The Dynamics of Rhetorical Performances in Late Antiquity

Bibliographic Data

ID9320552
AuthorsAlberto J Quiroga Puertas (0000-0002-1439-7825, corresponding author)
Year2018
Pages172
Publication date2018-10-09
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueDynamics of Rhetorical Performances in Late Antiquity (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.4324/9781315615776
OpenAlexW2896734066
Open LibraryOL29424045M
ISBN9781315615776
LanguageEN
Citations received3

This book argues that narrations of rhetorical performances in late antique literature can be interpreted as a reflection of the ongoing debates of the time. Competition among cultural elites, strategies of self-presentation and the making of religious orthodoxy often took the shape of narrations of rhetorical performances in which comments on the display of oratorical skills also incorporated moral and ethical judgments about the performer. Using texts from late antique authors (in particular, Themistius, Synesius of Cyrene, and Libanius of Antioch), this book proposes that this type of narrative should be understood as a valuable way to decipher the cultural and religious landscape of the fourth century AD. The volume pays particular attention to narrations of deficient rhetorical deliveries, 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, sermons) 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

Art · Dynamics (music · Literature · Rhetorical question · Sociology · Classical Antiquity Studies · Historical and Linguistic Studies · History · Oratory, Ancient · Rhetoric, Ancient

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