1pFFjZK

ARISTOTLE .
57
perform its proper function.* Again, style should be neither
mean nor exaggerated, but appropriate; for a poetical style,
although possibly not mean, is still not appropriate
to prose. Among nouns and verbs, while per- virtues or
spicuity is produced by such as are proper or usual, E races of
a character which is not mean but ornate is the
result of the various other kinds of nouns enumerated in my
f treatise on Poetry. The reason is that such variation imparts
greater dignity to style for people have the same ;
feeling
about style as about foreigners in comparison with their
fellow-citi/ens, i.e. they admire most what they know least.
Hence- it is
proper to invest the language with a foreign air,
all admire anything which is out of the way, and there
is a certain pleasure in the object of wonder. It is true that
in metrical compositions there are many means of producing
this effect, and means which are suitable in such compositions,
as the subjects of the story, whether persons or things,
are further removed jrom common lije.
But in prose these
means must be used much more sparingly, as the theme oj a
prose composition is less elevated. For in poetry itself there
would be a breach of propriety,
if the fine language were used
>y a slave or a mere infant or on a subject of extremely small
iportancc.
It is rather in a due contraction and cxaggerathat
propriety consists even in poetry. Hence it is
>ary to disguise the means employed,
and to avoid the
irance of speaking not naturally, but artificially. For
naturalness is persuasive, and artificiality tin- reverse; for
an artificial speaker, as if he were pracr
a design upon them, in the same way as they
:ni\ed win.-. / /'-
difference
take of-
is much the same as
* The sentence ffrmeiov ybp 6n 6 \6yot . . . r& iavrov tpyov is parent
ould be marked off from the context by colons.
^Poetic, (i.