, 130, 224-247;
—by classification, 227, 228;
—of texts, 228
Croce, B., 167
Croiset, A., 221, 228, 240
Croll, M. W., 27, 61
Cruttwell, C. T., 91, 216, 218, 219
Dance, 139, 140, 141, 143, 144, 158, 175, 176
Dante, 199, 207, 208
debate, 9, 65, 100
_declamatio_, 46, 48, 64, 67, 68-73, 74, 87, 88, 89, 90, 94-97, 100,
101, 187, 190, 210, 218, 220, 221, 225, 229, 245, 246
definition (see _status_)
deliberative oratory, 8, 14, 15, 16, 18, 35, 36, 64, 90, 210
delivery in oratory, 21, 22, 23, 24, 48, 53, 58, 63, 66;
—in drama, 156, 173, 174, 187
_demonstrativus_, 64
Demosthenes, 30, 61, 118, 121, 124, 126, 127, 128
_dénoûment_ (see solution)
De Quincey, T., 4
description, 68, 98, 194, 201-203, 212, 217, 218, 220, 221, 222, 229,
234, 241
_De Sublimitate_, 4, 122-131
_deus ex machina_, 156, 201
dialectic (see logic)
dialogue, 40, 135, 139, 187, 209, 222
διάνοια, 126 (145)
δίαρμα, 127
dictation, 80
diction, 1, 2, 21-33, 57, 145, 148, 157, 172-174, 211-213, 215 (see
style)
διήγησις (_narratio_), (33), 34, 35, 65
δικανικός (_iudicialis_), 8, 15, 35, 64
Dio Chrysostom, or Dio of Prusa, 225, 230-239
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 21, 102-122, 125, 130, 131, 198, 228
discovery (see recognition)
_dispositio_, 21, 33, 34, 42, 47, 52, 64, 65, 66, 77, 85, 100, 103,
104, 123, 135
dithyramb, 140, 144
_divisio_, 83, 97, 98, 99, 100
_docere_ (one of the three tasks of oratory), 51, 56, 65, 95, 246
Donnelly, F. P., 76
Doxopater, 105
drama, 133-192, 205-207, 208, 215, 229, 245
_dramatis personæ_ (see _personæ_)
Economy, 181, 185, 202, 209
_écrivains d’idées et écrivains d’images_, 4, 134
Egger, M., 103
εἰκός, (150), (151), (152), (155), 241
ἐκλογή (_electio_), 25, 65, 103
ἔκφρασις, 68, 203, 218
elaboration, 211-212
electio, 25, 53, 65, 67, 103, 104
Elizabethan drama, 141, 153, 162, 179
_elocutio_, 21, 42, 44, 53-55, 56, 64, 65, 67, 78-82, 100, 102-131
emotion, 3, 13, 18, 19, 32, 35, 52, 53, 124, 125, 126, 128, 140, 141,
145, 147, 148, 163, 165, 175, 210
emphasis, 100, 200, 201, 202, 208, 222;
—of sentences, 113-114
ἔμπρακτος, 128
ἐναλήθης, 128
ἐνέργεια, 31
enhancing, 17, 44, 147, 173, 207 (see style)
ἐνθύμημα, 36
enthymeme, 7, 9, 13, 20, 31, 36, 65
ἐπεισοδιώδης, (152)
epic, 134, 135, 139, 140, 144, 146, 157, 158, 168, 192-198, 200, 201,
204, 205, 207, 210, 211, 213-215, 244
ἐπιδεικτικός (_demonstrativus_), 8, 14, 33, 35, 64, 130
ἐπίλογος (_peroratio_), 36, 65
episodic, 152
ethics (see morals)
_ethopœia_, 68, 71
εὔκρατος, 119
εὐμαθής, 27
euphony, 24, 64, 65
εὕρεσις (_inventio_), 21, 64, 65
Euripides, 3, 128, 156, 169, 171, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 184,
185, 207, 238
εὐσύνοπτος, 28, 120
Evanthius, 191
_Everyman_, 180
exordium, 33, 47, 53, 65, 76, 78
extempore, 67, 69, 80, 81, 83, 95
ἠθοποιία, 68, 71, 187
ἦθος, 11, (13), 18, 25, 32, 50, 58, 120, 141
Fable, 20, 63, 72
_fabula_, 64
_facilitas_, 66, 79, 81
fairy mistress legend, 177-178
Fierville, Ch., 63
fiction in oratorical narrative, 72, 99, 100, 220, 222, 229
figures, 24, 31, 124, 128, 129, 201, 251. VI. B. (see concrete)
_finis_ (_status definitivus_, see _status_)
Fiske, G. C., 226, 239
Flickinger, R. C., 169
folklore (see legend)
forensic, 8, 14, 17, 18, 35, 36, 60, 64, 71, 90, 100
forms of discourse, 4
forms of literature, 3, 5, 167
Fouqué, 178
Fowler, W. W., 208
French classical tragedy, 162, 177, 178, 181
Froissart, 29
Fronto, 79, 94
_Genus tenue_, _genus medium_, _genus grande_, 56-59
γλαφυρός, 119
Glover, T. R., 200, 202
γνώμη, 20
Goodell, T. D., 169, 182
Gorgias, 58, 101
grammar, 66, 226-229
_grammatica_, 66, 68, (226-229)
_grammaticus_, 66, 73, 102, 226, 240
γραφικός, 33
Greek Romances, 221-223
Greek tragedy, 168-186
Gummere, F. B., 193
Haigh, A. E., 169
Haines, C. R., 94
Hardy, T., 146
harmony, 58, 67, 111, 113, 119, 174, 213 (see rhythm, _clausula_)
Harrington, K. P., 217
Harris, Ella I., 186
Havell, H. L., 122
Heinze, Richard, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 206, 208, 209, 210, 218, 219
Heliodorus, 222
Hellenistic, 201, 206, 215 (see Alexandrian)
Hendrickson, G. L., 38, 51, 56
_Herennium, Rhetorica ad_, 37, 63, 75
Hermogenes, 68, 72, 75
hero, tragic, 154-155, 176-177, 178;
—epic, 196, 208-209
Herodotus, 27, 29, 30, 58, 106, 150
hiatus, 58, 119
history and oratory, 57, 66;
—and poetry, 1, 2, 150, 157, 165
Homer, 105, 108, 115, 119, 124, 126, 135, 158, 192, 193, 195-198,
199, 200, 202-204, 208, 209, 210, 213-215, 240
Horace (see _Ars Poetica_)
Hubbell, H. M., 38, 103
Hugo, V., 30, 162
Hyperides, 124, 128
Iamblichus, 222
Ibsen, H., 163, 170
idealizing, 144, 174, 175, 186
idiom, 25, 53, 54, 110
imagery, 20, 24, 31, 35, 81, 128, 129, 134, 194, 202, 212, 213 (see
concrete)
imaginative composition, 1, 2, 3, 40, 70, 71, 72, 98, 100, 124, 125,
126, 128, 134, 135, 139, 140-223, 232-247;
—diction, 24, 35, 129 (see concrete, style)
_imago_ (φαντασία), 81
imitation for study, 48, 66, 68, 69, 80, 102;
—as a principle of drama, 139, 140, 141, 142, 147, 149, 150, 159,
164;
—in epic, 194, 204, 213-215;
—as conceived by Plutarch, 240
_incisum_, 60
intensification, 127, 144, 146, 158, 159, 163, 183, 197
interaction, 180, 187, 203, 239
interpretation, 151, 157, 161, 163-166, 184, 214
introduction (see exordium)
_inventio_, 21, 42, 43, 47-51, 64, 65, 67, 76, 85, 100, 104, 123, 135
investigation (see _inventio_)
Isæus, 95, 96
Isocrates, 3, 33, 58, 82, 103, 120, 121, 130
Jebb, R. C., 6, 24, 28
Jerome, St., 96
John of Salisbury, 68
Julius Pollux, 189
_iunctura_, 246
Juvenal, 96
κάθαρσις (145)
καλόν, τὸ, 114
καταστροφή, 184 (see conclusion)
Kittredge, G. L., 193
Knapp, C., 189, 191
Lallier, R., 188, 189
Laurand, L., 37
legend, 194-195
Legrand, P. E., 188
Lessing (_Laokoön_), 32, 202, 234
LeJay, P., 200, 206
λεκτικός, 26
length of sentences and of clauses, 114
Leo, F., 188
Lewis, C. M., 116-118
λέξις (_elocutio_), 21-33, 64, 65, (145)
λῆμμα, 128
logic, 7, 8, 13, 109, 110, 148
logical exclusion, 20
λογογράφος, 33
“Longinus on the Sublime,” 102, 122-131, 219, 225, 231
loose sentence, 27-29
Lucan, 1, 2, 225
Lucian, 2, 3, 74, 130
_ludus_, 96
λύσις (_refutatio_), 20, 65
Lysias, 73, 124
Mackail, J. W., 199, 204, 212
_materia_, 66, 69, 73, 78, 88
material and art, 10, 11, 12, 49, 113, 146, 213-214
Matthews, Brander, 169, 179, 182
maxims, 20, 63
_meditatio_, 73 (see _cogitatio_)
μελέτη, 74 (see _declamatio_)
melody, 26, 114, 141, 145 (see music)
μελοποιία, (145)
_membrum_, 60
_memoria_, 21, 42, 53, 64, 66, 67, 82-84, 90, (95)
memory, 28, 69 (see _memoria_)
Menander, 188, 190
_mensio_, 58
_mensura_, 58
Méridier, L., 230
messenger in Greek tragedy, 173, 183-184
metaphor, 24, 31, 32, 124, 157 (see figure, imagery)
meters in prose, 26, 27, 59, 60, 118, 121, 140
Michaut, G., 189, 191
Miller, F. J., 186, 216
Mill’s Canons, 20
Milton, 116, 122, 130, 158, 170, 195, 197, 198, 200, 207, 214
mime, 135, 139, 140
μίμησις, 142, (144), (145), (148), 166 (see imitation in drama, in
epic)
μιμητικός, 142
μνήμη, 21, 64 (see _memoria_)
_modus motorius_, 191
_modus statarius_, 191
Montgomery, W. A., 234
Moody, William Vaughn, 177
moral appeal, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19, 32, 50, 51, 52, 148, 195, 200, 205,
233
morals in literary criticism, 239, 240, 242
Morgan, M. H., 189
motivation, 154, 155, 164, 184, 191, 201, 207, 220, 239
movement, 144, 149, 158-162, 165, 172, 191, 220, 222, 229, 239, 240,
246 (see consecutiveness, sentence-movement)
_movere_ (one of the three tasks of oratory), 51, 52, 58, 65
Murray, Gilbert, 169, 175, 181, 183
μῦθος (68, 72, see legend, myth)
music, 26, 111, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 148, 158, 174, 175
myth, 68, 72, 176-178, 195, 216, 218, 221
Nageotte, E., 212
_narratio_, 35, 47, 53, 65, 68, 76, 99
narrative, 30, 141, 142, 143, 145, 146, 157-158, 167, 168, 173, 183,
192-223, 234 (see epic)
Nassal, F., 38, 103, 105
Nettleship, H., 200, 205, 221, 228, 229, 240, 243
_Nibelungenlied_, 192
νόημα, 127
νόησις, 126
_numerus_, 56, 59
Occasional oratory, 8, 14, 33, 35, 53, 56, 64, 100, 229, 230, 231,
233, 234
ὄγκος, 25
οἰκονομία, 103, 107
ὅμοιος, 241
onomatopœia, 116
_orbis doctrinæ_, 68
order (see consecutiveness, movement)
originality, 213-215
ὅρος (_finis_), 65
Ovid, 186, 203, 207, 209, 210, 216-220, 221, 241, 247
Owen, S. G., 216, 218, 219
ὄψις (145)
Padelford, F. M., 239, 241
painting, 143, 144, 240, 241, 244
πάθος, 12, 18, 25, 32, 50, 58, 120, 141, 153
panegyric (see occasional oratory)
παράδειγμα, 20, 36
parts of a play, 153;
—of a speech, 33-35, 47, 65, 76-77, 95, 97;
—of rhetoric, 21, 22, 42, 66, 85, 100, 107
Patterson, W. M., 27, 61
Paul, St., 96, 232
period, 27-30, 60, 83, 104, 119, 120, 135
περίοδος, 27-30
περίοπτος, 120
περιπέτεια, 2, (145), 152, 154 (see reversal)
peripety (see reversal)
peroration, 33, 36, 65, 77
_personæ_, 40, 41, 72, 99, (148), 151, (154), (171), 176-180, 187,
188, 189, 201, 208
personality, 5, 12, 85, 100, 130
persuasion, 7, 8, 10, 17, 20, 21, 26, 51, 77, 92, 126
Peterson, W., 63, 87
_petitio principii_, 20
Petronius, 89, 225
Philodemus, 18
Philostratus, 96, 230
πιθανός, 10, 241
Pindar, 120, 124
πίστις, 65;
πίστεις ἄτεχνοι—ἔντεχνοι, 8, 10 (46)
pitch, 22, 114
pity and fear, 145, 152, 154, 164 (see catharsis)
plan, 77, 78, 80, 81, 83, 197, 205-206 (see plot)
Plato, 40, 41, 118, 121, 124, 140
Plautus, 188-189, 192
Plessis, F., 243
Pliny, 93, 94-96
plot, 145, 148-158, 163, 179-186, 187, 191, 205-206, 239
Plotinus, 139
Plutarch, 190, 210, 225, 234, 239-242, 244
poetic, 1-5, 132-247;
—in rhetoric, 100, 125-126, 229
poetic justice, 164-165
poetry and oratory, 126, 127, 173
poetry and sculpture, 232-234 (see painting)
poetry in prose, 1, 2, 31, 66, 70, 128
ποιητής (151), (166), (195)
ποιητικός, 1, 139, 141, (151)
ποιότης (_qualitas_), 65
Polybius, 2, 3
_post hoc_, 20
Pound, Louise, 193
_prælectio_, 63, 64, 66, 226
πρᾶξις, 141, (145)
preparation, dramatic, 205-206
πρέπον, 119, 241
Price, T. R., 202
Prickard, A. O., 122
προγυμνάσματα, 63, 68, 228
πρόθεσις (proposition), (34)
prologue, 180, 186, 191
_pronuntiatio_, 21-24, 48, 53, 67
proof, 7, 33, 65, 77
προοίμιον, 65
proposition, 34
_prosopopœia_, 71, 72, 73, 99, 218, 222, 241, 245
προσωποποιία, 71 (see _prosopopœia_)
_Quæstio_, 98
_qualitas_ (_status generalis_, see _status_)
Quintilian, 1, 5, 58, 61, 62-87, 89, 90, 91, 93, 94, 99, 101, 102,
127, 131, 225, 227, 246, 247
Racine, 170
reading aloud, 66, 80
rebuttal (see refutation)
recognition in tragedy, 145, 152, 153, 156, 158
recurrence, 26, 205, 216-217
_reductio ad absurdum_, 20
_refutatio_, 65
refutation, 20, 53, 65, 77, 83
representation, 134, 140, 141, 142, 147, 158, 164, 174, 233
reversal (peripety), 145, 152, 153, 154, 160, 165, 206
revision, 61, 66, 122, 203, 212
rhetor, 64, 66, 68, 71, 73, 88, 90, 94, 229-230
rhetoric, definition, 1-10, 41, 44-47, 100-101, 134, 145;
—relations, 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 40, 44, 45;
—scope, 41, 44-47, 54, 85, 86, 90;
—three fields, 8, 47;
—three tasks, 51;
—in poetic, 187, 206, 209-212, 220, 222, 224, 225, 227, 240-242,
245-247
rhythm, 2, 25-31, 58-61, 67, 79, 83, 104, 108, 114, 118, 119, 120,
140, 144, 147, 173, 174, 198
ritual, 171, 212
Roberts, W. Rhys, 103, 104, 108, 122, 130
_Roland, Chanson de_, 192
romantic, 162, 181, 185, 208
Sagas, 192, 198
Sainte-Beuve, 158, 199, 200, 202
salience (see emphasis)
_sapientia_, 54
Sandys, J. E., 6, 37, 56, 58, 61, 63
Sappho, 120, 126
scenario, 156
scenery, 148, 174
scenes, 134, 150, 152, 161-165
Schevill, R., 218
sculpture and poetry, 143, 232-234
_sedes argumentorum_, 51, 74
Sellar, W. Y., 200, 209, 211, 216
Seneca (rhetor), 62, 71, 87, 89-101, 225, 229
Seneca (dramatist), 186-188
sensational, 92, 221, 222, 223, 229
sentence-movement, 21-33, 53, 58-61, 65, 67, 79, 83, 102-122, 202,
210, 213
_sententia_, 1, 45, 97, 99, 100 (229), 242, 243
sequence (see consecutiveness)
serious (of dramatic theme), 144, 146, 149
Shakspere, 117, 128, 155, 162, 173, 181, 182, 185, 203, 214, 218
Shelley, 177, 219
significance, 126, 146, 151, 158, 160, 163
_silva_, 80
simplicity, 197-198
soliloquy, 218, 220
solution, 156 (see conclusion)
song, 145, 147 (see music)
Sophistic, 101, 230, 247
Sophocles, 124, 156, 159-161, 169, 171, 178, 179, 180, 181, 185, 238
sound, connotation of, 115-118
speaking (see delivery, writing and speaking)
spectacle, 145, 174
σπουδαῖος (144), 146
stanza, 216-217
στάσις, 36, 65 (see _status_)
statement of facts, 33, 68, 77
_status_, 36, 49-51, 65, 67, 74-76, 77, 98
Stevenson, R. L. (_Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature_),
107, 109, 115, 118
Stoic, 210, 239
στοχασμός (_coniectura_), 65
Strabo, 3
style, 1, 2, 21-33, 39, 44, 53-61, 65, 67, 78-82, 100, 102-131, 173,
187, 194, 197-198, 211-213, 216, 224, 230
_suasoriæ_, 64, 70, 72, 73, 88, 90, 91, 218
_sublimitas_, 103, 122, 123
suggestion, 141, 142, 147, 158, 232, 233 (see connotation)
σύγκρισις, (238)
συμβουλευτικός (_deliberativus_), 8, 14, 15, 35, 64
symbolism, 176, 178
σύνθεσις, 25, (58-61), 65, 103, (202), (210), (see _compositio_)
σύνταξις, 127
σύστασις (145), 155 (see plot)
syllogism, 7, 9, 13
σχῆμα, 25
Tacitus, 2, 87-89, 90, 91, 94, 103, 225
Tasso, 195, 214
τάξις (_dispositio_), 21, 22, 33, 64, 65
Terence, 188-191
theater, Greek, 172, 174
Theon, 228
Thrasymachus, 58
three fields of oratory, 14-15, 130
three styles, 56, 57-59, 228
Thucydides, 2, 118, 120
time in drama, 149, 150, 157, 160-162, 182;
—in epic, 199, 204
τόποι, _loci communes_, _sedes argumentorum_, 14, 15, 20
tradition, 174, 177, 194, 195, 199, 212, 215
tragedy, 140, 142, 144-157, 159-161, 168-188
transition, 202, 219
transposition in sentences, 113-114
Tyrrell, R. Y., 200, 204
Unity, 127, 149, 150, 151, 157, 158, 161-162, 180-185, 197, 205-206
ὑπόκρισις, 21-24, 64, (156), (173), (see _actio_)
usage, 110
ὕψος, 122, 126
Valmaggi, L., 81
VanHook, L., 82, 169
variety, 59, 60, 104, 114, 115, 119, 158, 173, 221, 222
Vergil (see _Æneid_)
verse, dramatic, 173;
—epic, 198 (see meter)
Villani, 29
Walden, J. W. H., 90, 97
Waters, W. E., 231
Watson, J. S., 37, 63, 74
Weil, H., 110
Welldon, J. E. C., 6, 10, 23, 24
Wickham, E. C., 243
Wilkins, A. S., 37, 42, 43, 63, 243
Wolff, S. L., 222
Woodberry, G. E., 199, 208, 212, 213
Wright, W. C., 230
writing and speaking, 23, 32, 33, 44, 66, 69, 70, 72, 81, 82-84
φαντασία, 23, 127
φύσις, 142
χρεία, 63, 68, 78
ψυχρός, 25
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