Orality and Performance in Classical Attic Prose

Orality and Performance in Classical Attic Prose PDF Author: Alessandro Vatri
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192515446
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Book Description
This study discusses the question of whether there is a linguistic difference between classical Attic prose texts intended for public oral delivery and those intended for written circulation and private performance. Identifying such a difference which exclusively reflects these disparities in modes of reception has proven to be a difficult challenge for both literary scholars and cultural historians of the ancient world, with answers not always satisfactory from a methodological and an analytical point of view. The legitimacy of the question is first addressed through a definition of what such slippery notions as 'orality' and 'oral performance' mean in the context of classical Athens, reconstruction of the situations in which the extant prose texts were meant to be received, and an explanation of the grounds on which we may expect linguistic features of the texts to be related to such situations. The idea that texts conceived for public delivery needed to be as clear as possible is substantiated by available cultural-historical and anthropological facts; however, these do not imply that the opposite was required of texts conceived for private reception. In establishing a rigorous methodology for the reconstruction of the native perception of clarity in the original contexts of textual reception this study offers a novel approach to assessing orality in classical Greek prose through examination of linguistic and grammatical features of style. It builds upon the theoretical insights and current experimental findings of modern psycholinguistics, providing scholars with a new key to the minds of ancient writers and audiences.

Orality and Performance in Classical Attic Prose

Orality and Performance in Classical Attic Prose PDF Author: Alessandro Vatri
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192515446
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 351

Get Book Here

Book Description
This study discusses the question of whether there is a linguistic difference between classical Attic prose texts intended for public oral delivery and those intended for written circulation and private performance. Identifying such a difference which exclusively reflects these disparities in modes of reception has proven to be a difficult challenge for both literary scholars and cultural historians of the ancient world, with answers not always satisfactory from a methodological and an analytical point of view. The legitimacy of the question is first addressed through a definition of what such slippery notions as 'orality' and 'oral performance' mean in the context of classical Athens, reconstruction of the situations in which the extant prose texts were meant to be received, and an explanation of the grounds on which we may expect linguistic features of the texts to be related to such situations. The idea that texts conceived for public delivery needed to be as clear as possible is substantiated by available cultural-historical and anthropological facts; however, these do not imply that the opposite was required of texts conceived for private reception. In establishing a rigorous methodology for the reconstruction of the native perception of clarity in the original contexts of textual reception this study offers a novel approach to assessing orality in classical Greek prose through examination of linguistic and grammatical features of style. It builds upon the theoretical insights and current experimental findings of modern psycholinguistics, providing scholars with a new key to the minds of ancient writers and audiences.

Memory in a Time of Prose

Memory in a Time of Prose PDF Author: Daniel D. Pioske
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190649879
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 421

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Book Description
Memory in a Time of Prose investigates a deceptively straightforward question: what did the biblical scribes know about times previous to their own? Daniel D. Pioske attempts to answer this question by studying the sources, limits, and conditions of knowing that would have shaped biblical stories told about a past that preceded the composition of these writings by a generation or more. This book is comprised of a series of case studies that compare biblical references to an early Iron Age world (ca. 1175-830 BCE) with a wide range of archaeological and historical evidence from the era in which these stories are set. Pioske examines the relationship between the past disclosed through these historical traces and the past represented within the biblical narrative. He discovers that the knowledge available to the biblical scribes about this period derived predominantly from memory and word of mouth, rather than from a corpus of older narrative documents. For those Hebrew scribes who first set down these stories in prose writing, the means for knowing a past and the significance attached to it were, in short, wed foremost to the faculty of remembrance. Memory in a Time of Prose reveals how the past was preserved, transformed, or forgotten in the ancient world of oral, living speech that informed biblical storytelling.

Plutarch's Rhythmic Prose

Plutarch's Rhythmic Prose PDF Author: G. O. Hutchinson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192554794
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Greek literature is divided, like many literatures, into poetry and prose, but in Greek the difference between them is not that all prose is devoid of firm rhythmic patterning. In the earlier Roman Empire, from 31 BC to about AD 300, much Greek (and Latin) prose was actually written to follow one organized rhythmic system. How much Greek prose adopted this patterning has hitherto been quite unclear; the present volume for the first time establishes an answer on an adequate basis: substantial data drawn from numerous authors. It constitutes the first extensive study of prose-rhythm in later Greek literature. The book focuses particularly on one of the greatest Imperial works: Plutarch's Lives. It rests on a scansion of the whole work, almost 100,000 phrases. Rhythm is seen to make a vital contribution to the literary analysis of Plutarch's writing, and prose-rhythm is revealed as a means of expression, which draws attention to words and word-groups. Some passages in the Lives pack rhythms together more closely than others; much of the discussion concentrates on such rhythmically dense passages, examining them in detail in commentary form. These passages do not occur randomly, but attract attention to themselves. They are marked out as climactic in the narrative, or as in other ways of highlighted significance: joyful summations, responses to catastrophe, husbands and wives, fathers and sons compared. These remarkable passages make apparent the greatness of Plutarch as a prose-writer - a side of him fairly little considered amid the huge resurgence of work on Plutarch as an author and as a major historical source. Some passages from three Greek novelists, both rhythmic and unrhythmic, are closely analysed too. The book demonstrates how rhythm can be integrated with other aspects of criticism, and how it has the ability to open up new vistas on three prolific centuries of literary history.

Between Script and Scripture: Performance Criticism and Mark's Characterization of the Disciples

Between Script and Scripture: Performance Criticism and Mark's Characterization of the Disciples PDF Author: Zach Preston Eberhart
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004692037
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
This volume reimagines the first-century reception of the Gospel of Mark within a reconstructed (yet hypothetical) performance event. In particular, it considers the disciples' character and characterization through the lens of performance criticism. Questions concerning the characterization of the disciples have been relatively one-sided in New Testament scholarship, in favor of their negative characterization. This project demonstrates why such assumptions need not be necessary when we (re-)consider the oral/aural milieu in which the Gospel of Mark was first composed and received by its earliest audiences.

The Paths of Greek

The Paths of Greek PDF Author: Enzo Passa
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110621746
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
This volume proposes a multidisciplinary approach to the history of Ancient Greek. Each of its ten papers offers a methodological example of how the study of Greek can be greatly enhanced by a truly multidisciplinary perspective in which the analysis of language interacts with epigraphy, textual philology and comparative linguistics, yet without neglecting the role that linguistic features play in the texts in which they are used, and hence in the culture which produced both. The first four papers tackle epic language, addressing eccentric pronouns and formulas, the role and semantics of the middle perfect, and the development of hexameter poetry in the colonial West. The next two papers are devoted to lyric poetry and its linguistic influence in Greek literature and tackle fragments by Corinna and Epicharmus respectively. The remaining four contributions look into a variety of topics spanning from early Ionic prose to the diachronic development of the Greek lexicon and its reception in Byzantine lexicography. They all provide examples of how Greek literary language evolved across the centuries, how it was perceived by ancient scholars, and what contribution modern linguistic approaches can provide to our understanding of both these issues.

The Orators and Their Treatment of the Recent Past

The Orators and Their Treatment of the Recent Past PDF Author: Aggelos Kapellos
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110791870
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 542

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Book Description
This volume focuses on the representation of the recent past in classical Athenian oratory and investigates the ability of the orators to interpret it according to their interests; the inability of the Athenians to make an objective assessment of it; and the unwillingness of the citizens to hear the truth, make self-criticism and take responsibility for bad results. Twenty-eight scholars have written chapters to this end, dealing with a wide range of themes, in terms both of contents and of chronology, from the fifth to the fourth century B.C. Each contributor has written a chapter that analyzes one or more historical events mentioned or alluded in the corpus of the Attic orators and covers the three species of Attic oratory. Chapters that treat other issues collectively are also included. The common feature of each contribution is an outline of the recent events that took place and influenced the citizens and/or the city of Athens and its juxtaposition with their rhetorical treatment by the orators either by comparing the rhetorical texts with the historical sources and/or by examining the rhetorical means through which the speakers model the recent past. This book aims at advanced students and professional scholars. This volume focuses on the representation of the recent past in classical Athenian oratory and investigates: the ability of the orators to interpret it according to their interests; the inability of the Athenians to make an objective assessment of persons and events of the recent past and their unwillingness to hear the truth, make self-criticism and take responsibility for bad results.

Experience, Narrative, and Criticism in Ancient Greece

Experience, Narrative, and Criticism in Ancient Greece PDF Author: Jonas Grethlein
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198848293
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Drawing on cognitive approaches to literary studies, this volume pursues a new approach to ancient Greek narrative that transcends the taxonomies of structuralist narratologies, deploying concepts such as immersion and embodiment in order to establish a more comprehensive understanding of ancient Greek narrative and ancient reading habits.

Nonverbal Behaviour in Ancient Literature

Nonverbal Behaviour in Ancient Literature PDF Author: Andreas Serafim
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3111338886
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
The volume offers an up-to-date and nuanced study of a multi-thematic topic, expressions of which can be found abundantly in ancient Greek and Latin literature: nonverbal behaviour, i.e., vocalics, kinesics, proxemics, haptics, and chronemics. The individual chapters explore texts from Homer to the 4th century AD to discuss aspects of nonverbal behaviour and how these are linked to, reflect upon, and are informed by general cultural frameworks in ancient Greece and Rome. Material sources are also examined to enhance our knowledge and understanding of the texts.

The Theatre of Justice

The Theatre of Justice PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004341870
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
The Theatre of Justice contains 17 chapters that offer a holistic view of performance in Greek and Roman oratorical and political contexts. This holistic view consists of the examination of two areas of techniques. The first one relates to the delivery of speeches and texts: gesticulation, facial expressions and vocal communication. The second area includes a wide diversity of techniques that aim at forging a rapport between the speaker and the audience, such as emotions, language and style, vivid imagery and the depiction of characters. In this way the volume develops a better understanding of the objectives of public speaking, the mechanisms of persuasion, and the extent to which performance determined the outcome of judicial and political contests.

Decrees of Fourth-Century Athens (403/2–322/1 BC): Volume 2, Political and Cultural Perspectives

Decrees of Fourth-Century Athens (403/2–322/1 BC): Volume 2, Political and Cultural Perspectives PDF Author:
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316952711
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Decree-making is a defining aspect of ancient Greek political activity: it was the means by which city-state communities went about deciding to get things done. This two-volume work provides a new view of the decree as an institution within the framework of fourth-century Athenian democratic political activity. Volume 1 consists of a comprehensive account of the literary evidence for decrees of the fourth-century Athenian assembly. Volume 2 analyses how decrees and decree-making, by offering both an authoritative source for the narrative of the history of the Athenian demos and a legitimate route for political self-promotion, came to play an important role in shaping Athenian democratic politics. Peter Liddel assesses ideas about, and the reality of, the dissemination of knowledge of decrees among both Athenians and non-Athenians and explains how they became significant to the wider image and legacy of the Athenians.