By Erik Gunderson
Rhetoric completely infused the area and literature of Graeco-Roman antiquity. This better half presents a finished evaluation of rhetorical thought and perform in that global, from Homer to early Christianity, available to scholars and non-specialists, no matter if inside classics or from different classes and disciplines. Its easy premise is that rhetoric is much less a discrete item to be grasped and mastered than a hotly contested set of practices that come with disputes over the very definition of rhetoric itself. general remedies of old oratory are likely to take it an excessive amount of in its personal phrases and to isolate it unduly from different social and cultural matters. This quantity presents an outline of the form and scope of the issues whereas additionally selecting middle issues and propositions: for instance, persuasion, advantage, and public existence are digital constants. yet they combine and mingle in a different way, and the contents precise by way of every one of those phrases may also shift.
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E. “flyting”) and see Martin 1989; Parks 1990; Hesk forthcoming. Note that Thersites and Odysseus were later associated (Sophocles, Philoctetes 438–44), and that Thersites is not depicted as ugly or deformed in Apulian vase-painting (Marks 2005: 2–3). g. 471 [Sarpedon]). 203–206; Hesiod, Theogony 81–93. 33 nancy worman with their audiences by means of insulting example – that is, by working to exclude their opponents and enemies from the realm of citizens fit to speak in assembly. Like any fine oratorical wrangler, Odysseus makes good use of this agonistic moment by insulting the insulter, threatening his exclusion from the group, and thereby solidifying his status as advisor to kings while he achieves allegiance with both the audience of soldiers and his fellow leaders.
Again, many classical writers with aristocratic leanings question in similar terms the strategies of sophists, whom they represent as agile, decadent liars with political ambitions. The portrait of Odysseus in Nemean 8 conjoins the theme of deceit with that of abusive rapacity. 51 Odysseus embodies the confluence of these two modes and indicates why they might be thus conjoined: the verbal manipulator plays a mercenary, even shameful role within the heroic idiom. His figure gives the lie to aristocratic assumptions of nobility and natural ascendancy, revealing the instinct to the strategic appropriation of authority, to self-preservation, and to privileging the body’s base needs over the hero’s honor.
See Worman 2002. Scholars tend to focus their efforts on the first two books of the Rhetoric. See Ong 1982: 43–45, who regards this agonistic mode as a typical characteristic of oral cultures. g. 165–202, 221–48 (Penelope). g. 215–32 (Melanthius). g. 291–310 [Athena]). See Svenbro 1976: 50–59; Pucci 1987: 157–208; Worman 1999. 29 nancy worman the verbal dexterity, strategic mentality, and talent for coercion and control that the Homeric poet attributes to him make him an obvious prototype for the classical orator.