Dionysius of Halicarnassus On Literary Composition: Being the Greek Text of the De Compositione Verborum

It is a happy instinct that leads Pope to find in Dionysius a gifted interpreter of Homer’s poetry, who can ‘call new beauties forth from every line.’ In his entire attitude, not only towards Homer but towards Sappho and Simonides, Herodotus and Demosthenes, Dionysius has proved that he can rise above the debased standards of the ages immediately preceding his own, and can discern and proclaim a classic excellence. He has thus contributed not a little to confirm our belief in the essential continuity of critical principles—in the existence of a firm and permanent basis for the judgments of taste.

The breadth of interest and the discriminating enthusiasm with which in the present treatise Dionysius of Halicarnassus (or ‘Denis of Halicarnasse’, as we might prefer to call him) approaches his special subject of literary composition, or word-order, may be inferred from the table of contents, the detailed summary, and the brief statement of the Introduction. It is an interest which impels him to touch, incidentally but most suggestively, on such topics as Greek Pronunciation, Accent, Music. It is an enthusiasm which prompts him to speak of ‘words soft as a maiden’s cheek’ (ὀνόματα μαλακὰ καὶ παρθενωπά), to describe Homer as ‘of all poets the most many-voiced’ (πολυφωνότατος ἁπάντων τῶν ποιητῶν), and to attribute to Thucydides ‘an old-world andmasterful nobility of style’ (ἀρχαϊκόν τι καὶ αὔθαδες κάλλος). Expressions so apt and vivid as these, together with the easy flow and natural arrangement of the whole treatise, tend to prove that Dionysius is not laboriously compiling his matter as he goes along, but is writing out of a full mind, is dealing with a subject which has long occupied his thoughts, and is imparting one section only of a large and well-ordered body of critical doctrine in the command of which he feels secure.

That to the Greeks literature was an art—that with them, the sound was echo to the sense—that they were keenly alive to all the magic and music of beautiful speech: where shall we find these truths more vividly brought out than in the present treatise? And if we are still to teach the great Greek authors in the original language and not in translations, surely it is of supreme importance to lay stress on points of artistic form, most especially in a literature where form and substance are so indissolubly allied as in that of Greece and when we are fortunate enough to have the aid of a writer who knows so well as does Dionysius  that noble style is but the reflection of those noble thoughts and feelings which should inspire a nation’s life. Nevertheless, the de Compositionelies almost dead and forgotten, seldom mentioned and still more seldom read; and one is sometimes tempted to think of the eager curiosity with which it would most certainly be welcomed had it lately been discovered in the sands of Egypt or in some buried house at Herculaneum. A new ode of Sappho, and a ‘precious tender-hearted scroll of pure Simonides,’ would rejoice the man of letters, while the philologist would revel in the stray hints upon Greek pronunciation. So striking an addition to the Greek criticism of Greek literature would be hailed with acclamation, and it would be gladly acknowledged that its skilful author had known how to enliven a difficult subject by means of eloquence, enthusiasm, humour, variety in vocabulary and in method of presentation generally, and had made his readers realize that the beauty of a verse or of a prose period largely depends upon the harmonious collocation of thosesounds of which human speech primarily consists.