This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, the Poetics, focusing on his discussion about the fourth dimension of tragedy, lexis, generally translated as "diction" or "style". Aristotle provides some guidelines for how to produce excellence in lexis in tragedy and epic poetry. This involves balancing the needs of clarity and non-banality in the language one selects, which in turn requires judicious incorporation of metaphor and loan words, as well as lengthening and shortening the words one uses.

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Aristotle, Poetics - Excellence In Diction (Lexis) - Sadler's Lectures

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