Style
Montaigne wrote in a kind of crafted rhetoric designed to intrigue and involve the reader, sometimes appearing to move in a stream-of-thought from topic to topic and at other times employing a structured style which gives more emphasis to the didactic nature of his work. His arguments are often supported with quotations from Ancient Greek, Latin and Italian texts.
Read more about this topic: Essays (Montaigne)
Famous quotes containing the word style:
“The old saying of Buffons that style is the man himself is as near the truth as we can getbut then most men mistake grammar for style, as they mistake correct spelling for words or schooling for education.”
—Samuel Butler (18351902)
“Everything ponderous, viscous, and solemnly clumsy, all long- winded and boring types of style are developed in profuse variety among Germansforgive me the fact that even Goethes prose, in its mixture of stiffness and elegance, is no exception, being a reflection of the good old time to which it belongs, and a reflection of German taste at a time when there still was a German tasteMa rococo taste in moribus et artibus.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900)
“Where there is no style, there is in effect no point of view. There is, essentially, no anger, no conviction, no self. Style is opinion, hung washing, the calibre of a bullet, teething beads.... Ones style holds one, thankfully, at bay from the enemies of it but not from the stupid crucifixions by those who must willfully misunderstand it.”
—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)