Orality and performance in classical Attic prose : a linguistic approach / Alessandro Vatri.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Vatri, Alessandro, 1984- author.

Series:

Oxford classical monographs

Oxford Classical Monographs

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Attic Greek dialect.

Rhetoric, Ancient--History and criticism.

Rhetoric, Ancient.

Oratory, Ancient.

Speeches, addresses, etc., Greek--History and criticism.

Speeches, addresses, etc., Greek.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

viii, 334 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2017.

Summary:

This study discusses the question of whether there is a linguistic difference between classical Attic prose texts intended for public oral delivery and those intended for written circulation and private performance. Identifying such a difference which exclusively reflects these disparities in modes of reception has proven to be a difficult challenge for both literary scholars and cultural historians of the ancient world, with answers not always satisfactory from a methodological and an analytical point of view. The legitimacy of the question is first addressed through a definition of what such slippery notions as 'orality' and 'oral performance' mean in the context of classical Athens, reconstruction of the situations in which the extant prose texts were meant to be received, and an explanation of the grounds on which we may expect linguistic features of the texts to be related to such situations. The idea that texts conceived for public delivery needed to be as clear as possible is substantiated by available cultural-historical and anthropological facts; however, these do not imply that the opposite was required of texts conceived for private reception. In establishing a rigorous methodology for the reconstruction of the native perception of clarity in the original contexts of textual reception this study offers a novel approach to assessing orality in classical Greek prose through examination of linguistic and grammatical features of style. It builds upon the theoretical insights and current experimental findings of modern psycholinguistics, providing scholars with a new key to the minds of ancient writers and audiences.

Contents:

1 The Orality of Attic Prose 1

1.1 A manifold concept 1

1.2 Oral language(s) and oral style(s) 9

1.3 From composition to performance 13

2 Contexts of Reception 23

2.1 Texts and communication 23

2.2 Reading 28

2.3 Public and private situations 30

3 The Writing of Attic Prose 37

3.1 From composition to reception 37

3.2 Setting the scene (1): literacy and reading in classical Athens 46

3.3 Setting the scene (2): genres and written texts 54

3.3.1 Epic poetry 54

3.3.2 Monodic poetry 56

3.3.3 Choral poetry 58

3.3.4 Drama 59

3.3.5 Ionic prose 60

3.4 The circulation and use of Attic prose texts 67

3.4.1 Historiography 68

3.4.2 Philosophy 69

3.4.3 Oratory 72

4 Comprehension 101

4.1 The domains of clarity 101

4.2 Precepts and examples 108

4.3 The psycholinguistics of sapheneia 137

4.3.1 Language comprehension: an overview 139

4.3.2 Sentence processing 141

4.3.3 Sentence length 156

4.3.4 Sentence structure 159

4.3.5 Word order 166

4.3.6 Vocabulary 173

4.4 Paralinguistic and non-linguistic elements 175

4.4.1 Prosody 175

4.4.2 Gesture 184

4.5 Reading the native mind 187

5 Processing Attic Oratory in Performance: An Experiment in Reconstruction 195

5.1 Design 195

5.2 Methodology and limitations 199

5.3 'I like drinking water', or: indifferent interpretations 222

5.4 Results 225

5.4.1 Lys. 1 225

5.4.2 Lys. 12.1-50 226

5.4.3 D. 22.1-33 228

5.4.4 Antipho 1 231

5.4.5 D. 9.1-40 231

5.4.6 D. 15 231

5.4.7 Hyp. 6 231

5.4.8 PI. Ap. 17a-24a4 232

5.4.9 Antipho 4 235

5.4.10 Isoc. 6.1-45 238

5.4.11 Isoc. 7.1-47 239

5.4.12 Th. 2.35-46 242

5.4.13 PI. Mnx. 236c11-244c3 250

5.4.14 Isoc. 9.1-43 251

5.5 Discussion 252

6 Conclusion and Future Directions 259.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

ISBN:

9780198795902

0198795904

OCLC:

978447208