1. The Contact of Rhetoric and Poetic in Style


The coincidence of rhetoric and poetic is in style. They differ typically
in movement or composition; they have a common ground in diction. And in
this common ground each influenced the other from the beginning of
recorded criticism. Aristotle says, for example, that the ornate style of
the sophists, such as Gorgias, has its origin in the poets,[86] while the
modern student, Norden, asserts that the poets learned from the
sophists.[87] The evidence at least points to a very marked similarity
between the styles of the sophists and of the poets in the fourth century
B.C. This is well illustrated by the literary controversy between
Isocrates and Alcidamas, both sophists and both students of the famous
Gorgias. Alcidamas reproaches Isocrates because his discourses, so
elaborately worked out with polished diction, are more akin to poetry than
to prose. Isocrates cheerfully admits the accusation, and prides himself
on the fact, affirming that his listeners take as much pleasure in his
discourses as in poems.[88]

That there are characteristic differences in style between rhetoric and
poetic Aristotle justly shows when he asserts that while metaphor is
common to both, it is more essential to poetic. Consequently in the
_Rhetoric_ he refers to the _Poetics_ for a fuller discussion of
metaphor.[89] At the same time he says that metaphor deserves great
attention in prose because prose lacks other poetical adornment.
Furthermore, epithets and compound words are appropriate to verse but not
to prose. And though both verse and oratorical prose should be rhythmical,