Dover, Kenneth J.

Illinois Classical Studies

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Style, Genre and AuthorKENNETH DOVERLet us take two passages of Greek and for the moment defer theiridentification, observing only that they are both prose, both Attic and closein time. I will call them simply "Text I" and "Text II." Let us now comparethem in respect of five formal parameters:(A) Nouns ending in -tj, -ia, -eid, -oid, -ci^ or -tk;,-tti<; (stem -rnx-)and -o^6(;. This category is largely coincident with the semantic category"abstract noun," though it omits some noims which are certainly "abstract"(e.g. T^XTi, <p06voq) and includes one or two which are not (e.g. (pvXri).(B) Other nouns, excluding names of persons, nations and places.(C) Noun-phrases consisting of the definite article with an adjective,participle, infinitive, adverb (e.g. td ekei), phrase (e.g. o'l ek xox>azpaioniSov) or genitive (e.g. td rnq tioXeccx;).(D) Adjectives, participles used adjectivally and regular adverbj^ in-<oq I -w^, together with neuter adjectives used adverbially.(E) Finite verbs, participles (except as in [C] and [D]) and infinitiveswithout the article.The following, however, are excluded throughout: names of persons,nations and places; numerals, cardinal and ordinal, and Ttpoxepov andiSoxepov; tiac, and anaq; noTJic, and 6X1701, with their comparative andsuperlative; words which function sometimes as adjectives and sometimesas pronouns (e.g. aXkoc^; finite tenses of eivai.In respect of categories (A)-(E), Text I and Text II differ as shown inthe following "contingency table":84 Illinois Classical Studies 19 (1994)It is obvious that the two texts are extraordinarily different stylistically,whatever their subject-matter, and that they are bound to make profoundlydifferent impressions on any hearer or reader. Since the literary historian israther apt to treat differences as significant without specifying, as astatistician would require, a level of significance, it is desirable to calculate,for any contingency table such as the above, the probability that Text I andText II could be two random samples taken from the same population. Theprocedure for calculation of the value x^ has been described in severalrecent works for the non-statistician.* For the table above it is 89.854. Forfour "degrees of freedom" (i.e. 2-1 rows x 5 - 1 columns) x^ = 18.467would have meant a probability of one in a thousand, and x^ = 89.854means—if rhetoric may intrude on the mathematical domain—what I amtempted to call an "inconceivably" low probability.If we identify a style with an author and consequently speak of"Thucydides' style" or "Plato's style," it is disconcerting to discover thatText I is Thucydides 3. 82-83, the famous generalising description of theeffects of stasis on political morality, and Text II is the military narrative(85-91) which follows (84 is a spurious chapter). It is not, however,surprising to find a certain degree of dependence of style upon content—generalisation naturally tends to raise the total of phenomena in categories(A) and (C)—which requires us to recognise that a passage in which anauthor generalises may not belong to the same "population" as one in whichthat same author particularises. It is clear that classification of style byauthor is subordinate to classification by genre.It could still be the case that in 3. 82-83 Thucydides has realised thestylistic potential of generalisation to a far greater degree than other authors,thereby creating a distinctive "Thucydidean generalising style." To test thiswe can compare Thuc. 3. 82-83 with a passage of Isocrates (7. 20-33)which generalises about the morality of an earlier age. Using precisely thesame parameters as in the previous table, we get:Kenneth Dover 85false if we interpret "population" in terms of author, but entirely acceptablein terms of genre.For the sake of completeness let us add a comparison of Thuc. 3. 85-91with a particularising narrative of Xenophon (//G 3. 1. 1-14):86 Illinois Classical Studies 19 (1994)i} = 33.483, probability very much less than 1/1,000.The second set of parameters is likely to strike any reader of theIsocrates passage:(F' ) Contrast between a negative and a following ctXXa . ..(F^) Contrast between a negative and a following . . .bi . . .(F^) Negative with oncoq ... and a following dXXd .... "so farfrom . . . that actually ..."(F^) Negative with )j.6vov and a following d^Xd Kai .... "notonly . . . but also ..."(F^) Demonstrative (especially, but not exclusively, xoooutoq)followed by oSoxe . ..I have entered in the table not the number of instances of theseconstructions, but the total number of mobile^ tokens comprised in theinstances of each category. This requires also a statement of the number notso comprised, (F^).Kenneth Dover 87X^ = 31.135, very close to Table 4 (x^ = 33.483). And for parameters (FO-(F6):

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