Diderots Thoughts On Art And Style With Some Of His Shorter Essays PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1893 edition. Excerpt: ... A LETTER ON THE DEAF AND DUMB FOR the benefit of those who can speak and hear, which treats of the origin of inversions in language, of harmony of style, of sublimity of situation, and of some advantages which the French language possesses over other languages, ancient and modern, followed by some thoughts on expression in the fine arts. I grant that this title will apply equally to the large number of those who speak without understanding, and the small number of those who understand without speaking, as to the very small number of those who speak and understand, and for whose special use my letter is intended. I am not fond of quotations, especially of those from the Greek; they give a learned air to a book, an air which is no longer fashionable. They frighten away readers, and if I were deciding from a publisher's point of view I should leave out such scarecrows. But I am not a publisher, so pray suffer the Greek quotations to stay where you find them. If you care less for a book being good than that it should be read, it is not so with me; what I care for is to make a good book, although it may risk being read the less. As to the number of subjects I touch upon, flitting from one to another, I would have you know and teach that this is no fault in a letter, where one is allowed to digress freely, and where the last word of a phrase is a sufficient link to the next. Now, in order to treat of inversions we must first examine how languages are formed. Objects that strike the senses are those which are first observed, and those which unite various qualities which appeal to the senses are named first. Then the various qualities are separately observed and named, and these form most of our adjectives. Later on, these sensible qualities...