Hesiod’s Style
Towards an Ancient Analysis
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20052090 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Richard Hunter (0000-0002-5167-1758, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Pages | 253-269 |
| Publication date | 2009-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Brill's Companion to Hesiod (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Brill (PUBLISHER • NL) |
| DOI | 10.1163/9789047440758_011 |
| OpenAlex | W853586176 |
| ISBN | 9789047440758 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
The best known of the few stylistic observations about Hesiod which survive antiquity is Quintilian's judgement. For Quintilian, Hesiod is the principal poetic example of the middle Style. The Homeric model for this style is Nestor, from Nestor's mouth Homer said flowed forth a speech sweeter than honey and no pleasure greater than this can be imagined, and Quintilian's Homeric paradigm is a commonplace of ancient rhetorical writing. The move ancient analyses of style to modern ones is never straightforward, partly because of the fluidity and instability of ancient categorisations, and partly because of one's ignorance of the presuppositions underlying many of them. It is, for example, easy enough for us to see that the fact that the middle style is sententiis dulcis is appropriate for Hesiod, as proverbs and semi-proverbial sayings are a very marked feature of the Works and Days . Keywords: ancient rhetorical writing; Hesiod; Homer; Quintilian
Art · Hesiod · Linguistics · Literature · Poetry · Presupposition · Rhetoric · Rhetorical question · Classical Antiquity Studies · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.33 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2014 - 2024 (11) |
| Highly cited | No |