Book contents
- Frontmatter
- 1 Early Greek views of poets and poetry
- 2 Language and meaning in archaic and classical Greece
- 3 Plato and poetry
- 4 Aristotle's poetics
- 5 The evolution of a theory of artistic prose
- 6 Hellenistic literary and philosophical scholarship
- 7 The growth of literature and criticism at Rome
- 8 Augustan Critics
- 9 Latin Criticism of the Early Empire
- 10 Greek Criticism of the Empire
- 11 Christianity and Criticism
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
5 - The evolution of a theory of artistic prose
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
Edited by
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- 1 Early Greek views of poets and poetry
- 2 Language and meaning in archaic and classical Greece
- 3 Plato and poetry
- 4 Aristotle's poetics
- 5 The evolution of a theory of artistic prose
- 6 Hellenistic literary and philosophical scholarship
- 7 The growth of literature and criticism at Rome
- 8 Augustan Critics
- 9 Latin Criticism of the Early Empire
- 10 Greek Criticism of the Empire
- 11 Christianity and Criticism
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
Literary prose first emerges in the middle of the fifth century BC in writings in the Ionic dialect, including the Histories of Herodotus, then in the Attic dialect in the oratory of the Siciliạn Gorgias and the Athenian Antiphon, and is seen at the end of the century in Thucydides' History. Oratory and history, throughout antiquity, remain privileged prose genres, to which is added as a third the philosophical dialogue, developed by Plato in the fourth century. Except for a very few references to the literary epistle, ancient critics ignore all other prose forms as sub-literary. History, with its mixture of narrative and set speeches, may be thought of as corresponding to epic in poetry, the dialogue to drama; epideictic oratorỵ, seen in the display speeches of sophists, such as that attributed to Lysias in Plato's Phaedrus, or in funeral orations or speeches at festivals, has some relationship to lyric forms, such as the hymn, but the chief poetic antecedents of deliberative oratory are found in the debates in epic.
Aristotle claims (Rhetoric of Aristotle 1.1404a20 - 39) that prose became artistic in the first instance by borrowing stylistic features from poetry; a more accurate statement might be that analogies were created to the effects of poetic sound and rhythm, seen in the so-called Gorgianic figures of isocolon, paronomasia, homoeoteleuton, and the like. These are flagrantly indulged by Gorgias himself and found in more restrained form in Thucydides and elsewhere. As pointed out in chapter 1, section 3 above, ‘prose’ assumes the prior existence of ‘poetry’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism , pp. 184 - 199Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1990
References
, ‘The art of safe criticism in Greece and Rome’, American Journal of Philology (Baltimore), 105 (1984).Google Scholar
, ‘Probleme der Stoischen Sprachlehre und Rhetorik’, Abhandlungen der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Philologisch-historische Klasse, 49, 3 (Berlin, 1957).Google Scholar
, Dionysius of Halicarnassus: A Study in the Development of Critical Method (Cambridge, 1939).Google Scholar
, Horace on Poetry; I: Prolegomena to the Literary Epistles (Cambridge, 1963); II: Ars poetica (1971); III: Epistles, Book II (1982).Google Scholar
‘Hellenistic poetry’, in Cambridge History of Classical Literature (see above, General works), I.
, ‘The decay of eloquence at Rome in the first century’, in Of Eloquence: Studies in Ancient and Medieval Rhetoric (Ithaca, 1970).Google Scholar
, An Introduction to Aristotle's Rhetoric with Analysis, Notes, and Appendices (London, 1867; rpt. New York, 1970).Google Scholar
, ‘Varroniana’, Aufstieg and Niedergang der römischen Welt. Geschichte und Kultur Roms in Spiegel der neueren Forschung (Berlin), 1, 3 (1973).Google Scholar
, ‘The Epicurean analysis of language’, American Journal of Philology (Baltimore), 60 (1939).Google Scholar
, ‘The intellectual background of Cicero's Rhetorica’, Aufstieg and Niedergang der römischen Welt. Geschichte und Kultur Roms in Spiegel der neueren Forschung (Berlin), 1, 3 (1973).Google Scholar
, ‘Dans l'ombre des plus grands: poétes et prosateurs mal connus de l'époque augustienne’, Aufstieg and Niedergang der römischen Welt. Geschichte und Kultur Roms in Spiegel der neueren Forschung (Berlin), II, 30, 3 (1983).Google Scholar
, Aristotle's Rhetoric: Five Centuries of Philological Research (Metuchen, New Jersey, 1975).Google Scholar
, ‘Imitation and decline: Rhetorical theory and practice in the first century after Christ’, Classical Philology (Chicago), 73 (1978).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, ‘Imitation and evolution: The discussion of rhetorical imitation in Cicero, De oratore 11, 87–97, and some related problems of Ciceronian theory’, Classical Philology (Chicago), 73 (1978).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(ed.), Le classicisme à Rome aux premiers siécles avant et après J. C. (Entretiens Hardt, 25) (Geneva, 1979).Google Scholar
, ‘The pattern of sound and atomistic theory in Lucretius' De rerum nature’, American Journal of Philology (Baltimore), 62 (1941).Google Scholar
, ‘Qualities of rhetorical expression in Philodemus’, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association (Currently, Scholars Press, Atlanta, Georgia), 112 (1982).Google Scholar
, ‘Metathesis as an instrument in the criticism of poetry’, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association (Currently, Scholars Press, Atlanta, Georgia), 89 (1958).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, ‘The use of poiēma and poiēsis’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology (Cambridge, Mass.), 65 (1961).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, Studies in the Philosophy of Aristotle's Rhetoric (Hermes Einzelschriften, 25) (Wiesbaden, 1972).Google Scholar
, ‘Thrasymachus, Theophrastus, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus’, American Journal of Philology (Baltimore), 73 (1952).Google Scholar
, Untersuchungen zur Theorie der Rhetorik bei Platon und Aristoteles (Hypomnemata, 38) (Göttingen, 1973).Google Scholar
, ‘The collegium poetarum’, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies of the University of London, 23 (1976).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, ‘Un critique grec dans la Rome d'Auguste’, Aufstieg and Niedergang der römischen Welt. Geschichte und Kultur Roms in Spiegel der neueren Forschung (Berlin), 30, 1 (1982).Google Scholar
, ‘Stoic logic and Alexandrian poetics’, in et al. (eds.), Doubt and Dogmatism (Oxford, 1980).Google Scholar
, ‘Aristotle's concept of metaphor in rhetoric’, in (ed.), Aristotle (see above).
, ‘Encoplius and Agamemnon in Petronius’, American Journal of Philology (Baltimore), 99 (1978).Google Scholar
, Classical Rhetoric and its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times (Chapel Hill, 1980).Google Scholar
, ‘Horazens Brief an die Pisonem’, Berichte der Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse, 88 (1936).Google Scholar
, Orationis Ratio: The Stylistic Theories and Practice of the Roman Orators, Historians, and Philosophers (2 vols., Amsterdam, 1963).Google Scholar
, ‘Filodemo: La Rhetorica e la Musica’, in Syzetesis: Studi offerti a Marcello Gigante (Naples, 1983).Google Scholar
, ‘The poet, the critic, and the moralist: Horace, Epistles 1.19’, Classical Quarterly (Oxford), 27 (1977).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, ‘The poetry of ethics in Horace, Epistles 1.19’, Journal of Roman Studies (London), 69 (1979).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, La critique littéraire de langue latine et le développement du gout archaïsant au if siècle de notre ère (Rennes, 1952).Google Scholar
, Rhétorique et philosophie chez Cicéron: Essai sur les fondements philosophiques de l'art de persuader (Paris, 1960).Google Scholar
, ‘Die Composition und Litteraturgattung der Horazischen Epistula ad Pisones’, Hermes, 40 (1905).Google Scholar
, Classical Scholarship. See above, General works.
, Die Lehre von den drei Wortfügungsarten: Untersuchungen zu Dionysius von Halicarnassus, De compositione verborum (Tübingen, 1968).Google Scholar
, ‘The poet and his audience in the Augustan age’, Aufstieg and Niedergang der römischen Welt. Geschichte und Kultur Roms in Spiegel der neueren Forschung (Berlin), II, 30, 1 (1982).Google Scholar
, Allegory. See above, General works.
, ‘De imitatione’, in and (eds.), Creative Imitation and Latin Literature (Cambridge, 1979).Google Scholar
, ‘Phusis, Meletē, Epistēmē’, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association (Currently, Scholars Press, Atlanta, Georgia), 40 (1909).Google Scholar
, ‘Aristophanes of Byzantium on the Pinakes of Callimachus’, Phoenix, 30 (1976).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, ‘The Aristotelian tradition in ancient rhetoric’, American Journal of Philology (Baltimore), 62 (1941); rpt. in (ed.), Classical Heritage, (see above).Google Scholar
, Studien zur Ars poetica des Horaz; Interpretation des auf Dichtkunst und Gedicht bezüglichen Hauptteiles, Verse 1–294 (Würzburg, 1939).Google Scholar
, ‘Petronius, Seneca, and Lucan: A literary feud’, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association (Currently, Scholars Press, Atlanta, Georgia), 99 (1968).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, Muses of One Mind: The Literary Analysis of Experience and its Continuity (Princeton, 1983).Google Scholar
, ‘Cicero and the silver age’, in (ed.), Eloquence et rhétorique chez Cicéron (Entretiens Hardt, 27) (Geneva, 1982).Google Scholar
, ‘Le développement du style asiatique pendant l'époque hellénistique’, Revue des études grecques (Paris), 88 (1975).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, ‘Re-creating the canon: Augustan poetry and the Alexandrian poet’, Critical Inquiry, 10 (1983).Google Scholar