For p. 2809. The effect of the chorus in our serious and comic Operas is not bad. But in serious operas it is very far from performing the same functions, from preserving the same character, and hence from evoking the same illusions and from having the same effects it had in ancient tragedy. Perhaps it succeeds better therefore in comic operas, so far as the moral effect is concerned, since it induces gaiety, and has both the function and the effect that it had in ancient comedies. And inducing gaiety, which is also a passion, is a moral effect of no little weight.2 Whereas in serious operas the chorus is almost only of interest to the eyes and the ears, and does not rouse or touch even the slightest of passions. But this unfortunately is the general shortcoming of all Opera, especially of the serious kind. It is due to the total subordination of the words to the spectacle and to the music, and to the acknowledged nothingness of those words,3 from which necessarily derives the nothingness of the characters, and [2906] likewise of the chorus, and hence the lack of moral effect, in other words passion. Or, if nothing else, the great scarcity, rarity, feebleness, and fleeting nature of one and the other.
Furthermore, since the few moderns who have introduced the chorus into their ordinary plays, as Racine did in Esther, did not give it the conditions it had in those of antiquity, they therefore produced no, or almost no effect.1 And the very nature of these plays, in both a moral and a material sense (since the setting is for the most part imagined to be in a covered and enclosed place, with other such circumstances that restrict, and diminish, and circumscribe, and depoeticize ideas), was not suited either to the chorus of the ancients or to its effects. I am also talking about comedies, which among the ancients were for the most part, or for most of each play, presumed to take place in the city square, or in the port, as with the Rudens of Plautus, or in short in the open air, etc. See p. 2999. (7 July 1823.)
In every language such a large part of the style pertains to that language that in no writer can the one be considered apart from the other. Magnificence, power, nobility, elegance, simplicity, naturalness, grace, variety, all or almost all the attributes of style are so tied to the corresponding qualities of the [2907] language that when we consider them in any piece of writing it is very difficult to know and distinguish and determine how great a part and which part of them (and likewise of the contrary qualities) are characteristic solely of the style, and how great a part and which part solely of the language. Or rather, how great a part and which part has to do with and derives solely from the feelings, and how great a part and which part solely from the words, since, strictly speaking, the idea of style embraces both that which concerns feelings and that which pertains to words. But so great is the power and authority words have over style, that when words or their forms, their order, etc., have changed, all or each of the above qualities also change, or are lost, and the style of any author or piece of writing changes its nature in such a way that it is no longer what it was nor is it recognized as such. See pp. 3397‒99.
All this occurs in every language except French. Because it is actually the case that in French style is formed almost entirely by the feelings, and by the figures pertaining to the statement of thoughts. And in that language differences in style, and in the qualities of a style, can only be considered in relation to feelings, and only pertain to, depend upon, and [2908] spring from these latter. Because, if we carefully observe words and all that pertains to them, all the styles used by the French, whether of different authors and texts, or of one and the same text or writer but in relation to very different topics, are more or less uniform.
And it’s no wonder; because where there is little scope for choice of words, and of order and composition, there can only be a small difference either between the styles of various authors or of various works, or between the qualities of one and the same style applied to different topics and occasions, so far as words are concerned. For, since words cannot be chosen, they cannot be elegant here, and noble there, effective here and graceful there, but always what they are, or never. And since there is no choice about the order or positioning of the words themselves, word combination cannot give rise now to one kind of style now to another, but always just to the one, because it always is one and unvarying. I am referring here to the combination of words considered in themselves, and not in relation to the sentiments they express, because so far as this is concerned, the French language is capable of deriving variety of style from the combination of words, [2909] but on closer inspection, one has the sense that this variety in no way derives from combination in itself, but from statements of thought and their figures.
We can therefore say that, since the French language has more or less just the one style, a French writer, as regards the language, never has his own style, and where words are involved, the style of any writer is not his own but that of the language. And likewise the style of any genre of writing does not belong to that genre but to the language as a whole, and the style of French poetry does not belong to the poetry but to the language, and the style of the prose is that of the language, it is that of conversation, and is not even more characteristic of prose than it is of poetry, indeed see in this regard p. 3429.
You could say the same of Hebrew, in which likewise, as regards words, there was no place for choice, although, as regards the combination of the same, it perhaps occurred a little more than in French, the language being wholly undigested and unformed, and hence entirely poetic.
In actual fact the difference in styles and in the qualities of one and the same style, as regards language, is so minimal and so scant in French, that a foreigner who is very well able to distinguish them in the Greek and Latin writers, who wrote in what were dead languages, will only with difficulty or, in my opinion, barely at all ever be able to distinguish them or appreciate them in French writers. Nor will he ever really be able to say, this writer or this passage is elegant, [2910] this one dignified and magnificent, this one energetic, this one graceful as regards the words used, but this other one is not. And that is why in French, generally speaking, a difference in style, that is to say, in the way that concepts are expressed, which is what we call style, is barely perceptible to a foreigner, or certainly far less perceptible than in other languages. It is also very difficult for a foreigner to sense the difference in French styles (viewed strictly as styles) of different periods (I mean from the age of Louis XIV onward), either when comparing a writer of one century with one of another, or more generally the style of one century with that of another. I have referred to the age of Louis XIV, and I mean those in that age who wrote well, and who are still regarded as good, and insofar as they are regarded as such (like Corneille) in language, etc.1 And all the more so in that in the expression of concepts, and also in that part of style that has to do with statements of thought, the manner of French writers is more varied even than in the part of their writing that has to do with words, but infinitely less varied than in the writers in other languages, whether with regard to one writer and one century as against another, or with regard to one work and one genre as against another work and another genre, or with regard to the various parts of one and the same work or genre, and with regard to the various gradations and qualities of one and the same style. And by way of proof it is sufficient to note that French not only does not have a poetic language, but really does not have anything amounting to a poetic style.
Likewise in Hebrew we discern only the most minimal difference in styles, or in the qualities of one [2911] and the same style. A fact that may be attributed to the great distance between our own time and theirs and between our tastes and customs and theirs, as if the uniformity of the Hebrew style were not genuine, except in a relative sense. But I believe it to be absolutely genuine, and I attribute it to the causes stated, nor do I believe that a Hebrew writer could have his own style, nor any topic a style of its own, as regards language, on account of the impoverished nature of the latter,a and also as regards the manner and the part of style that has to do with statem
ents of thought, on account of the artlessness of the writers, and because the language hemmed them in and circumscribed them in this area also. As the language indeed also does in France, given the absolute sway that custom exercises there over style as over every other thing. At any rate, just as French merely has a language and style for prose and lacks a poetic one, so too Hebrew only has a poetic one and lacks one for prose. And this because the former is a definitely and essentially modern language, while the latter was essentially and morally ancient and near primitive.1
[2912] It is noteworthy how from opposed causes the same effects arise. The Hebrew language does not admit variety in style through being too ancient, and neither does the French language, through being too modern; the former through excess of imperfection and through a poverty stemming from its antiquity, the latter through excess of perfection and through a poverty stemming from its being absolutely modern, both in time and in character. In both languages the words count for little, the statements of thought for everything, style is reduced to bare concepts (something that does not occur in any other literate language). But this occurs in Hebrew because the words have not yet achieved any vigor, in French because they have lost it; in the former because the concepts do not yet have the wherewithal to make themselves a body, in the latter because they have laid it aside; in the former because there is as yet scant matter with which to clothe the spirit, in the latter because spirit has consumed matter, it has reappeared divested of the body in which it had clothed itself, it has prevailed over matter, and all of existence is spiritualized, nor henceforth does one see or touch, or certainly one does not wish to see or touch anything almost other than spirit. [2913] Both languages tend toward the metaphysical, and, one might say, the incorporeal, for two diametrically opposed causes and principles, just as the child through excessive simplicity is sometimes as subtle in his questions as the philosopher is through his weighty doctrine and wisdom and sagacity. (7 July 1823.) See the following page.
For p. 2853 margin. In truth the purported capacity for imitation that the German language has1 could only be perfectly realized when it is applied to a language such as Hebrew. Because an unformed language such as Hebrew can only be well imitated, indeed counterfeited, copied, and transposed whole into an unformed language such as German must necessarily be if it is to have the power and capacity that is attributed to it. And conversely only an unformed language like German would be suited to counterfeiting perfectly, and without doing violence to itself, an unformed language such as Hebrew, or such as a savage language; which is not possible for formed languages, nor was it possible in Greek and in Latin to counterfeit Hebrew in literal translations, without violating and wholly denaturing [2914] Greek and Latin, as was done, and as likewise happens in the modern languages which have (if any has) literal translations of scripture, made either from the Hebrew, or from the Greek or Latin version or from another modern language. (7 July 1823.)
For the previous page. Since this spiritualization of society is now universal, the effect which as I have said follows from it in modern French is likewise universal, that is to say, the style of modern writers in any language now differs only in feelings, and consists only of things. And in truth as regards style in the strict sense, there is now less of a discrepancy between two writers in two highly disparate languages treating highly diverse topics than there was in ancient times between two writers who were contemporaries and compatriots, and used one and the same language for one and the same topic. (Posit as an example Plato and Xenophon.) I’ll put on one side the scant diversity of style that may be found in one and the same writer.1 The styles of the moderns are only diversified through their thoughts. Indeed, all the writers and all the styles issue, so far as style is concerned, from the same school, are clothed in the same fabric, indeed have the same countenance, the same attitude, the same gestures and movements, the same features and outward circumstances; they can only be distinguished one from the other because they say different things, albeit with the same tone and manner of expression. So that, all else being equal, there occurs today in the civilized world the same thing that I have said occurs in France. Virtually no writer has his own [2915] style, there is just one style for all, and this consists far more of statements of thought than of words. Little attention is now paid to style in works that appear, or if it is, that is more in order to see whether it follows the universally accepted usage and form of style, or not. If it does follow it, no mention is made of its style; if it doesn’t follow it, then its style alone asks to be noticed, and for the most part it is criticized, and ordinarily with good cause. The difference which exists in this particular of style between French and the other modern languages lies in the fact that if in the former the writer does not have a style of his own, it is because the language has just one style, if his style is not varied, it is because the language does not have a variety of styles. But in the other languages the fault lies with the writer. It is he that lacks variety of style, and not the language, and if he has no style of his own, he could have one, or at any rate his language does not prevent him from having one. But he doesn’t have his own style, because it is not so much his language that has a single style, for it admits many, but, so to speak, the European language, in other words, the universal usage and spirit of the literature and civilization [2916] of the present, and of our age. See p. 3471.
Besides, it is absolutely certain that, however capable at least a fair number of the modern languages are of producing every kind of variety, feature, and perfection of style, nonetheless there is not one of them that can show, not even in its ancestors and in its golden age, either as much variety or anything like as much perfection of style in the strict sense as the ancient languages can show in theirs. The moderns, however, for all that they overcome the ancients in the statement of thoughts, all yield to them in every area of style as such, and in the cult of words in the full meaning of the term. And not only do they not put into or know how to put into practice, but they do not even know perfectly all the refinements of artifice and cunning that the ancients commonly taught and employed in relation to that cult, and that can be seen in the rhetorical writings of Cicero and of Quintilian. The moderns generally do not even know the names of them, or have a sufficiently clear idea of them to be able to assess just how far [2917] this refinement went. In the moderns, statements of thought, and the spirituality of the age, harm words and style, to the art of which not one of them applies himself intelligently, or devotes as much study and time as is needed. In the classical ancestors of each modern language, in whom those circumstances did not apply, and each of whom made the art of style their principal study, and paid more attention to words than to things whenever he truly set about composing,1 in none of these or almost none was there sufficient art or ability, or as much as was required in order to attain that high degree of perfection, even relatively and within the limits of the resources, character, quality, and capacity of their respective languages. (8 July 1823.)
The argument on the basis of which elsewhere, [→Z 1118–20] from the adjective potus [drunk], which I call a true participle, and from the substantives potus us [drinking] (formed from this participle, according to the rule given by me elsewhere [→Z 2145–46]) and potio onis [drinking] compared to potatio [drinking], I have demonstrated the existence of an ancient verb poo, is strengthened by the compounds appotus and epotus, true participles, [2918] both in form and in meaning (which is active in the former,a in the latter passive), from which one could perhaps also infer the ancient existence of compound verbs appoo and epoo different from epoto. There’s also compotatio, compotor a substantive and compotrix. (8 July 1823.)
From what I have said on pp. 2789–90 it is evident that our adjective ratto is simply the participle raptus and that the latter must have been used by the ancient Romans and in the vernacular to mean swift, like ratto with us. Because to say that this is derived from the Italian adverb ratto, and this adverb from raptim, so that ratto
for swift is supposed to come from raptim, is a derivation or formation of which there is absolutely no instance. And conversely it is most certain that the adverb ratto comes from the adjective ratto, indeed it is the selfsame adjective neutrally and adverbially posited, which our language characteristically and customarily does, as with alto, forte (the French too have fort as adverb and adjective), presto, tosto, piano, and a thousand others, for altamente, etc. Indeed, the Italian writer or speaker is thus at liberty to make new adverbs from adjectives, [2919] but not vice versa. See Forcellini under Rapio, col. 1, end, Rapto, end, Raptus the example from Claudian. The Spanish likewise have, e.g., demasiado as adverb and adjective, etc. (8 July 1823.)
We use the verb volere [to want] in the vernacular applying it to inanimate things or to imaginary beings, and sometimes impersonally, in such a way that it either stands for potere [to be able to], or else is redundant and simply serves as a periphrasis, as an idiom, or for reasons of linguistic propriety. For example, “La piaga non se gli vuole rammarginare” [“The wound does not want to heal”]. That is: “Non si può far che la piaga se gli rammargini” [“One can’t get the wound to heal”] or “La piaga non se gli può ancora rammarginare.” Here volere stands for potere. “Se il cielo si vorrà serenare” [“If the sky wants to clear”], “se la stagione si vorrà scaldare” [“if the season wants to warm up”], “se il vento vorrà cessare” [“if the wind wants to stop”], “se il negozio vorrà camminar bene” [“if business wants to pick up”], “se la pianta vorrà pigliar piede” [“if the plant wants to take root”], “l’erba non ci vuol nascere” [“the grass does not want to grow”]. That is to say, If it takes root, it doesn’t grow. Here volere is redundant. “Da più mesi non è voluto piovere” [“For several months now it has not wanted to rain”]. That is to say, it hasn’t rained. Here volere is redundant and is impersonal. Likewise in French: “cette machine ne veut pas aller” [“this machine just doesn’t want to work”]; “ce bois ne veut pas brûler” [“this wood just doesn’t want to burn”]. Alberti. Likewise, I think, in Spanish.
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