THE ART OF WRITING.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 764, 12 March 1910, Page 9

THE ART OF WRITING.

'"Dionysius of Halicarnassus .on Literary Composition." " Being, the /Greek Text of the "Da Compositione- Verbornni." - Edited by, W. Ehys' Roberts, Litt.D., LL.D. ' If any modern writer sho.uld issue a book such as this treatise on composition /he would probably be told -.that it was all veTy well for schoolboys' and grammarians, but had no'interest for those concerned with •• what is vital in literature. /Most of the English authors engaged in creative work to-day entertain a lofty contempt-, for exact craftsmanship in literature, for "polished" writing, for technique applied -to ,• diction. They -incline to the view that theyare authors .by the-grace" of . Providence, and that their inspiration or. their naturalness' is a sufficient substitute for the "pedantry" _of taking pains. U. hey laugh at the preposterous idea of considering the sound of a word or the metrical balance of a sentence, as if to consider such things were a kind of dishonesty,'or, at' the least, insincerity. There is a tendency to admire the man who sits "down and writes oft' his poem, his play,- or- his sermno in the words that come first to his. mind, .without.''elaboration; and the average, ,writer falls .. in. with this view .betause" - Vthe r hastily-: written work receives"', as ' much, praise "'as another, and is very much easier, to produce. ' .

There are, of course',', two sides to the question." -Form is . useless and void unless tliere is behind it sincerity -and vital meaning; but on the other, hand no great message can be /conveyed through literature, except . through a. noble form which is, in the . expression of De Quincej', an incarnation-; of , the idea. The -first, side js that which is neglected to-day, and. for that reason it would be well if many- people would read the Literary Composition of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the text, and . translation of. which are presented side by side in Professor Roberts's adinirable edition. Dionysius was a Greek who lived in the city memorable as the birthplace. of Herodotus. . A. contemporary of Horace and Virgil, he probably thought of Latin as the rude tongue of an Imperial and non-literary race; he : takes no account of the Latin writers, and I sec no reason for -the editor's-surprise.--that no mention is made of: .Cicero./ For,- liim the language of. literature sis- Greek, classical. Greek, and he'looks . back to the writings of Demosthenes, Plato, the tragic poets, and Homer. ■ , ...... He analyses in 1 detail the language of Demosthenes, showing how the. great, orator gave unceasing attention to literary' technique, and anticipates some objections which would be exactly the objections of tho modern.critic:— ' , Lhave 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, ami unscientifically. Against these*. 1 am bound to defend my position, lost 1 should seem to let the case go by default Their argument will doubtless be: 'Was Demosthenes, then, so poor a creature that whenever he was. writing his speeches, he would work in metre and rhythms after tho fashion of. clay-nioclbllcrs, and' wou]il>' try to fit- his chuisos ;into these moulds shifting the words to ami 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? Ho great a man would be a fool indeed were he to storm to all this", niggling, and peddling." If they . scoff and 'jeer in these 'or- similar terms, they may easily be countered bv the following reply: First, it is noti surprising after all that a niai\ who is held to deserve a greater .reputation than av.v •f his predecessors who were extinguished

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 word at random, und to attend carefully to both arrangement of id6as and beauty of words; particularly as the authors ot that day were producing discourses which suggested not writing but carving and chasing—those, I mean, of the sophists Isocraies and Pluto. For the 'former spent ten years over the composition of his "Panegyric," according to the lowest recorded estimate of the time; while Plato did not cease, when eighty years old, to comb and curl his dialogues and to reshape them , in every way. Now JJionysius sets forth in this work wliat he holds to be the elements, of literary technique. Homo of his instructions will seem to be truisms; others, 011 'the contrary, will seem to the English writer extravagant. He tells us that it is upon "arrangement, far more than 'upon selection of words,'that persuasion, charm, and literary power depend." it must be remembered Uiat the Greek lauguago was much more pure than the English, and that with its inflections there was a far wider scope for altering the position of words in a. sentence. He holds that it docs not matter what words yon use—there, is-, no objection to "tilt humblest words, such as . might have been used off-hand by a farmer, a seaman, an artisan"—so long as they are used in the best order. He quotes from Homor and Herodotus to show how an alteration of thn same words may banish the' charm.- "Almost all the ancients, mado a special study of arrangement," he says; "and consequently their poems, their' lyrics, and their prose are things of beauty."

i He dwells upon the' combinations of words and sentences necessary to pro- • duce, an efl'cct,' upon the grouping of clauses, upon' conciseness and expansion. Ho distinguishes between charm (hedone) and beauty, and- shows how these are produced by melody, rhythm, variety, ' and propriety, or appropriateness. Ho admits that these tilings depend upon taste, not upon rule; but he finds it possible to analyse the data-of' taste. Ke dwellfc upon the variation of long and short : quantities, upon the metres .which may be now suitably, now not suitably, employed in prose,.'upon tits effect of this- and that vowel or. consonant sound. Thus "1/ falls pleasantly on the ear, and . is" the "sweetest' of. the semi-vowels." "S is au unattractive, disagreeable letter, positively offensive when used to excess." . '

The Greek. ear was very much inoro •sensitive to niceties of sound than is the .English ear. • There .is an important passage i:i this hook to which Professor Roberts ' calls our 'attention. It is that -which refers to Hie musical interval in' spoken language, to the rise and fall in the pitch of the voice, as indicated, the ■ editor thinks, by Greek accents. . That is to say, the accents do not refer to stress or to quantity, but to pitch. Now, in-English, we are accustomed to speaking almost, in monotones. Anyone to an Irishman,. or even to a Cornishman, may. notice the wide range in the pitch .of his' voice, where the • Englishman does not vary the A Frenchman, too, may be observed to give full value to every syllable, and lie delivers different syllables in the same word at a different pitch. Tho Englishman, with his unaccustomed ear,. speaks .of • the "sing-song" of the. Frenchman; and our artists have ignored the possibilities of emotional effect which may be derived from' varying the tone. When English actors and actressy wish to-convey an. -emotion, they attempt to do so by the coarse method: of making the voice tremble and quaver, when they might produce a far more thrilling effect, as .the French actresses' do, by' varying the pitch. ■ Sir.' W.: B:- Yeats ',is-one-of : those who''seem to .have- clearly", understood, this matter. : v '

. Now . Greek poets and ... proseTwriterj alike_ were conscious of. these subtleties of tone and ' rhythm v.? : 'a"r6 ,'iiot' conscious :of .thoni;' Song .and dance/followed "as if'-by- nature'. fi ; olii the, poetry,'; .a'ad' spectator thrilled/.to . delicacies of ' sound and sight an Englishman, would hear;, and see- nothing! - To ', this' sensitiveness • to, form is due -what we 'call' the "classic'' quality <of... Greek- art, /its joutward: grace, 'its harruoniousness; But tlie singular thing'is that,itVdbes.'notifaihto be. embued, in an.-equal-; thought., : .- I have ,iipt : !beon^l^s9^y^waie. service ..which Professor Roberts .has .'rendered to. scholars ihnd-general, .readei's- by his thorough .edition; ■ iStrodufef tion' is ' informiil f>, au([ pives-'a -siifiiciciit clue to' the study 0 f ,the'booli.:;!fHlsvt'ritical an.d textual notes are thb'result of endless * labour in" cbniparison'. v nud"" refer'ence. The Greek text;,is': printed with a delightful clearness, which- ive'wisii other .printers of Greek bookswould imitate. The English translation is perhaps a little stiff; but it is the first that has bean published, and should be of great •value.—Review by R. L. Scott James in the Daily News;" ' ,