Key Arguments

• He answers the question about changing fashions in corrupt style by appealing to a Greek proverb: 'people’s speech matches their lives.'
• He generalizes from individuals to societies: 'just as the way in which each individual expresses himself resembles the way he acts, so in the case of a nation of declining morals and given over to luxury forms of expression at any given time mirror the general behaviour of that society.'
• He gives a diagnostic criterion: 'A luxuriant literary style, assuming that it is the favoured and accepted style and not just appearing in the odd writer here and there, is a sign of an extravagant society.'
• He insists that mind and character cannot diverge: 'The spirit and the intellect cannot be of different hues. If the spirit is sound, if it is properly adjusted and has dignity and self-control, the intellect will be sober and sensible too, and if the former is tainted the latter will be infected as well.'
• He later restates the thesis in collective terms: 'So wherever you notice that a corrupt style is in general favour, you may be certain that in that society people’s characters as well have deviated from the true path.'
• He compares stylistic extravagance to social extravagance in dress and entertaining: 'In the same way as extravagance in dress and entertaining are indications of a diseased community, so an aberrant literary style, provided it is widespread, shows that the spirit (from which people’s words derive) has also come to grief.'

Source Quotes

Y ask why it is that at certain periods a corrupt literary style has come into being; and how it is that a gifted mind develops a leaning towards some fault or other (resulting in the prevalence at one period of a bombastic form of exposition, at another of an effeminate form, fashioned after the manner of songs); and why it is that at one time approval is won by extravagant conceits and at another by sentences of an abrupt, allusive character that convey more to the intelligence than to the ear; and why there have been eras in which metaphors have been shamelessly exploited. The answer lies in something that you hear commonly enough, something which among the Greeks has passed into a proverb: people’s speech matches their lives. And just as the way in which each individual expresses himself resembles the way he acts, so in the case of a nation of declining morals and given over to luxury forms of expression at any given time mirror the general behaviour of that society.

The answer lies in something that you hear commonly enough, something which among the Greeks has passed into a proverb: people’s speech matches their lives. And just as the way in which each individual expresses himself resembles the way he acts, so in the case of a nation of declining morals and given over to luxury forms of expression at any given time mirror the general behaviour of that society. A luxuriant literary style, assuming that it is the favoured and accepted style and not just appearing in the odd writer here and there, is a sign of an extravagant society.

And just as the way in which each individual expresses himself resembles the way he acts, so in the case of a nation of declining morals and given over to luxury forms of expression at any given time mirror the general behaviour of that society. A luxuriant literary style, assuming that it is the favoured and accepted style and not just appearing in the odd writer here and there, is a sign of an extravagant society. The spirit and the intellect cannot be of different hues.

A luxuriant literary style, assuming that it is the favoured and accepted style and not just appearing in the odd writer here and there, is a sign of an extravagant society. The spirit and the intellect cannot be of different hues. If the spirit is sound, if it is properly adjusted and has dignity and self-control, the intellect will be sober and sensible too, and if the former is tainted the latter will be infected as well.

There are some who cut their thoughts short and hope to win acclaim by making their meaning elusive, giving their audience a mere hint of it; there are others who stretch them out, reluctant to let them go; there are others still who do not merely fall into a defect of style (which is something that is inevitable if one is striving for any lofty effect), but have a passion for the defect for its own sake. So wherever you notice that a corrupt style is in general favour, you may be certain that in that society people’s characters as well have deviated from the true path. In the same way as extravagance in dress and entertaining are indications of a diseased community, so an aberrant literary style, provided it is widespread, shows that the spirit (from which people’s words derive) has also come to grief.

So wherever you notice that a corrupt style is in general favour, you may be certain that in that society people’s characters as well have deviated from the true path. In the same way as extravagance in dress and entertaining are indications of a diseased community, so an aberrant literary style, provided it is widespread, shows that the spirit (from which people’s words derive) has also come to grief. And in fact you need feel no surprise at the way corrupt work finds popularity not merely with the common bystander but with your relatively cultivated audience: the distinction between these two classes of critic is more one of dress than of discernment.

Key Concepts

• people’s speech matches their lives.
• just as the way in which each individual expresses himself resembles the way he acts, so in the case of a nation of declining morals and given over to luxury forms of expression at any given time mirror the general behaviour of that society.
• A luxuriant literary style, assuming that it is the favoured and accepted style and not just appearing in the odd writer here and there, is a sign of an extravagant society.
• The spirit and the intellect cannot be of different hues.
• So wherever you notice that a corrupt style is in general favour, you may be certain that in that society people’s characters as well have deviated from the true path.
• an aberrant literary style, provided it is widespread, shows that the spirit (from which people’s words derive) has also come to grief.

Context

Opening of Letter CXIV, where Seneca answers Lucilius’ question about why different corrupt literary fashions arise by asserting a tight correspondence between morals and style at both personal and societal levels.