Greek Declamation and the Roman Empire

"A Greek declamation was an 'imaginary speech': a fictitious speech composed for a rhetorical scenario set in classical Greece. Although such speeches began as rhetorical exercises, under the high Roman empire they developed into a full-blown prestigious genre in their own right. This first monograph on Greek declamation for nearly forty years re-evaluates a genre that was central to Greek imperial literature and to ancient and modern notions of the 'Second Sophistic'. Rejecting traditional conceptions of the genre as 'nostalgic', this book considers the significance of Greek declamation's reenactment of classical history for its own times and integrates the genre into the wider history of the period. It shows through extended readings how the genre came to constitute a powerful and subtle instrument of identity formation and social interaction, and a site for free thinking on issues of major contemporary importance such as imperialism and inter-polis relations"--

List of contents

Introduction; 1. Exempla and Exemplarity; 2. Declamation, Life, and the Imagination; 3. Text and Performance Context; 4. Identity Parade; 5. Macedon; 6. Strife and Concord; Conclusion.

About the author

WILLIAM GUAST is an Assistant Master at Winchester College, and was previously the A. G. Leventis Research Fellow in Ancient Greek at the University of Bristol.

Product details

• Authors: William Guast, William (Winchester College) Guast
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.05.2023
• EAN: 9781009297127
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0929712-7
• No. of pages: 238
• Series: Greek Culture in the Roman Wor; Greek Culture in the Roman World
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Antiquity; HISTORY / Ancient / Rome, Latin, Ancient Greece, HISTORY / Ancient / Greece, LITERARY COLLECTIONS / Ancient & Classical, Classical texts, Ancient World, Ancient Rome, Ancient History, Ancient history: to c 500 CE, Ancient (Classical) Greek, Ancient Greek and Roman literature