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from Greek through Latin. Nor is the metric of either Greek or Latin, significant as it is incidentally, necessary to the comprehension of ancient rhetoric or poetic.
The innovation of expounding rhetoric and poetic side by side was suggested by the demands of that historical treatment which is proposed for a later volume. But though it was designed for this larger purpose, it has meantime facihtated the immediate task. Actually the experience of the ancients seems to be best approached from their conception of composition as twofold. Logical composition and imaginative composition are, indeed, distinct; but each technic, defined within its own scope, helps to define the other by contrast. Making each more distinct, the contrast further exhibits interrelations and confusions highly significant for the history of both pedagogy and criticism. Not merely as archæology, then, ancient rhetoric and poetic demand reconsideration, but as the theory of widely suggestive experiences in the progressive art of words.
The bibliographies at the head of each chapter or section, and the notes, are strictly selective. Enumeration of what I have read myself could only embarrass the guidance of readers who wish to proceed from this book to further study. Omitting, therefore, all mere acknowledgment of my long and manifold indebtedness, omitting also the obvious books of reference, whether histories or topical digests, the apparatus directs immediately to interpretations either of the authors themselves or of those principles and habits of ancient art which seem most significant for the study, the practise, and the teaching of composition. For example, the references are not to Volkmann and Christ-Schmid, but to Heinze, Rhys Roberts, Hendrickson, Hubbell, to Sandys the editor