Ancient Aesthetics of Deception - The Ethics of Enchantment From Gorgias to Heliodorus

A bold new history of ancient aesthetics and its entanglement with ethics, with ongoing significance for current debates.

List of contents

1. Gorgias and the justice of tragic apat¿; 2. The circulation and significance of apat¿ in the Classical era; 3. The dramatic entanglement of aesthetic illusion with deceit in Sophocles' Electra; 4. Immersion and corruption in Plato's Republic; 5. The void of Hellenistic criticism; 6. The appeal and challenge of apat¿ in Imperial criticism: Plutarch's De audiendis poetis; 7. Lucian and the spell of philosophy; 8. How to read ekphrasis: Tabula Cebetis; 9. Christian polemics against idolatry: Clement of Alexandria's Protrepticus; 10. The aesthetics of deception reconfigured in Heliodorus' Ethiopica; 11. From deep-fake to psychotherapy: The aesthetics of deception today.

About the author

Jonas Grethlein is Professor of Greek in the Seminar für Klassische Philologie at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg. His publications include The Greeks and their Past: Poetry, Oratory and History in the Fifth Century BCE (Cambridge, 2010), Experience and Teleology in Ancient Historiography: Futures Past from Herodotus to Augustine (Cambridge, 2013) and Aesthetic Experience and Classical Antiquity: The Significance of Form in Narratives and Pictures (Cambridge, 2017).

Product details

• Authors: Jonas Grethlein, Jonas (Ruprecht-Karls-Universitat Heide Grethlein, Jonas (Ruprecht-Karls-Universitat Heidelberg Grethlein, Grethlein Jonas
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.09.2021
• EAN: 9781316518816
• ISBN: 978-1-316-51881-6
• No. of pages: 332
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; HISTORY / Ancient / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Semiotics & Theory, LITERARY CRITICISM / Ancient & Classical, Literary studies: classical, early & medieval, Ancient History, Literary theory, Ancient history: to c 500 CE, Literary studies: ancient, classical and medieval