Magic and Rhetoric in Ancient Greece.
Beautiful Letters| N° d'inventaire | 21751 |
| Format | 12.5 x 19 |
| Détails | 148 p., paperback. |
| Publication | Paris, 2019 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | |
Credited with a divine origin by the Ancients, poetry has the power to move and charm. The founders of rhetoric understood this well, using rhythms and poetic styles to give their speeches the power to bewitch the audience like magicians. In these four lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1974, unpublished in French, Jacqueline de Romilly analyzes the relationship between enchantment through words, divine inspiration and magic. From the audacity of Gorgias's oratorical devices and their Platonic condemnation, through Isocrates and Aristotle's desire to define an art of discourse, to the reintroduction of the sublime and the irrational into literature by later authors, Jacqueline de Romilly highlights the ancient Greeks' ability to maintain a dialogue across the centuries, in which each responds with precision and subtlety to their predecessor.
Credited with a divine origin by the Ancients, poetry has the power to move and charm. The founders of rhetoric understood this well, using rhythms and poetic styles to give their speeches the power to bewitch the audience like magicians. In these four lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1974, unpublished in French, Jacqueline de Romilly analyzes the relationship between enchantment through words, divine inspiration and magic. From the audacity of Gorgias's oratorical devices and their Platonic condemnation, through Isocrates and Aristotle's desire to define an art of discourse, to the reintroduction of the sublime and the irrational into literature by later authors, Jacqueline de Romilly highlights the ancient Greeks' ability to maintain a dialogue across the centuries, in which each responds with precision and subtlety to their predecessor.