Plutarch considered content infinitely more important than style. He deprecated excessive attention to words by writers or by readers and believed that the right way to read classical poetry was to concentrate on its moral lessons and not so much on information (historia) or brilliance of language. Nevertheless, he was himself a master of the formal prose (Kunstprosa, in the idiom of German philology) of his day, and had enough versatility to vary his style not only according to genre but sometimes even within a work, especially in dialogue. At the same time, his writing always shows two very marked characteristics: abundance, and richness of imagery and allusion.