Note 55 — Book III

The Greek word σχῆμα is quite general, applicable to any sort of guiding principle, outline, system, or plan. Our English words outline, plan, etc., though otherwise fairly equivalent, have visual, graphic, static associations quite foreign to the context. Aristotle’s images for style are drawn not from architecture or painting, but from music and other modes of movement. By the diction he means—indeed, he says later—prose diction.