Cynthia Damon
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199558681
- eISBN:
- 9780191720888
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199558681.003.0021
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
This chapter is an investigation of a Tacitean metaphor for historiography and its implications for the historian's role in history. The metaphor of the historian's physical proximity to his subject ...
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This chapter is an investigation of a Tacitean metaphor for historiography and its implications for the historian's role in history. The metaphor of the historian's physical proximity to his subject matter, which is found in the Annals 4 digression contrasting Tacitus's work with that of historians of earlier periods, is an offshoot of the enargeia that often enlivens a narrative. It is also one of the many connections between this digression and both Tacitus's account of the trial of the historian Cremutius Cordus (4.34-35) and what he suggests about his own work as historian.Less
This chapter is an investigation of a Tacitean metaphor for historiography and its implications for the historian's role in history. The metaphor of the historian's physical proximity to his subject matter, which is found in the Annals 4 digression contrasting Tacitus's work with that of historians of earlier periods, is an offshoot of the enargeia that often enlivens a narrative. It is also one of the many connections between this digression and both Tacitus's account of the trial of the historian Cremutius Cordus (4.34-35) and what he suggests about his own work as historian.
Lorna Hutson
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199212439
- eISBN:
- 9780191707209
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199212439.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
This chapter argues that recent critiques of older mimetic approaches to Shakespeare have tended to neglect the contribution of narrative coherence or plot to mimesis. Following Ricoeur's exposition ...
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This chapter argues that recent critiques of older mimetic approaches to Shakespeare have tended to neglect the contribution of narrative coherence or plot to mimesis. Following Ricoeur's exposition of the quasi-equivalence between plot and mimesis proposed by Aristotle's Poetics, it proposes that dramatic mimesis is, more than has been realized, an effect of narrative coherence. It then goes on to show the extent to which the pedagogy of narrative was, in the 16th century, based on classical judicial rhetoric, which emphasized the importance of narrative in constituting the facts as plausible by making them coherent and circumstantially vivid, or ‘evident’. Finally, it offers a number of dramatic examples that show how vivid but questionable narratives of staged and unstaged events contribute powerfully to the mimetic illusion of prose narrative or drama.Less
This chapter argues that recent critiques of older mimetic approaches to Shakespeare have tended to neglect the contribution of narrative coherence or plot to mimesis. Following Ricoeur's exposition of the quasi-equivalence between plot and mimesis proposed by Aristotle's Poetics, it proposes that dramatic mimesis is, more than has been realized, an effect of narrative coherence. It then goes on to show the extent to which the pedagogy of narrative was, in the 16th century, based on classical judicial rhetoric, which emphasized the importance of narrative in constituting the facts as plausible by making them coherent and circumstantially vivid, or ‘evident’. Finally, it offers a number of dramatic examples that show how vivid but questionable narratives of staged and unstaged events contribute powerfully to the mimetic illusion of prose narrative or drama.
Neil Rhodes
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199245727
- eISBN:
- 9780191715259
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199245727.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
This chapter begins with speech — the original medium of communication — and with the related terms ‘expression’ and ‘articulation’. Both are shown to have bodily associations in addition to their ...
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This chapter begins with speech — the original medium of communication — and with the related terms ‘expression’ and ‘articulation’. Both are shown to have bodily associations in addition to their functions in the context of language. It focuses on the Renaissance literary and educational values associated with speech-based skills, notably ‘liveliness’ (enargeia). Illustrations are given from Quintilian, Erasmus, Mulcaster, and Derrida. The issues raised in the first half of the chapter are developed in a discussion of Hamlet, a play (and character) much concerned with the problems of the media and with the relations between the oral and the written, rhetoric and performance. It is argued that the play tracks the future of English as a subject as it rejects the world of speech and performance as inauthentic, and searches for an idealized world of self and text.Less
This chapter begins with speech — the original medium of communication — and with the related terms ‘expression’ and ‘articulation’. Both are shown to have bodily associations in addition to their functions in the context of language. It focuses on the Renaissance literary and educational values associated with speech-based skills, notably ‘liveliness’ (enargeia). Illustrations are given from Quintilian, Erasmus, Mulcaster, and Derrida. The issues raised in the first half of the chapter are developed in a discussion of Hamlet, a play (and character) much concerned with the problems of the media and with the relations between the oral and the written, rhetoric and performance. It is argued that the play tracks the future of English as a subject as it rejects the world of speech and performance as inauthentic, and searches for an idealized world of self and text.
Gregory A. Staley
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195387438
- eISBN:
- 9780199866809
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195387438.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The key to Senecan drama lies not in the “word,” as T. S. Eliot once described it, but in the “image,” which, as the definition of tragedy attached to the manuscript of Seneca’s plays described it, ...
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The key to Senecan drama lies not in the “word,” as T. S. Eliot once described it, but in the “image,” which, as the definition of tragedy attached to the manuscript of Seneca’s plays described it, constitutes an “image of truth.” This chapter turns to the Stoic epistemology of poetry and argues that Dryden’s pairing of the adjectives “just” and “lively” to characterize the “image” of tragedy reflects the Stoic definition of enargeia or “vividness”: an image that is true to life (hence, “lively”) and that offers its own kritērion or iudicium (a sound or “just” basis for “judgment”) of its truthfulness. Stoics regularly turned to tragedy because it modeled the cognitive process, illustrating how knowledge begins with a phantasia, or “visual impression.”Less
The key to Senecan drama lies not in the “word,” as T. S. Eliot once described it, but in the “image,” which, as the definition of tragedy attached to the manuscript of Seneca’s plays described it, constitutes an “image of truth.” This chapter turns to the Stoic epistemology of poetry and argues that Dryden’s pairing of the adjectives “just” and “lively” to characterize the “image” of tragedy reflects the Stoic definition of enargeia or “vividness”: an image that is true to life (hence, “lively”) and that offers its own kritērion or iudicium (a sound or “just” basis for “judgment”) of its truthfulness. Stoics regularly turned to tragedy because it modeled the cognitive process, illustrating how knowledge begins with a phantasia, or “visual impression.”
Katerina Ierodiakonou
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199696482
- eISBN:
- 9780191738036
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199696482.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Ancient Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics
This paper sketches the development of the notion of enargeia from a term of ordinary language to a technical term in ancient epistemology, and in particular the shift that takes place in the ...
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This paper sketches the development of the notion of enargeia from a term of ordinary language to a technical term in ancient epistemology, and in particular the shift that takes place in the understanding of this notion in Hellenistic philosophy. According to the Epicureans and the Stoics, enargeia is not a matter of subjective feeling nor conviction; it rather describes a feature of certain impressions, which by their nature are infallibly indicative of a fact about the world. Evident impressions, therefore, are reliable criteria of truth which allow us to distinguish truth from falsehood, and to safeguard the possibility of knowledge. Moreover, the Stoics go beyond the Epicureans in assuming that the enargeia of impressions is reflected by a distinctive intrinsic character of those impressions which are objectively evident. The Sceptics, on the other hand, try to show that there are no evident impressions in the sense in which the Epicureans and the Stoics suggest. Nevertheless, they do not dispense with the notion of enargeia altogether; they introduce a subjective notion of enargeia which does not guarantee truth but is restricted to what appears to be true and is convincing.Less
This paper sketches the development of the notion of enargeia from a term of ordinary language to a technical term in ancient epistemology, and in particular the shift that takes place in the understanding of this notion in Hellenistic philosophy. According to the Epicureans and the Stoics, enargeia is not a matter of subjective feeling nor conviction; it rather describes a feature of certain impressions, which by their nature are infallibly indicative of a fact about the world. Evident impressions, therefore, are reliable criteria of truth which allow us to distinguish truth from falsehood, and to safeguard the possibility of knowledge. Moreover, the Stoics go beyond the Epicureans in assuming that the enargeia of impressions is reflected by a distinctive intrinsic character of those impressions which are objectively evident. The Sceptics, on the other hand, try to show that there are no evident impressions in the sense in which the Epicureans and the Stoics suggest. Nevertheless, they do not dispense with the notion of enargeia altogether; they introduce a subjective notion of enargeia which does not guarantee truth but is restricted to what appears to be true and is convincing.
Peter Van Nuffelen
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199655274
- eISBN:
- 9780191745232
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199655274.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies, Religion in the Ancient World
In setting out the events, Orosius frequently has recourse to pathetic modes of writing and closely follows the Rhetorica ad Herrenium and Quintilian, especially regarding the use of enargeia. An ...
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In setting out the events, Orosius frequently has recourse to pathetic modes of writing and closely follows the Rhetorica ad Herrenium and Quintilian, especially regarding the use of enargeia. An analysis of Book 5 shows that he consciously seeks to conjure up the emotions of his readers with the aim of making them feel the misery of past events. Following rhetorical advice, not all episodes are described in a pathetic way: the Historiae present themselves as a synecdoche of reality. In line with Quintilian and earlier, classical historiography, Orosius suggests that his recourse to vivid description is a way of displaying the truth of the past, although this may seem counterintuitive to our modern understanding of the relationship between language and reality.Less
In setting out the events, Orosius frequently has recourse to pathetic modes of writing and closely follows the Rhetorica ad Herrenium and Quintilian, especially regarding the use of enargeia. An analysis of Book 5 shows that he consciously seeks to conjure up the emotions of his readers with the aim of making them feel the misery of past events. Following rhetorical advice, not all episodes are described in a pathetic way: the Historiae present themselves as a synecdoche of reality. In line with Quintilian and earlier, classical historiography, Orosius suggests that his recourse to vivid description is a way of displaying the truth of the past, although this may seem counterintuitive to our modern understanding of the relationship between language and reality.
Andrew D. Miller
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781781381908
- eISBN:
- 9781781382356
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781381908.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
The chapter addresses the primary aspects of the ekphrasis of photographs. Using Mikhail Bahktin’s theory of the chronotope of the novel, the chapter defines what it terms “the chronotope of the ...
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The chapter addresses the primary aspects of the ekphrasis of photographs. Using Mikhail Bahktin’s theory of the chronotope of the novel, the chapter defines what it terms “the chronotope of the photograph”, describing this as a narrative space that occurs between a photographic image and a poetic speaker. The primary example is taken from Walter Benjamin’s essay “A Brief History of Photography”.Less
The chapter addresses the primary aspects of the ekphrasis of photographs. Using Mikhail Bahktin’s theory of the chronotope of the novel, the chapter defines what it terms “the chronotope of the photograph”, describing this as a narrative space that occurs between a photographic image and a poetic speaker. The primary example is taken from Walter Benjamin’s essay “A Brief History of Photography”.
Lorna Hutson
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199657100
- eISBN:
- 9780191808692
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199657100.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies, Drama
Shakespeare’s characters are thought to be his greatest achievement—imaginatively autonomous, possessed of depth and individuality. This view has survived the deconstruction of ‘Shakespeare as ...
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Shakespeare’s characters are thought to be his greatest achievement—imaginatively autonomous, possessed of depth and individuality. This view has survived the deconstruction of ‘Shakespeare as Author’ and has been revitalized by the recent emphasis on the collaborative nature of early modern theatre. But belief in the autonomous imaginative life of Shakespeare’s characters depends on another unexamined myth: the myth that Shakespeare rejected neoclassicism, playing freely with theatrical time and place. This book explodes these critical commonplaces. Drawing on classical and sixteenth-century rhetorical pedagogy, it reveals the importance of topics of circumstance (Time, Place, and Motive, etc.) in the conjuring of compelling narratives and vivid mental images (enargeia). ‘Circumstances’—which we now think of as incalculable contingencies—were originally topics of forensic enquiry into human intention or passion. Shakespeare used these topics to imply offstage actions, times, and places in terms of the motives and desires we attribute to the characters. The book discusses Romeo and Juliet, Lucrece, Lear, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Macbeth, as well as Gorboduc, The Maid’s Tragedy, and plays by Lyly and Jonson. It reveals the importance of circumstantial proof to various dramatists and highlights Shakespeare’s distinctive use of circumstances to create vivid and coherent dramatic worlds and a sense of the unconscious feelings of characters inhabiting them. The book engages with eighteenth-century and contemporary Shakespeare criticism, semiotics of theatre, forensic rhetoric, humanist pedagogy, the prehistory of probability, psychoanalytic criticism, and sixteenth-century constitutional thought.Less
Shakespeare’s characters are thought to be his greatest achievement—imaginatively autonomous, possessed of depth and individuality. This view has survived the deconstruction of ‘Shakespeare as Author’ and has been revitalized by the recent emphasis on the collaborative nature of early modern theatre. But belief in the autonomous imaginative life of Shakespeare’s characters depends on another unexamined myth: the myth that Shakespeare rejected neoclassicism, playing freely with theatrical time and place. This book explodes these critical commonplaces. Drawing on classical and sixteenth-century rhetorical pedagogy, it reveals the importance of topics of circumstance (Time, Place, and Motive, etc.) in the conjuring of compelling narratives and vivid mental images (enargeia). ‘Circumstances’—which we now think of as incalculable contingencies—were originally topics of forensic enquiry into human intention or passion. Shakespeare used these topics to imply offstage actions, times, and places in terms of the motives and desires we attribute to the characters. The book discusses Romeo and Juliet, Lucrece, Lear, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Macbeth, as well as Gorboduc, The Maid’s Tragedy, and plays by Lyly and Jonson. It reveals the importance of circumstantial proof to various dramatists and highlights Shakespeare’s distinctive use of circumstances to create vivid and coherent dramatic worlds and a sense of the unconscious feelings of characters inhabiting them. The book engages with eighteenth-century and contemporary Shakespeare criticism, semiotics of theatre, forensic rhetoric, humanist pedagogy, the prehistory of probability, psychoanalytic criticism, and sixteenth-century constitutional thought.
David Kennedy and Richard Meek (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781526125798
- eISBN:
- 9781526141965
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526125798.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Ekphrasis – the verbal representation of visual art – has traditionally been regarded as a form of paragone or competition between different forms of representation. The Introduction advocates a more ...
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Ekphrasis – the verbal representation of visual art – has traditionally been regarded as a form of paragone or competition between different forms of representation. The Introduction advocates a more reciprocal model of ekphrasis that involves an encounter or exchange between word and image. It outlines the ways in which the paragone has dominated critical conceptions of intermedial relationships. Ekphrastic works of various periods and styles have been read through the paradigm of the paragone that was established in the Renaissance; and yet this was not the only model available during that period. It is argued that the agonistic model was the primary means of conceptualising ekphrasis during the first ‘ekphrastic turn’ of the 1990s, and that this model has continued to be influential into the twenty-first century. However recent critics and theorists working across various disciplines and periods have started to interrogate this influential paradigm.Less
Ekphrasis – the verbal representation of visual art – has traditionally been regarded as a form of paragone or competition between different forms of representation. The Introduction advocates a more reciprocal model of ekphrasis that involves an encounter or exchange between word and image. It outlines the ways in which the paragone has dominated critical conceptions of intermedial relationships. Ekphrastic works of various periods and styles have been read through the paradigm of the paragone that was established in the Renaissance; and yet this was not the only model available during that period. It is argued that the agonistic model was the primary means of conceptualising ekphrasis during the first ‘ekphrastic turn’ of the 1990s, and that this model has continued to be influential into the twenty-first century. However recent critics and theorists working across various disciplines and periods have started to interrogate this influential paradigm.
Lorna Hutson
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780197266045
- eISBN:
- 9780191851452
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266045.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
Post-Freudian and post-Foucauldian readings of A Midsummer Night’s Dream assume that the play celebrates the freeing-up of female sexual desire from neurotic inhibitions or disciplinary norms. But ...
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Post-Freudian and post-Foucauldian readings of A Midsummer Night’s Dream assume that the play celebrates the freeing-up of female sexual desire from neurotic inhibitions or disciplinary norms. But this is incompatible with what we know historically about 16th-century society’s investment in female chastity. This paper addresses the problem of this incompatibility by turning to Shakespeare’s use of forensic or legal rhetoric. In the Roman forensic rhetoric underlying 16th-century poetics, probable arguments of guilt or innocence are ‘invented’ from topics of circumstance, such as the Time, Place or Manner of the deed. The mysterious Night, Wood and Moonlight of Shakespeare’s play can be seen as making sexual crimes (violence, stealth, infidelity) take on the form of probability and fairy agency. The play thus brilliantly represents the stories of Theseus’s notorious rapes, abandonments and perjuries as fearful ‘phantasies’ or imaginings experienced by Hermia and Helena. This explains how the Victorians could interpret the play as a chaste, childlike ballet, while moderns and postmoderns take it to be a play about psychological repressions working against the free play of sexual desire.Less
Post-Freudian and post-Foucauldian readings of A Midsummer Night’s Dream assume that the play celebrates the freeing-up of female sexual desire from neurotic inhibitions or disciplinary norms. But this is incompatible with what we know historically about 16th-century society’s investment in female chastity. This paper addresses the problem of this incompatibility by turning to Shakespeare’s use of forensic or legal rhetoric. In the Roman forensic rhetoric underlying 16th-century poetics, probable arguments of guilt or innocence are ‘invented’ from topics of circumstance, such as the Time, Place or Manner of the deed. The mysterious Night, Wood and Moonlight of Shakespeare’s play can be seen as making sexual crimes (violence, stealth, infidelity) take on the form of probability and fairy agency. The play thus brilliantly represents the stories of Theseus’s notorious rapes, abandonments and perjuries as fearful ‘phantasies’ or imaginings experienced by Hermia and Helena. This explains how the Victorians could interpret the play as a chaste, childlike ballet, while moderns and postmoderns take it to be a play about psychological repressions working against the free play of sexual desire.
Prudentius
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801442223
- eISBN:
- 9780801463051
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801442223.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter explores new dimensions of Aurelius Prudentius Clemens' Hamartigenia through a focus on ornaments and figures—textual devices that delighted late antique readers but which tend to be ...
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This chapter explores new dimensions of Aurelius Prudentius Clemens' Hamartigenia through a focus on ornaments and figures—textual devices that delighted late antique readers but which tend to be opaque to modern readers. The Hamartigenia offers many instances of the image that deforms or changes how we can apprehend a text's meaning rather than conforming to habituated modes of understanding. The chapter discusses two key concepts that are essential in understanding how Prudentius and other late antique poets composed their poems through recognizing the importance of visualization in their conception of how audiences are affected by speech and writing: ekphrasis and enargeia. The pursuit of such thematic images and figures enhances the understanding of Prudentius' often dark and always intricate poetics, and further advances the study of the late antique poetic imagination.Less
This chapter explores new dimensions of Aurelius Prudentius Clemens' Hamartigenia through a focus on ornaments and figures—textual devices that delighted late antique readers but which tend to be opaque to modern readers. The Hamartigenia offers many instances of the image that deforms or changes how we can apprehend a text's meaning rather than conforming to habituated modes of understanding. The chapter discusses two key concepts that are essential in understanding how Prudentius and other late antique poets composed their poems through recognizing the importance of visualization in their conception of how audiences are affected by speech and writing: ekphrasis and enargeia. The pursuit of such thematic images and figures enhances the understanding of Prudentius' often dark and always intricate poetics, and further advances the study of the late antique poetic imagination.
Herschel Farbman
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823228652
- eISBN:
- 9780823235780
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823228652.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This chapter examines Finnegans Wake, a work of comic fiction by Irish author James Joyce. It argues that writing has never thrown questions back at its questioners with as much energy as Finnegans ...
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This chapter examines Finnegans Wake, a work of comic fiction by Irish author James Joyce. It argues that writing has never thrown questions back at its questioners with as much energy as Finnegans Wake. Full of exclamations, historical presents, onomatopoeia, and the most extreme exuberances of free indirect discourse, the text presents an uncanny enargeia that suggests a living presence. Faced with a new kind of literary enigma, the first critics of Finnegans Wake developed the interpretive scheme through which the book is still most often seen. According to this scheme, the elusive subject of the Wake is, in one way or another, “a dream”. The word “wake” names many things at once in the title of Finnegans Wake: Irish waking of the corpse; staying awake in the night; following in the wake of a fallen giant; and waking up from sleep.Less
This chapter examines Finnegans Wake, a work of comic fiction by Irish author James Joyce. It argues that writing has never thrown questions back at its questioners with as much energy as Finnegans Wake. Full of exclamations, historical presents, onomatopoeia, and the most extreme exuberances of free indirect discourse, the text presents an uncanny enargeia that suggests a living presence. Faced with a new kind of literary enigma, the first critics of Finnegans Wake developed the interpretive scheme through which the book is still most often seen. According to this scheme, the elusive subject of the Wake is, in one way or another, “a dream”. The word “wake” names many things at once in the title of Finnegans Wake: Irish waking of the corpse; staying awake in the night; following in the wake of a fallen giant; and waking up from sleep.
Tobias Myers
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- August 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198842354
- eISBN:
- 9780191878350
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198842354.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Chapter 1 argues that the Iliad’s proem anticipates certain key elements of the battlefield spectacle to come: its central action (warfare and the desecration of corpses), and its staging and ...
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Chapter 1 argues that the Iliad’s proem anticipates certain key elements of the battlefield spectacle to come: its central action (warfare and the desecration of corpses), and its staging and direction (with Zeus and the poet as joint orchestrators of the battlefield conflict). While the agency of Zeus and that of the poet are highlighted in various ways throughout the text, they overlap specifically in respect to their control of the warfare. Such moments of overlap heighten excitement during performance, as the ‘now’ of performance and the ‘now’ of mythic Troy become momentarily indistinguishable. The chapter concludes by bringing the lessons of its close readings together, to motivate and describe a new approach to the metapoetics of the Iliad’s gods, in place of the prevalent tendency to describe Zeus and the gods as drivers of ‘plot’. Instead, the chapter suggests, divine control should be seen as the flip side of divine viewing, and Zeus recognized as a figure who controls the course of the battle (not the whole plot). One should ask not just how Zeus’ role and the poet’s relate, but also what difference it makes for the Iliad as a performance event. Where textual cues are sufficient, certain scenes of divine viewing can be usefully read as a mise en abyme of the spectacle experience offered by the poet to his listeners.Less
Chapter 1 argues that the Iliad’s proem anticipates certain key elements of the battlefield spectacle to come: its central action (warfare and the desecration of corpses), and its staging and direction (with Zeus and the poet as joint orchestrators of the battlefield conflict). While the agency of Zeus and that of the poet are highlighted in various ways throughout the text, they overlap specifically in respect to their control of the warfare. Such moments of overlap heighten excitement during performance, as the ‘now’ of performance and the ‘now’ of mythic Troy become momentarily indistinguishable. The chapter concludes by bringing the lessons of its close readings together, to motivate and describe a new approach to the metapoetics of the Iliad’s gods, in place of the prevalent tendency to describe Zeus and the gods as drivers of ‘plot’. Instead, the chapter suggests, divine control should be seen as the flip side of divine viewing, and Zeus recognized as a figure who controls the course of the battle (not the whole plot). One should ask not just how Zeus’ role and the poet’s relate, but also what difference it makes for the Iliad as a performance event. Where textual cues are sufficient, certain scenes of divine viewing can be usefully read as a mise en abyme of the spectacle experience offered by the poet to his listeners.
J. M. F. Heath
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199664146
- eISBN:
- 9780191748455
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199664146.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies, Early Christian Studies
To prepare for the more detailed focus on Paul in Part Three, this and the following chapter sketch visual cultures amidst which Paul preached, thought, and lived. A complete account of ‘Greco-Roman ...
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To prepare for the more detailed focus on Paul in Part Three, this and the following chapter sketch visual cultures amidst which Paul preached, thought, and lived. A complete account of ‘Greco-Roman visual practices’ would be neither practicable nor desirable; the sources discussed here are selected with a view to their social diversity, prominence in the extant record, relevance to visuality, and significance in the history of scholarship on Paul. Firstly, the materialist philosophical turn is examined, underscoring its new emphasis on visuality and how this cultivated socially, personally, and religiously transformative modes of viewing. Then the adaptation of philosophical discourse in rhetorical and artistic theory is explored, showing how these too emphasize the constructive and sustaining power of visual assumptions and habits in relationships to God and neighbour. Finally, the role of scopic regimes in the transformation of the political and religious culture under Augustus is examined.Less
To prepare for the more detailed focus on Paul in Part Three, this and the following chapter sketch visual cultures amidst which Paul preached, thought, and lived. A complete account of ‘Greco-Roman visual practices’ would be neither practicable nor desirable; the sources discussed here are selected with a view to their social diversity, prominence in the extant record, relevance to visuality, and significance in the history of scholarship on Paul. Firstly, the materialist philosophical turn is examined, underscoring its new emphasis on visuality and how this cultivated socially, personally, and religiously transformative modes of viewing. Then the adaptation of philosophical discourse in rhetorical and artistic theory is explored, showing how these too emphasize the constructive and sustaining power of visual assumptions and habits in relationships to God and neighbour. Finally, the role of scopic regimes in the transformation of the political and religious culture under Augustus is examined.
Angelos Chaniotis
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199654314
- eISBN:
- 9780191751370
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199654314.003.0010
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter maintains that the narrations of Hellenistic decrees are a useful source for the oratory during this period. It emphasizes the cross-pollination of oratory, drama, and historiography, ...
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This chapter maintains that the narrations of Hellenistic decrees are a useful source for the oratory during this period. It emphasizes the cross-pollination of oratory, drama, and historiography, and between politics and theatre. Some of the decrees analyzed suggest that audiences in Hellenistic assemblies, even in the smaller cities, were as fascinated by the public performance of oratory as their Classical predecessors. The analysis of three aspects of these inscriptions leaves demonstrate the importance of oratorical performance and the vitality of oratory in the Hellenistic period: an emphasis on the tragic element of paradoxon (‘swift reversals of fortune’); a focus on visualizing narrated scenes (enargeia); and a recurrent attempt to stir the emotions of the audience.Less
This chapter maintains that the narrations of Hellenistic decrees are a useful source for the oratory during this period. It emphasizes the cross-pollination of oratory, drama, and historiography, and between politics and theatre. Some of the decrees analyzed suggest that audiences in Hellenistic assemblies, even in the smaller cities, were as fascinated by the public performance of oratory as their Classical predecessors. The analysis of three aspects of these inscriptions leaves demonstrate the importance of oratorical performance and the vitality of oratory in the Hellenistic period: an emphasis on the tragic element of paradoxon (‘swift reversals of fortune’); a focus on visualizing narrated scenes (enargeia); and a recurrent attempt to stir the emotions of the audience.
Neil W. Bernstein
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199964116
- eISBN:
- 9780199346042
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199964116.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter discusses how declamatory narratives guide audiences to review their ethical commitments as spectators. The declamations involving a blind son accused of murdering his father (“The ...
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This chapter discusses how declamatory narratives guide audiences to review their ethical commitments as spectators. The declamations involving a blind son accused of murdering his father (“The Bloodstained Wall,” DM 1, and “The Blind Man in the Doorway,” DM 2) deprive the defendant of key aspects of personhood (including most desires, capacities, and means of self-assertion), a more extreme representation of the impairment than the literary norm. For the speaker of “The Poor Man’s Torture” (DM 7), the sight of his tortured body will terrify his opponent, as the proof of his accusation will emerge from his pain. The father of “Suspected of Incest with His Mother, II” (DM 19) undermines his case through his failure to provide a self-consistent vision of his torture of his son. There can be no affectless viewing of the scene of torture in these speeches, yet the ethically appropriate response is a subject of controversy. These declamations associate the acts of visualization performed by the characters and the jurors with normative accounts of virtue. They offer broad-ranging claims about the interrelationship between acts of spectatorship, identity, and ethics.Less
This chapter discusses how declamatory narratives guide audiences to review their ethical commitments as spectators. The declamations involving a blind son accused of murdering his father (“The Bloodstained Wall,” DM 1, and “The Blind Man in the Doorway,” DM 2) deprive the defendant of key aspects of personhood (including most desires, capacities, and means of self-assertion), a more extreme representation of the impairment than the literary norm. For the speaker of “The Poor Man’s Torture” (DM 7), the sight of his tortured body will terrify his opponent, as the proof of his accusation will emerge from his pain. The father of “Suspected of Incest with His Mother, II” (DM 19) undermines his case through his failure to provide a self-consistent vision of his torture of his son. There can be no affectless viewing of the scene of torture in these speeches, yet the ethically appropriate response is a subject of controversy. These declamations associate the acts of visualization performed by the characters and the jurors with normative accounts of virtue. They offer broad-ranging claims about the interrelationship between acts of spectatorship, identity, and ethics.
Janet Downie
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199924875
- eISBN:
- 9780199345649
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199924875.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Philosophy
This chapter argues that when we set Aristides’ dream narratives in the Hieroi Logoi against other ancient accounts of dreaming, what stands out is the degree to which Aristides engages the ...
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This chapter argues that when we set Aristides’ dream narratives in the Hieroi Logoi against other ancient accounts of dreaming, what stands out is the degree to which Aristides engages the complexity of the dream scenario as a linguistic and literary challenge. This chapter contrasts the dream language of the Hieroi Logoi with the votive conventions associated with temple dreaming and, in more depth, with the concerns of contemporary technical writers on dreams – Galen and Artemidorus – to show that in contrast with other evidence for ancient dreaming, Aristides’ accounts are shaped by distinctly rhetorical concerns. In the rhetorical context, Aristides is interested in the challenge of dream narration as a way of testing the limits of vivid description—the limits of enargeia.Less
This chapter argues that when we set Aristides’ dream narratives in the Hieroi Logoi against other ancient accounts of dreaming, what stands out is the degree to which Aristides engages the complexity of the dream scenario as a linguistic and literary challenge. This chapter contrasts the dream language of the Hieroi Logoi with the votive conventions associated with temple dreaming and, in more depth, with the concerns of contemporary technical writers on dreams – Galen and Artemidorus – to show that in contrast with other evidence for ancient dreaming, Aristides’ accounts are shaped by distinctly rhetorical concerns. In the rhetorical context, Aristides is interested in the challenge of dream narration as a way of testing the limits of vivid description—the limits of enargeia.
George Alexander Gazis
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198787266
- eISBN:
- 9780191829338
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198787266.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Readers of Homer since antiquity have noticed that the poet narrates events as if they were enacted in front of their eyes; as one ancient scholiast comments, the poetry of Homer is not only heard ...
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Readers of Homer since antiquity have noticed that the poet narrates events as if they were enacted in front of their eyes; as one ancient scholiast comments, the poetry of Homer is not only heard but also seen by its audience as some sort of spectacle. The first part of this chapter offers a comprehensive literature review of the studies in visibility and Homeric enargeia. It further sets out the aims of the book and the methodology which is followed throughout it. Finally, an introduction to the idea of Hades as a poetic resource is offered in the second part of the chapter.Less
Readers of Homer since antiquity have noticed that the poet narrates events as if they were enacted in front of their eyes; as one ancient scholiast comments, the poetry of Homer is not only heard but also seen by its audience as some sort of spectacle. The first part of this chapter offers a comprehensive literature review of the studies in visibility and Homeric enargeia. It further sets out the aims of the book and the methodology which is followed throughout it. Finally, an introduction to the idea of Hades as a poetic resource is offered in the second part of the chapter.
Lorna Hutson
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199657100
- eISBN:
- 9780191808692
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199657100.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies, Drama
This chapter makes important distinctions between pre- and post-eighteenth-century uses of the terminology of ‘circumstances’, ‘proof’, and ‘probability’. It shows that prehistories of probability ...
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This chapter makes important distinctions between pre- and post-eighteenth-century uses of the terminology of ‘circumstances’, ‘proof’, and ‘probability’. It shows that prehistories of probability such as those of Ian Hacking and Douglas Patey have underestimated its rhetorical and imaginative dimensions. Reading Cicero, Quintilian, Erasmus, Johannes Weltkirchius, and Rudolph Agricola, the chapter shows how classical and Renaissance treatments of circumstances (time, place, manner, motive, etc.) associate them not only with argument and narrative, but use circumstantial detail to arouse emotion and to produce vivid mental images (ekphrasis and enargeia). The chapter concludes with a reading of Lucrece that shows Shakespeare’s awareness of the association of probability, circumstances, emotion, and enargeia, and with a reading of King Lear that links its imagined offstage world to Lucrece’s characterization of ‘Opportunity’.Less
This chapter makes important distinctions between pre- and post-eighteenth-century uses of the terminology of ‘circumstances’, ‘proof’, and ‘probability’. It shows that prehistories of probability such as those of Ian Hacking and Douglas Patey have underestimated its rhetorical and imaginative dimensions. Reading Cicero, Quintilian, Erasmus, Johannes Weltkirchius, and Rudolph Agricola, the chapter shows how classical and Renaissance treatments of circumstances (time, place, manner, motive, etc.) associate them not only with argument and narrative, but use circumstantial detail to arouse emotion and to produce vivid mental images (ekphrasis and enargeia). The chapter concludes with a reading of Lucrece that shows Shakespeare’s awareness of the association of probability, circumstances, emotion, and enargeia, and with a reading of King Lear that links its imagined offstage world to Lucrece’s characterization of ‘Opportunity’.
Floris Overduin
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190604110
- eISBN:
- 9780190604134
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190604110.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, World History: BCE to 500CE
In this chapter Nicander’s Theriaca (second century BCE), a Greek didactic epic poem on the wounds inflicted by snakes, scorpions, and the like, as well as the treatment of these wounds, is used as a ...
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In this chapter Nicander’s Theriaca (second century BCE), a Greek didactic epic poem on the wounds inflicted by snakes, scorpions, and the like, as well as the treatment of these wounds, is used as a test case for the study of disgust as an effective emotion in antique literature. On the basis of Korsmeyer’s approach to the aesthetics of disgust, emphasizing the pleasure that we derive from representations of repulsion, the chapter focuses on the ways in which Nicander manipulates recognizable literary tropes of the Alexandrians to elicit responses of disgust. The poet’s emphatically disgusting depiction of severe inflictions and concomitant bodily fluids can be considered a literary technique, applied in various manners, to achieve enargeia and captivate the reader.Less
In this chapter Nicander’s Theriaca (second century BCE), a Greek didactic epic poem on the wounds inflicted by snakes, scorpions, and the like, as well as the treatment of these wounds, is used as a test case for the study of disgust as an effective emotion in antique literature. On the basis of Korsmeyer’s approach to the aesthetics of disgust, emphasizing the pleasure that we derive from representations of repulsion, the chapter focuses on the ways in which Nicander manipulates recognizable literary tropes of the Alexandrians to elicit responses of disgust. The poet’s emphatically disgusting depiction of severe inflictions and concomitant bodily fluids can be considered a literary technique, applied in various manners, to achieve enargeia and captivate the reader.
