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58 THEORIES OF STYLE IN LITERATURE
between the voice of *Theodorus and those of all
the other
actors; for, while his appears to be the speaker's own voice,
theirs have the appearance of being assumed. But the decep-
if words
tion which we have in mew is successfully effected,
are chosen from ordinary parlance and combined, as is
practice of Euripides and indeed is the practice of which he
was the first to set an example.
Nouns and verbs being the component parts of the speech
and the nouns being of all the various kinds which have been
considered in my t treatise on Poetry, it is only
Words. j r
seldom and in few places that we must make
use of {rare or foreign words, compound words or words
specially invented jor the occasion. The question where
they should be used we will discuss at a later time; the
reason for using them but rarely has been already stated,
viz. that they constitute too wide a departure from propriety.
the
It is
only the ||
proper and the special name
of a thing and the metaphor that are suited to the style of
prose composition. We may infer this from the fact that these
alone are of universal use, as every one in conversation uses
metaphors and the special or proper names of things.
It is
clear therefore that successful composition will have an air
of novelty without betraying
its art and a character of
lucidity, and these, as we have seen,
are the virtues of
* Theodorus was a famous tragic actor, of whom a story is told in the
Politics iv (vn), p. 129, 11. 8 sqq. [p. 220 of Welldon's Translation].
f Poetic, ch. 21.
fj
t Although in the Poetic, ch. 21, p. 172, 1. 19, Aristotle says X^yw 5 ripiov
y xp&vrai %KaTTa.v 5 < Zrepoi, it is clear that in the
v
Rhetoric he includes rare and obsolete as well as foreign words under the
general term yXurrrai.
That SiTrXa 6vbfjLO.ro. are "compound words" is clear from ch. 3 in init.,
p. 1 1 6, 11. 4 sqq. Cp. Poetic, ch. 21, p. 172, 11. 11-14.
||
There seems to be practically no difference in meaning between "proper"
and "special" names; they are the names employed in ordinary speech.