Course XXXIII - Teaching 10: Critical Synthesis of Style

Simplicity is the essential quality of all beauty: “simplex munditus”.
One of the first and more obvious distinctions in style is a consequence of the greater or lesser extension of author’s thoughts. This distinction forms a diffuse speech or a concise speech.
A concise style condenses thoughts and uses as little words as possible, uses just the most expressive words, and reduces any redundant expression that adds nothing essential to meaning. It does not discard adornments if and when they can reflect a more vivid style, but rather prefers those figures that give strength than grace. It never poses the same idea twice. In coordination of sentences rather takes care of brevity and strength of diction than of cadence and harmony in a sentence.
A diffuse style entirely develops its thoughts, places them with different aspects, and gives the audience any possible assistance for understanding them. Generally orators with this style love magnificence and amplification.
Usually a nervous style and a weak style are mistaken for concise style and diffuse style, and sometimes coincide with them. But it is not always so.
The way of thinking is cause of the author’s weakness or strength. If the author thinks strongly of an object, he will express it with energy, but if his perception is confused, if his ideas are hesitant, if because of his passion or haste is unable to understand properly that which he must communicate, his style patently suffers from these mistakes. Then you will find meaningless words and vague epithets. His expressions will be general, and his coordination confuse and vague.
Then you may grasp something of his sayings, but not understanding it entirely. A nervous author, however, may use a concise style or a diffuse style, but is able to reflect the strength and energy of his style to his thoughts.
A hard style comes from unusual words, forced inversions in the structure of sentences, and too much carelessness regarding a soft and easy construction.
As for adornment, it can be arid, plain, neat, elegant and select.
It is arid when excludes adornments of any kind, is forcefully didactic, and the orator just wants to be understood.
It is plain when raises one grade over the arid one. It seeks not only clarity but also appropriateness, purity and precision of language, which is beautiful and plausible.
It is neat when uses ornaments, but not the most brilliant. This orator does not underestimate beauty of language, but pays attention to select words and their gracious order, not to efforts of imagination or eloquence. His sentences are always neat and without superfluous words. His cadence is varied, but not with elaborate harmony.
It is elegant when its ornament is higher than that of neat style, and without excess or defect possesses all virtues of adornment itself. Its qualities are: clarity, appropriateness, purity in choosing words, care and ability as for its harmonious and exactly right coordination. It flatters fantasy and ears, and at the same time instructs.
It is select when it comes up too much rich and smart for the matter, and at the same time is continuous and dazzles with its tinsel. More often than not it is a vitiated and defective style.