Kitap 7
1.59
There are five excellences of speech—pure Greek, lucidity, conciseness, appropriateness, distinction. By good Greek is meant language faultless in point of grammar and free from careless vulgarity. Lucidity is a style which presents the thought in a way easily understood; conciseness a style that employs no more words than are necessary for setting forth the subject in hand; appropriateness lies in a style akin to the subject; distinction in the avoidance of colloquialism. Among vices of style barbarism is violation of the usage of Greeks of good standing; while there is solecism when the sentence has an incongruous construction.
1.60
Posidonius in his treatise On Style defines a poetical phrase as one that is metrical or rhythmical, thus mechanically avoiding the character of prose; an example of such rhythmical phrase is: O mightiest earth, O sky, God’s canopy.Nauck, T.G.F.2, Eur. 839. And if such poetical phraseology is significant and includes a portrayal or representation of things human and divine, it is poetry.
