Definition:
Brief, witty, sometimes epigrammatic style--opposite of the ornate Asiatic style.
Etymology:
From the Greek, "the style of Attica"Examples and Observations:
- "Some books are to be tasted. Others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. That is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention."
(Francis Bacon, "Of Studies") - "We must warn those people whose unskilled speech is so frequently heard, who either want to be called Attic or themselves speak in the Attic manner, that their greatest admiration should be for Demosthenes . . . and that they should measure eloquence by his power rather than by their own weakness."
(Cicero, Orator, 46 BC, translated by H.M. Hubbell) - "In the second half of the first century BCE, we find at Rome a bad-tempered argument among writers and orators over how the appellation Attic was to be employed. . . . Insofar as Attic had any meaning, it denoted a plain and unadorned style of composition; but its more important function was evaluative. It was used by the self-proclaimed Atticists as a term of approbation for the Roman heirs of the great figures of the classical Greek tradition . . . The antonym of Attic, on this view, was Asianist, a term best defined negatively; it denoted all the bad qualities that a dedicated Atticist should avoid. The principal object of this needling was Cicero (106-43 BCE), the most famous orator of his day. Roman Atticism was thus in part a normal literary reaction to a familiar and prestigious style, described by Quintilian as 'full' (Cicero's sentences are often long and complex, characterized by attention to balance, rhythm, and rhetorical effect)."
(Stephen C. Colvin, "Atticist-Asianist Controversy," Encyclopedia of Rhetoric, Oxford University Press, 2001)
Pronunciation: AT-tik
Also Known As: Atticist
