1st Edition
Ekphrasis, Imagination and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice
By Ruth Webb
Copyright 2009
252 Pages
by
Routledge
252 Pages
by
Routledge
252 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
This is a study of ekphrasis, the art of making listeners and readers 'see' in their imagination through words alone, as taught in ancient rhetorical schools and as used by Greek writers of the Imperial period (2nd-6th centuries CE). The author places the practice of ekphrasis within its cultural context, emphasizing the importance of the visual imagination in ancient responses to rhetoric, poetry... Read more
Abbreviations; Acknowledgments; Preface; Introduction; Chapter 1 The Contexts of Ekphrasis; Chapter 2 Learning Ekphrasis: The Progymnasmata; Chapter 3 The Subjects of Ekphrasis; Chapter 4 Enargeia: Making Absent Things Present; Chapter 5 Phantasia: Memory, Imagination and the Gallery of the Mind; Chapter 6 Ekphrasis and the Art of Persuasion; Chapter 7 The Poetics of Ekphrasis: Fiction, Illusion and Meta-ekphrasis; Conclusion;
Biography
Ruth Webb is Professor of Greek at the University of Lille, France.
’There is much that makes this book an essential for every serious library. First, the judgment, knowledge, and long reflection, which make this so poised, clear, and authoritative a work. ... Second, Webb, unlike so many who write on her slice of the action, is critically sophisticated, aware of counter-arguments, and engages with a broad linguistic and historical critical frame. ... Third - and this is what motivated me to write this review - she raises in the starkest possible terms the tension between the authority of the handbooks and the direction taken by recent work, [...], on visual culture.’ Bryn Mawr Classical Review 'Throughout, Webb comfortable leapfrogs centuries of rhetorical theory to identify trends in intellectual and literary culture; her core texts will not be familiar to many, even to some with distinguished publications of classical ekphraris narrowly and erroneously defined, but Webb is a lively and challenging guide. It should find many readers.' Hermathena 'The argument is neatly and clearly structured, moving from contextualisation and definition to discussion of the Progymnasmata as a genre, before relating ekphrasis to the related concepts of enargeia and phantasia. In conclusion, W. discusses ekphrasis in relation to strategies of persuasion, before going beyond the rather restricted interests and aims of the authors of the rhetorical handbooks to survey some of the implication raised by their use of the term.' Gnomon
