STYLE
Style was of the utmost importance in differentiating rhetorical speech from other modes of communication, such as philosophical discourse, everyday conversation and poetry. Speakers sought to give their language a certain formality and distinction without turning it into an esoteric discourse comprehensible only to a few. The availability of finely calibrated stylistic registers also allowed speakers to signal subtle shifts in significance within a speech, such as the transition from a simple narrative to more vigorous argumentation. A speaker could also cultivate a personal style that differentiated his manner of writing and speaking from that of his peers and rivals. Indeed, most surviving classical authors display a readily identifiable individual style, even as they draw on the stylistic resources more generally available.
As the anonymous author of the Rhetoric to Herennius makes clear in this passage, all style should be correct, in the sense of using proper Latin (or Greek), and clear, and should avoid unpleasant collocations or repetitions of sounds. Beyond that, style should be distinctive or polished, a goal achieved through the use of what he calls figures of language and figures of thought. Although it is not always clear why a given figure falls into one category as opposed to the other, generally speaking figures of language entail the manipulation of sound effects, word order or the meaning of specific words, whereas figures of thought have to do with the overall presentation of a key idea. Practice in generating and identifying figures of language and of thought expanded the student’s sense of the communicative possibilities inherent in language.
It will be useful to read the fairly mechanical discussion of stylistic devices presented here in conjunction with Cicero’s more expansive treatment of rhetorical ornament (here). Polished speech, that is speech clearly differentiated from everyday conversation, is the goal of both treatises, but only Cicero considers why such speech matters and the principles underlying the rules for attaining it.