The Dynamics of Rhetorical Performances in Late Antiquity

ISBN-13: 9781472474599 / Angielski / Twarda / 2018 / 172 str.

Alberto J. Quiroga Puertas

Opis

This study argues that we can interpret narrations of rhetorical performances as a reflection of the process of transformation and adaptation in Late Antiquity, a changing and dynamic period in which institutions and culture became increasingly Christianized. Our knowledge of the adaptation of secular rhetoric to early and late antique Christian discourse has advanced in recent decades but studies of the relevance of rhetorical deliveries in a Christian context are still lacking. How did Christian preachers and bishops respond to their audiences' desire for flamboyant and bombastic oratory? What was the place of rhetorical deliveries in the making of religious orthodoxy in the fourth and fifth centuries CE? This volume pays particular attention to deficient rhetorical deliveries, the 'rhetoric of incompetence', arguing that the accounts of flaws and mistakes in oratorical displays and rhetorical performances reveal how late antique literature echoed the concerns of the time. Criticisms of deficient deliveries in different speaking occasions (declamations, public speeches, oratorical agones, school exercises, and so on) were often disguised as accusations of practising magic, heresy or cultural apostasy. A close reading of the sources shows that these oratorical deficiencies hid struggles over religious, cultural and political issues.

Spis treści

Contents;Index;Acknowledgments;Abbreviations;Introduction;1: Theory and Practice of Rhetorical Performance from Classical Antiquity to Imperial Times;Literature Review;Theoretical Approaches to Rhetorical Performance in Antiquity;Narrations of Rhetorical Performances in Greco-Roman Literature;2: Charlatans, Philosophers, and Philostratean Bishops in Late Antique Literature;Philosophers, Belletrists and Charlatans;Philostratean Bishops;3: All the world’s a stage. Libanius’ life as a Rhetorical Performance;Literature Review;Becoming a sophist;A Performable Life. The Narrations of Rhetorical Performances in Libanius’ Autobiography;A star is born;Homecoming;4: Conclusions;Index

O autorze

Alberto J. Quiroga Puertas (Ph.D. 2006) is Lecturer in the Department of Ancient Greek at the University of Granada, Spain. He has been an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology at the University of Liverpool, UK (2006-2009), and was fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington D.C., US (2014-2015). His main research interests include Greek Imperial literature and the impact of rhetoric in the creation of cultural and religious identities in Late Antiquity. He has edited the volumes The Purpose of Rhetoric in Late Antiquity: From Performance to Exegesis (2013) and Rhetorical Strategies in Late Antique Literature: Images, Metatexts, and Interpretation (2017).