Ancient letters
Journal Data
| Type | SOURCE_BOOK |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (GB) |
| ISBN-13 | 9780199203956 |
| Open Library | OL19446083W |
| Total publications | 16 |
| Coverage period | 2007 - 2007 |
| Language | EN |
| Cited by | 43 |
| h-index | 1 |
| i10-index | 1 |
"Ancient letters are a notoriously varied and complex genre; under the heading of 'letters' come not only the everyday letters preserved among the Oxyrhynchus papyri but also imperial rescripts, New Testament Epistles, and a vast body of epistolary material (in prose and verse) on politics, philosophy, family life, medicine, and literature, as well as collections of fictional and pseudepigraphic letters." "This collection presents a series of case studies in ancient epistolography which explore the varieties and rhetorical advantages of the letter form, asking how each letter writer manipulates the epistolary tradition, why he chose the letter form over any other, and what effect the publication of volumes of collected letters might have had upon a reader's engagement with epistolary works. This volume is the first of its kind on ancient letters in any language, and it brings together both well-established and promising young scholars currently working in the fields of ancient literature, history, philosophy, and medicine to engage in a shared debate about this most adaptable and 'interdisciplinary' of genres."--BOOK JACKET.
Introduction: What is a Letter?
This introduction ponders the question of what defines a letter as used by some authors over other types of document. One way of deciding where the boundary between letters and other forms of text lies, and whether this is a worthwhile question to pose, is to consider borderline cases. Two such cases — the history of the classification as letters of various Greek poems, more recently thought not to qualify as letters, and Cicero's De Officiis — a…
Confidence, Inuidia , and Pliny's Epistolary Curriculum
This chapter examines in detail Pliny's ‘inclusive’ persona, and particularly the ways in which his correspondence fosters a community of addressees and develops a didactic project in literary friendship and literary criticism. The letter presents another lesson in how to operate in literary society, taught by a man who seems unsure of himself in literary production, but confident that he does at least know how the social sides of literary activi…
Didacticism and Epistolarity in Horace's Epistles 1
This chapter investigates how the ‘epistolarity’, the ‘letteriness’ of Horace's Epistles relates to and complements the didactic, instructive element of the book and vice versa. Horace is the first poet to compose or construct a book of verse-letters, a dedicated poetry-book in epistolary form, Epistles book 1 (in 20/19 BC). Epistles 1 also plays an important role in the development of ancient philosophical epistolography. It adapts, in part, the…
The Epistula in Ancient Scientific and Technical Literature, with Special Reference to Medicine
This chapter offers a critical survey of a selection of ancient letters which form part of scientific and technical literature, and considers certain particular questions under the following four, interrelated, headings: the content of the letter, with regard to its ostensible purpose, and its subject-matter, length, and degree of technicality; the identity and standing of the letter's professed author and recipient; the function of the letter-fo…
St Patrick and the Art of Allusion
This chapter discusses how St Patrick used a letter, known as the Epistola, to campaign for the excommunication of Coroticus' men until they take penance and free their captives, although the letter makes it clear that Patrick holds out little hope that such repentance will be forthcoming. Coroticus is a warlord in Britain who, some time in the first 3rd of the 5th century AD, launched a slave raid on the coast of Ireland, at a time when St Patri…
The Importance of Form in Seneca's Philosophical Letters
This chapter examines what makes Seneca's philosophical letters work the way they do for their readers and why they were written the way they were. In this discussion, it is suggested that some of the striking features of the letters owe more than has yet been appreciated to the influence of the models Seneca had in view when he composed the collection and the formal constraints imposed by the epistolary genre. Based on Seneca's character and mot…
Cicero's ‘Stomach’: Political Indignation and the Use of Repeated Allusive Expressions in Cicero's Correspondence
This chapter examines the Ciceronian letter collection, a rare and precious example of an informal and almost spontaneous writing style among the Roman elite, and how much Cicero's epistolary style reflects casual spoken Latin among the elite. In some of Cicero's letters to Atticus, his thoughts and manner of expression from day to day, even hour to hour, can sometimes be tracked. The degree to which the collection is still only a formalized lite…
Back to Fronto: Doctor and Patient in his Correspondence with an Emperor
This chapter re-evaluates Fronto's letters within the traditions of epistolary scholarship and against the backdrop of a surge of interest in the epistolarity of the letter collections of antiquity. Because Fronto has a valuable role to play in the call for a reassessment of the Roman letter-writing voice and identity, his correspondence with his pupil, emperor-in-the-making Marcus Aurelius, is examined. The recurring narrative of sickness and he…
Down among the Documents: Criticism and Papyrus Letters
This chapter examines papyrus letters, with emphasis on private letters and their relationship with literature. The role of critical analysis in understanding the link between papyrus private letters and literature are discussed by citing the Greek document The Oxyrhynchus Papyri 2190, a letter from a student to his father dating from around AD 100. The document clearly has a pragmatic function, which must be related to its form; and, as with ora…
Letters of Recommendation and the Rhetoric of Praise
This chapter examines letters of reference or recommendations written by Charlesworth, Cicero, Pliny, and Fronto, focusing on how the authors emphasize their own discretion in offering their evaluation of the subject and how their statements about the subject's merit can be interwoven with praise. The style confirms its vintage, with the formal pairing of substantives and adjectives, the fondness for abstractions and the contrastive ‘but’ and cer…
Better than Speech: Some Advantages of the Letter in the Second Sophistic
This chapter suggests some ways of thinking about the epistolary genre and its development in Greek literature, focusing on some particular examples from ‘Second Sophistic’ epistolographers who built upon and added to these developments. Taking examples from fictional letters in which there seems to be no obstacle to verbal communication, this chapter argues that they do not constitute lapses in verisimilitude on the author's part; rather, such l…
Mixed Messages: The Play of Epistolary Codes in Two Late Antique Latin Correspondences
This chapter considers two celebrated epistolary relationships from the 4th century AD: the famously dysfunctional correspondence of Augustine and Jerome, and the reputedly bitter final years of Ausonius' correspondence with his former pupil Paulinus. In both of these exchanges, epistolary codes are cleverly manipulated to remarkable rhetorical effect; and any explication of what went wrong (or right) in these complicated letter exchanges require…
Alciphron's Epistolarity
This chapter examines Alciphron's Letters, which portray a world of longing and loss, a world of fragile happiness and comic disillusionment. There are four books: Letters from Fishermen, Farmers, Parasites, and Courtesans. Each of those four groups reveals through its letters its own desires and sufferings, its own extravagant dreams and bathetic failures. Two themes (as far as they can be separated) are particularly prominent: precarious or fai…
The Letter's the Thing (in Pliny, Book 7)
This chapter examines Pliny's Letter found in Book 7, with particular reference to its status and some of the ways in which the letter was seen as the thing itself, as well as a symbol for the relation between the first and last letters of the book. The question of the status of Pliny's Letters in his project of self-immortalization is not unrelated to the status of the Letter itself, which always raises, in some form or other, the question of wh…
‘…When Who Should Walk Into the Room But…’: Epistoliterarity in Cicero, Ad Qfr . 3.1
This chapter examines the three-book collection of (Marcus) Cicero's Letters to (Quintus) Cicero that dramatizes the years of their writer's tempora (‘crisis’) between the fall-out from his consulate, through his banishment, return, and shift of alignment from unease with Pompey to investment in Caesar (60-54 BCE). Besides Marcus' own spell out in the cold, they are occasioned by three periods of Qfr.'s absence from Italy, as praetorian proconsul…
Ancient Letters: Classical and Late Antique Epistolography
Introduction: What is a letter? 1. Down among the documents: criticism and papyrus letters 2. '... when who should walk into the room but': epistoliterarity in Cicero, Ad Qfr 3.1 3. Cicero's 'stomach': political indignation and the use of repeated allusive expressions in Cicero's correspondence 4. Didacticism and epistolarity in Horace's Epistles 1 5. The importance of form in Seneca's philosophical letters 6. Letters of recommendation and the rh…
Ancient Letters: Classical and Late Antique Epistolography
Introduction: What is a letter? 1. Down among the documents: criticism and papyrus letters 2. '... when who should walk into the room but': epistoliterarity in Cicero, Ad Qfr 3.1 3. Cicero's 'stomach': political indignation and the use of repeated allusive expressions in Cicero's correspondence 4. Didacticism and epistolarity in Horace's Epistles 1 5. The importance of form in Seneca's philosophical letters 6. Letters of recommendation and the rh…
Ancient Letters: Classical and Late Antique Epistolography
Introduction: What is a letter? 1. Down among the documents: criticism and papyrus letters 2. '... when who should walk into the room but': epistoliterarity in Cicero, Ad Qfr 3.1 3. Cicero's 'stomach': political indignation and the use of repeated allusive expressions in Cicero's correspondence 4. Didacticism and epistolarity in Horace's Epistles 1 5. The importance of form in Seneca's philosophical letters 6. Letters of recommendation and the rh…
Introduction: What is a Letter?
This introduction ponders the question of what defines a letter as used by some authors over other types of document. One way of deciding where the boundary between letters and other forms of text lies, and whether this is a worthwhile question to pose, is to consider borderline cases. Two such cases — the history of the classification as letters of various Greek poems, more recently thought not to qualify as letters, and Cicero's De Officiis — a…
Confidence, Inuidia , and Pliny's Epistolary Curriculum
This chapter examines in detail Pliny's ‘inclusive’ persona, and particularly the ways in which his correspondence fosters a community of addressees and develops a didactic project in literary friendship and literary criticism. The letter presents another lesson in how to operate in literary society, taught by a man who seems unsure of himself in literary production, but confident that he does at least know how the social sides of literary activi…
Didacticism and Epistolarity in Horace's Epistles 1
This chapter investigates how the ‘epistolarity’, the ‘letteriness’ of Horace's Epistles relates to and complements the didactic, instructive element of the book and vice versa. Horace is the first poet to compose or construct a book of verse-letters, a dedicated poetry-book in epistolary form, Epistles book 1 (in 20/19 BC). Epistles 1 also plays an important role in the development of ancient philosophical epistolography. It adapts, in part, the…
The Epistula in Ancient Scientific and Technical Literature, with Special Reference to Medicine
This chapter offers a critical survey of a selection of ancient letters which form part of scientific and technical literature, and considers certain particular questions under the following four, interrelated, headings: the content of the letter, with regard to its ostensible purpose, and its subject-matter, length, and degree of technicality; the identity and standing of the letter's professed author and recipient; the function of the letter-fo…
St Patrick and the Art of Allusion
This chapter discusses how St Patrick used a letter, known as the Epistola, to campaign for the excommunication of Coroticus' men until they take penance and free their captives, although the letter makes it clear that Patrick holds out little hope that such repentance will be forthcoming. Coroticus is a warlord in Britain who, some time in the first 3rd of the 5th century AD, launched a slave raid on the coast of Ireland, at a time when St Patri…
The Importance of Form in Seneca's Philosophical Letters
This chapter examines what makes Seneca's philosophical letters work the way they do for their readers and why they were written the way they were. In this discussion, it is suggested that some of the striking features of the letters owe more than has yet been appreciated to the influence of the models Seneca had in view when he composed the collection and the formal constraints imposed by the epistolary genre. Based on Seneca's character and mot…
Cicero's ‘Stomach’: Political Indignation and the Use of Repeated Allusive Expressions in Cicero's Correspondence
This chapter examines the Ciceronian letter collection, a rare and precious example of an informal and almost spontaneous writing style among the Roman elite, and how much Cicero's epistolary style reflects casual spoken Latin among the elite. In some of Cicero's letters to Atticus, his thoughts and manner of expression from day to day, even hour to hour, can sometimes be tracked. The degree to which the collection is still only a formalized lite…
Back to Fronto: Doctor and Patient in his Correspondence with an Emperor
This chapter re-evaluates Fronto's letters within the traditions of epistolary scholarship and against the backdrop of a surge of interest in the epistolarity of the letter collections of antiquity. Because Fronto has a valuable role to play in the call for a reassessment of the Roman letter-writing voice and identity, his correspondence with his pupil, emperor-in-the-making Marcus Aurelius, is examined. The recurring narrative of sickness and he…
Down among the Documents: Criticism and Papyrus Letters
This chapter examines papyrus letters, with emphasis on private letters and their relationship with literature. The role of critical analysis in understanding the link between papyrus private letters and literature are discussed by citing the Greek document The Oxyrhynchus Papyri 2190, a letter from a student to his father dating from around AD 100. The document clearly has a pragmatic function, which must be related to its form; and, as with ora…
Letters of Recommendation and the Rhetoric of Praise
This chapter examines letters of reference or recommendations written by Charlesworth, Cicero, Pliny, and Fronto, focusing on how the authors emphasize their own discretion in offering their evaluation of the subject and how their statements about the subject's merit can be interwoven with praise. The style confirms its vintage, with the formal pairing of substantives and adjectives, the fondness for abstractions and the contrastive ‘but’ and cer…
Better than Speech: Some Advantages of the Letter in the Second Sophistic
This chapter suggests some ways of thinking about the epistolary genre and its development in Greek literature, focusing on some particular examples from ‘Second Sophistic’ epistolographers who built upon and added to these developments. Taking examples from fictional letters in which there seems to be no obstacle to verbal communication, this chapter argues that they do not constitute lapses in verisimilitude on the author's part; rather, such l…
Mixed Messages: The Play of Epistolary Codes in Two Late Antique Latin Correspondences
This chapter considers two celebrated epistolary relationships from the 4th century AD: the famously dysfunctional correspondence of Augustine and Jerome, and the reputedly bitter final years of Ausonius' correspondence with his former pupil Paulinus. In both of these exchanges, epistolary codes are cleverly manipulated to remarkable rhetorical effect; and any explication of what went wrong (or right) in these complicated letter exchanges require…
Alciphron's Epistolarity
This chapter examines Alciphron's Letters, which portray a world of longing and loss, a world of fragile happiness and comic disillusionment. There are four books: Letters from Fishermen, Farmers, Parasites, and Courtesans. Each of those four groups reveals through its letters its own desires and sufferings, its own extravagant dreams and bathetic failures. Two themes (as far as they can be separated) are particularly prominent: precarious or fai…
The Letter's the Thing (in Pliny, Book 7)
This chapter examines Pliny's Letter found in Book 7, with particular reference to its status and some of the ways in which the letter was seen as the thing itself, as well as a symbol for the relation between the first and last letters of the book. The question of the status of Pliny's Letters in his project of self-immortalization is not unrelated to the status of the Letter itself, which always raises, in some form or other, the question of wh…
‘…When Who Should Walk Into the Room But…’: Epistoliterarity in Cicero, Ad Qfr . 3.1
This chapter examines the three-book collection of (Marcus) Cicero's Letters to (Quintus) Cicero that dramatizes the years of their writer's tempora (‘crisis’) between the fall-out from his consulate, through his banishment, return, and shift of alignment from unease with Pompey to investment in Caesar (60-54 BCE). Besides Marcus' own spell out in the cold, they are occasioned by three periods of Qfr.'s absence from Italy, as praetorian proconsul…