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The rhetoric of identity in Isocrates offers a sustained interpretation of the Isocratean corpus, showing that rhetoric is a language which the author uses to create a political identity for himself in fourth-century Athens. Dr Too examines how Isocrates' discourse addresses anxieties surrounding the written word in a democratic culture which values the spoken word as the privileged means of political expression. Isocrates makes written culture the basis for a revisionary Athenian politics and of a rhetoric of Athenian hegemony. In addition, Isocrates takes issue with the popular image of the professional teacher in the age of the sophist, combating the negative stereotype of the greedy sophist who corrupts the city's youth in his portrait of himself as a teacher of rhetoric. He daringly reinterprets the pedagogue as a figure who produces a discourse which articulates political authority. This book offers an interdisciplinary approach to ancient rhetoric and should appeal to people with interests in the fields of classics, history, the history of political thought, literature, literary theory, philosophy and education. All passages in Greek and Latin have been translated to ensure accessibility to non-classicists.
Sommario
Introduction; 1. Isocrates and logos politikos; 2. The unities of discourse; 3. The politics of the small voice; 4. Isocrates in his own write; 5. The pedagogical contract; 6. The politics of discipleship; Brief afterword; Appendix 1. Isocrates and Gorgias; Appendix 2. Concerning the chariot-team.
Riassunto
The Rhetoric of Identity in Isocrates provides an interpretation of an important, but largely neglected and disregarded, fourth-century Athenian author to show how he uses writing to provide a model of political engagement which is distinct from his own contemporaries' (especially Plato's) and from our own notions of political involvement.
