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Chapter 6 - Perfecting Literary History

Christopher S. van den Berg
Christopher S. van den Berg
Affiliation:
Amherst College, Massachusetts
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Summary

Chapter 6 shows how Cicero establishes a normative framework for the writing of literary history. Across the dialogue and through the various speakers he offers a sustained critique of literary historiography. Several fundamental tensions and conflicts emerge: absolute versus relative criteria in assessing literature and building canons; presentism and antiquarianism; formalism and historicism; and the recognition that all literary histories are subject to their crafters’ emphases and agendas.

Keywords

literary historyliterary theorycanonsdialogue techniqueantiquarianismpresentismrelativismformalismhistoricism
Type
Chapter
Information
The Politics and Poetics of Cicero's Brutus
The Invention of Literary History
 , pp. 165 - 190
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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