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.

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

Get Book Here

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.

Plutarch's Rhythmic Prose

Plutarch's Rhythmic Prose PDF Author: G. O. Hutchinson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780191860928
Category : LITERARY CRITICISM
Languages : en
Pages :

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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.

Plutarch’s Unexpected Silences

Plutarch’s Unexpected Silences PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004514252
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
This book examines passages in Plutarch’s works that foil expectations and whose silence invites closer examination. The contributors question omissions of authors, works, people, and places, and they examine Plutarch’s reticence to comment where he usually would.

Plutarch's Cities

Plutarch's Cities PDF Author: Lucia Athanassaki
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192676172
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
Plutarch's Cities is the first comprehensive attempt to assess the significance of the polis in Plutarch's works from several perspectives, namely the polis as a physical entity, a lived experience, and a source of inspiration, the polis as a historical and sociopolitical unit, the polis as a theoretical construct and paradigm to think with. The book's multifocal and multi-perspectival examination of Plutarch's cities - past and present, real and ideal-yields some remarkable corrections of his conventional image. Plutarch was neither an antiquarian nor a philosopher of the desk. He was not oblivious to his surroundings but had a keen interest in painting, sculpture, monuments, and inscriptions, about which he acquired impressive knowledge in order to help him understand and reconstruct the past. Cult and ritual proved equally fertile for Plutarch's visual imagination. Whereas historiography was the backbone of his reconstruction of the past and evaluation of the present, material culture, cult, and ritual were also sources of inspiration to enliven past and present alike. Plato's descriptions of Athenian houses and the Attic landscape were also a source of inspiration, but Plutarch clearly did his own research, based on autopsy and on oral and written sources. Plutarch, Plato's disciple and Apollo's priest, was on balance a pragmatist. He did not resist the temptation to contemplate the ideal city, but he wrote much more about real cities, as he experienced or imagined them.

Generic Enrichment in Plutarch’s Lives

Generic Enrichment in Plutarch’s Lives PDF Author: Chrysanthos S. Chrysanthou
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 0429648839
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
This volume addresses the important literary phenomenon of ‘generic enrichment’ in Plutarch’s Parallel Lives. It examines the ways in which features of other genres are deployed and incorporated in Plutarch’s biographies and the effects of this on the texts themselves and readers’ responses to them. ‘Generic enrichment’, a term coined by Stephen Harrison with reference to Latin poetry, is used here to refer to the different ways in which a text of one genre might incorporate or evoke features of other genres. The fact that particular Plutarchan biographies may contain not only allusions to specific texts from a variety of genres, but also features such as vocabulary, phraseology, and plot-forms which evoke other genres, has been noticed sporadically by scholars. However, this is the first volume to discuss this feature as a distinct phenomenon across the corpus of Parallel Lives and to attempt an assessment of its effect. Chapters cover the interaction of Plutarchan biography with a series of genres, including archaic poetry, comedy, tragedy, historiography, philosophy, geographical and scientific texts, oratory, inscriptions, novelistic writing and periegetical works. Together these studies demonstrate the generic complexity and richness of Plutarch’s Lives, enhance our understanding of ancient biography in general and Plutarchan biography in particular, and explore the range of effects such generic enrichment might have on readers. Generic Enrichment in Plutarch’s Lives is of interest to students and scholars of Plutarch and ancient biography, as well as to those working in other periods and genres of both Latin and Greek literature, and to those beyond the field of Classical Studies who are interested in questions of genre and literary theory.

Plutarch and Rhetoric

Plutarch and Rhetoric PDF Author: Theofanis Tsiampokalos
Publisher: Leuven University Press
ISBN: 9462704198
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
A fundamental reappraisal of Plutarch’s attitude towards rhetoric. Plutarch was not only a skilled writer, but also lived during the Second Sophistic, a period of cultural renaissance. This book offers new insights into Plutarch’s seemingly moderate attitude towards rhetoric. The hypothesis explored in this study introduces, for the first time, the broader literary and cultural contexts that influenced and restricted the scope of Plutarch’s message. When these contexts are considered, a new perspective emerges that differs from that found in earlier studies. It paints a picture of a philosopher who may not regard rhetoric as a lesser means of persuasion, but who faces challenges in openly articulating this stance in his public discourse.

The Cambridge Companion to Plutarch

The Cambridge Companion to Plutarch PDF Author: Frances B. Titchener
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009302116
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 523

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Book Description
Plutarch is one of the most prolific and important writers from antiquity. His Parallel Lives continue to be an invaluable historical source, and the numerous essays in his Moralia, covering everything from marriage to the Delphic Oracle, are crucial evidence for ancient philosophy and cultural history. This volume provides an engaging introduction to all aspects of his work, including his method and purpose in writing the Lives, his attitudes toward daily life and intimate relations, his thoughts on citizenship and government, his relationship to Plato and the second Sophistic, and his conception of foreign or 'other'. Attention is also paid to his style and rhetoric. Plutarch's works have also been important in subsequent periods, and an introduction to their reception history in Byzantium, Italy, England, Spain, and France is provided. A distinguished team of contributors together helps the reader begin to navigate this most varied and fascinating of writers.

Late Hellenistic Greek Literature in Dialogue

Late Hellenistic Greek Literature in Dialogue PDF Author: Jason König
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009035630
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
Late Hellenistic Greek literature, both prose and poetry, stands out for its richness and diversity. Recent work has tended to take an author-by-author approach that underestimates the interconnectedness of the literary culture of the period. The chapters assembled here set out to change that by offering new readings of a wide range of late Hellenistic texts and genres, including historiography, geography, rhetoric and philosophy, together with many verse texts and inscriptions. In the process, they offer new insights into the various ways in which late Hellenistic literature engaged with its social, cultural and political contexts, while interrogating and revising some of the standard narratives of the relationship between late Hellenistic and imperial Greek literary culture, which are too often studied in isolation from each other. As a whole the book prompts us to rethink the place of late Hellenistic literature within the wider landscape of Greek and Roman literary history.

Another Kind of Normal

Another Kind of Normal PDF Author: Graham Ward
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019284301X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
Every age needs to examine and propose its ways of living ethically. This volume constructs a mode of such living according to the Christian tradition, based upon an interpretation of Christ's coming and the relationship of that incarnation to God as the Creator of all things.

An Opaque Mirror for Trajan

An Opaque Mirror for Trajan PDF Author: Laurens van der Wiel
Publisher: Leuven University Press
ISBN: 9462703906
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 522

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Book Description
Plutarch’s Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata (Sayings of Kings and Commanders) holds a peculiar position in his oeuvre. This collection of almost 500 anecdotes of barbarian, Greek, and Roman rulers and generals is introduced by a dedicatory letter to Trajan as a summary of the author’s well-known and widely read Parallel Lives. The work is therefore Plutarch’s only text that explicitly addresses a Roman emperor and is likely to shed light on his biographical technique. Yet the collection has been understudied, because its authenticity has been generally rejected since the nineteenth century. Recent scholarship defends Plutarch's authorship of the text, but some remain sceptical. This book restores its reputation and provides a first full literary analysis of the letter and collection as a genuine work of Plutarch, wherein he attempts to educate his ruler by means of great role models of the past. Plutarch’s thinking about the function of role models (exempla) is not only relevant for Plutarchan research, but also for our knowledge of exemplarity, a key feature both in Greek and Latin literature in the early imperial period in general. Therefore An Opaque Mirror for Trajan is also of interest for literary and historical scholars who study the broader context of ancient literature of the first centuries CE.