Tacitus - Literary Style

Literary Style

Tacitus's writings are known for their dense prose that seldom glosses the facts, in contrast to the style of some of his contemporaries, such as Plutarch. When he writes about a near-defeat of the Roman army in Ann. I, 63 he does so with brevity of description rather than embellishment.

In most of his writings he keeps to a chronological narrative order, only seldom outlining the bigger picture, leaving the reader to construct that picture for himself. Nonetheless, where he does use broad strokes, for example, in the opening paragraphs of the Annals, he uses a few condensed phrases which take the reader to the heart of the story.

Read more about this topic:  Tacitus

Famous quotes containing the words literary and/or style:

    I understood that all the material of a literary work was in my past life, I understood that I had acquired it in the midst of frivolous amusements, in idleness, in tenderness and in pain, stored up by me without my divining its destination or even its survival, as the seed has in reserve all the ingredients which will nourish the plant.
    Marcel Proust (1871–1922)

    In comedy, the witty style wins out over every mishap of the plot.
    Mason Cooley (b. 1927)