Literary manner

Use in the book

The association of manner with mania divides involuntary tic, natural originality and chosen contrivance. The next classification distinguishes manners belonging to the thing, genre and person from the trade’s evasive artifice: only the last receives the immediate verdict of worthlessness. An author’s dictionary and manner can also make a recognizable hand through favored sounds, colors, forms and cuts of sentence.

The condemnations are nonetheless severe when manner substitutes for method or inwardness. It becomes a good-faith hypocrisy that deceives its possessor, or something simply willed and fabricated. The repeated contrasts of manner with hand, tone with voice and color with brush then allow pleasing unity without mechanical sameness. A recognizable author can remain present across different works; mere ink, paper and practiced execution cannot replace that presence.

Places to read

1. I, p. 474, entry 1, ¶1A word association differentiates tic, originality and contrivance.
2. I, p. 475, entry 1, ¶1The trade’s artifice is distinguished from three other manners.
3. II, p. 634, entry 3, ¶2Characteristic words and sentence cuts reveal an author’s hand.
4. II, p. 662, entry 12, ¶1Manner can counterfeit method in good faith.
5. II, p. 710, entry 5, ¶1Fabricated manner lacks inwardness.
6. II, p. 730, entry begun p. 729, no. 9, ¶2The same manner bores where the same hand can please.

Translation in this edition

The English translation repeats manner so that its changing valuation remains visible. “Manner, from mania” reports Joubert’s association, not a certified etymology. The final passage’s double negative means an unrecognizable work displeases; its Latin is translated as printed without importing the omitted negation from the classical parallel.