Christian Plain Style: The Evolution of a Spiritual Ideal.

Peter Auski's project of writing a history of the concept of a plain style in classical rhetoric, as it was taken up and reapplied in the Christian tradition, was certainly justified, although he may not have realized the sheer amount of material with which he would have to deal. In effect, he attempts a parallel history of both classical and Christian traditions, stopping at the end of the seventeenth century, but with an epilogue recording them both still flourishing in John Wesley's Directions concerning Pronunciation and Gesture (1727). Apart from the misnomer in his title - he discovers no "evolution," only a constant recurrence of the same terms and categories in different periods and cultures - his book can be recommended as a pertinacious survey of a huge range of material.

Definitions of plainness, he shows in the introduction, are variable and often couched in terms of negation, plainness or simplicity being the absence of ornament or display. (Rather like the word "peace," which dictionaries define as freedom from war, as if it had no natural identity in itself.) In Christian terms, of course, plainness is more than a stylistic category, involving important concepts of behavior, or what we might call "life-style," such as simplicitas and rusticitas: simple, holy behavior with connotations of integrity and the avoidance of duplicity. In classical rhetoric the plain style is the lowest of the traditional three levels of style, and as such, Auski correctly observes, is not greatly valued, although he never really grasps the converse point, that the high style was more estimated because of its greater efficiency in movere, moving the listeners' or readers' souls to give assent (note the conspicuous absence of this point on 34 and 53). The discussion of classical rhetoric in chapter two is unsatisfactory, quoting the handbooks' pronouncements on style without relating them to their clearly expressed distinctions of register and function. Nor does the author seem at home in classical literature: he quotes the judgments that are ascribed to Euripides, the character in Aristophanes' Frogs, as if they were those of the dramatist himself, and the evaluations of Plato (34, 43-44) and Cicero (38) are poorly informed.

This chapter also displays a weakness found elsewhere, its organization being disjointed and repetitive. A quick survey takes us from Homer, Plato, and Aristotle, to Hermogenes and Cicero (34-38), but then we suddenly double back to Isocrates, Plato again (an uncritical account of the Gorgias and Phaedrus), Aristotle again, Demetrius, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Cicero again, Quintilian, and Seneca. In the following chapter, on plainness in the Bible, we read of the Byzantine iconoclastic crisis on page 71ff and again on page 84ff; Saint Paul enters here (89), accompanied by Saint Augustine (94), only for both to reappear in the next chapter, this time Augustine first (112ff), followed by Paul (126ff).

The strengths of this book are its thorough analyses and documentation, and its generosity in quotation. It would be an excellent starting-point for anyone studying the concept of plainness in all major and most minor writers from the early Church fathers up to Robert Boyle. The list of authors given substantial treatment includes, in addition to those mentioned, Isidore, Tertullian, Jerome, Gregory, Saint Basil, Boethius, Cassiodorus, Rabanus Maurus, John of Salisbury, Alanus, Alberic, Luther, Calvin, and many more, while the less well-known (and often voluminous) writers include several virtually unknown names. Auski is well-informed in many areas, but there are some inevitable omissions: he cites the attacks on Hooker's style in the anonymous Christian Letter (1599), but not Hooker's angry marginalia in reply, printed in volume four of the admirable Folger edition of the Laws (Harvard University Press, 1982); he draws on an extensive literature on Calvin, but cites no German studies of Luther, such as the important work of Birgit Stolt on his rhetoric, or Peter Meinhold, Luthers Sprachphilosophie (Berlin: Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1958); his account of Erasmus would have benefitted from Jacques Chomarat, Grammaire et Rhetorique chez Erasme, 2 vols. (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1981). He is also too prone to take his author's pronouncements at face value. Henry Reynolds may invoke "the naked truth" in his Mythomystes (1632) but his own style is turgid and rhapsodical, to say the least.

Still, the book's scope is enormous, and many readers could benefit from individual discussions, even though, given the nature of the subject, they should not expect any tidy overall argument.