Esta tese de doutorado divide-se em duas partes principais. A primeira delas debruça-se sobre as reflexões metadiscursivas presentes no discurso Antídose de Isócrates. O estudo se volta para passagens da obra em que o autor discorre sobre aspectos centrais de sua prosa, apoiando-se também em outros excertos do corpus isocrático em que essas reflexões também ocorrem. Desses aspectos, destacam-se, principalmente, as definições de gêneros discursivos empregados e os diversos expedientes retóricos adotados por Isócrates no decorrer da obra para construir seu thos perante sua audiência. Por fim, na segunda parte da tese, segue-se a primeira tradução integral do Antídose em Língua Portuguesa. / This doctoral thesis is divided in two main parts. The first one focuses on the metadiscoursive reflections found in the speech Antidosis of Isocrates. The study turns to passages of the work in which the author discusses key aspects of his prose, leaning on other excerpts from the isocratic corpus in which these considerations also occur. Of these aspects, we highlight mainly the definitions of discoursive genres used and the several rhetorical expedients adopted by Isocrates in the course of the speech to build his thos before his audience. Finally, in the second part of the thesis, there is the first complete translation of Antidosis into Portuguese.

Esta tese de doutorado divide-se em duas partes principais. A primeira delas debruça-se sobre as reflexões metadiscursivas presentes no discurso Antídose de Isócrates. O estudo se volta para passagens da obra em que o autor discorre sobre aspectos centrais de sua prosa, apoiando-se também em outros excertos do corpus isocrático em que essas reflexões também ocorrem. Desses aspectos, destacam-se, principalmente, as definições de gêneros discursivos empregados e os diversos expedientes retóricos adotados por Isócrates no decorrer da obra para construir seu thos perante sua audiência. Por fim, na segunda parte da tese, segue-se a primeira tradução integral do Antídose em Língua Portuguesa. / This doctoral thesis is divided in two main parts. The first one focuses on the metadiscoursive reflections found in the speech Antidosis of Isocrates. The study turns to passages of the work in which the author discusses key aspects of his prose, leaning on other excerpts from the isocratic corpus in which these considerations also occur. Of these aspects, we highlight mainly the definitions of discoursive genres used and the several rhetorical expedients adopted by Isocrates in the course of the speech to build his thos before his audience. Finally, in the second part of the thesis, there is the first complete translation of Antidosis into Portuguese.

Nineteenth-century classical scholar Friedrich Wilhelm Blass wrote over 300 densely annotated pages on Isocrates, an ancient Athenian schoolmaster and political essayist. A lengthy section of Blass' Die attische Beredsamkeit (1898) has been excerpted here and translated into English for the first time. The excerpt involves Blass' inventory of the Isocratic canon, an argument for the existence of a lost Isocratic rhetoric (techne), and an illustration of what that lost rhetoric likely contained. A translator's prologue discusses the value of both Isocrates and Blass to the study of classical rhetoric. Blass' work is also contrasted with the work of his British contemporary, R. C. Jebb.Blass' commentary on Isocrates requires of its readers a fluency in the technical terminology of classical rhetoric and a patience, perhaps a passion, for difficult rhetorical style. Blass frequently exercises in his writing the Isocratic principles and schemata he discusses. The English translation here, in order to preserve that trait in Blass' personal style, often approaches rhetorical replication of the original German text. Hence it becomes, to a certain extent, as much a simulacrum rhetoricum as a translation.In his text, Blass exposes a traditional misunderstanding of Isocrates that has resulted in a lack of appreciation for his overall contribution. We too often judge the Isocratic canon's value based either upon orations Isocrates constructed early in his career, before he matured in his art, or upon ones he composed late in his life, when he was in his eighties and nineties and becoming a bit senile. As a result, the merit of Isocrates' work during his most influential period, his middle age, is often ignored.The quality of the entire Isocratic canon must be carefully examined, Blass maintains, before its author or his work can be accurately judged. Accordingly, Isocrates' rhetoric is illustrated here as it evolved throughout his career. Blass' examination includes more detailed rhetorical explications than any other treatise currently available in English. / Department of English

[Truncated abstract] This thesis focuses on the significance of the beauty of Helen of Troy in the Encomium of Helen written by the fourth-century philosopher Isocrates. Previous traditions, and especially epic poetry and tragedy, had assessed Helen’s beauty and either blamed or excused her for causing the Trojan War. Isocrates moved beyond this dichotomy to create a new focus on her beauty as the ultimate source of all that made Greek culture distinctive. Modern scholarship, however, has been generally unsympathetic we may almost say blind to this projected beauty. The meaning of beauty in Isocrates’ work has been overlooked by scholars in favor of its rhetorical structure. The work was criticized for its disjointed arrangement and lack of seriousness. The Helen has been interpreted as a reaction to contemporary rhetorical issues or as merely an educational manifesto. This thesis aims to identify and clarify the ideology underlying Isocrates’ construction of Helen’s beauty in his encomium. … The Helen of Isocrates is also compared with the contemporary Platonic work Phaedrus, which explores beauty as a means of arriving at pure knowledge. In this case, comparisons are drawn thematically and reveal that while the two works share similar topics and aims regarding the notions of beauty, Isocrate’s aesthetic idea is much more practically grounded and intended to be of benefit to the entire society when compared to the more idealistic and individual Platonic notion. Finally, the reasons for Isocrates’ choice of beauty as a major theme for the Helen are explored through a comparison of Helen’s beauty to that of Hellas an equation which Isocrates deems important for the fourth-century society.

Este trabalho propõe a tradução do discurso Panegírico, de autoria do ateniense Isócrates. A versão vem acompanhada de notas, que visam a fornecer um breve comentário das passagens mais importantes do texto. Um estudo introdutório, cujo primeiro capítulo pretende discutir algumas questões propostas pelo texto, tratando de sua composição, do tratamento dos fatos históricos e um breve relato das principais interpretações modernas do Panegírico. O capítulo seguinte aborda o problema dos bárbaros no Panegírico e como o retrato de Isócrates dos povos não gregos visa a reforçar as propostas feitas pelo autor em seu texto. Na parte final do estudo, examina-se a relação desse texto com obras precedentes tratando das mesmas questões que o Panegírico. / This work proposes to translate the Panegyricus, a speech by the Athenian Isocrates. Endnotes have been added, in order to comment the most important passages in the text. In addition, an introductory study is included to clarify the some points of the text, such as the problems posed by the composition of the text, its treatment of the historical facts and a brief review of the main modern interpretations of the Panegyricus. The next chapter discusses the role which the barbarians play in the Panegyricus and how Isocrates portrait of the non-Greek peoples serves the propositions advanced by the author in his text. The final part of the study examines the relation of the Panegyricus with texts treating the same questions.

This thesis examines the relationship between speech and action in Dionysius' Antiquitates Romanae. It consists of five main chapters, an introduction and a conclusion. In the introduction I establish the status quaestionis and consider different modes of presenting discourse. Chapter 2 is an intertextual analysis of Dionysius' first preface, AR I.1-8, exploring Dionysius' engagement with his Greek and Roman predecessors. I take one modern theory, concerning Dionysius apparent 'idealisation' of the Roman past, in order to examine the relationship between the Antiquities and Dionysius' rhetorical works. In the four chapters that follow, I trace the changing texture of narrative across the Antiquities, sinking shafts at moments to examine closely what is going on. First (ch. 3), I analyse speech in the Regal Period, focusing on the story of Lucretia and Brutus (AR IV.64-85), and the way that Herodotean allusion meshes with intratextual devices to narrate the fluctuations of the Regal Period. Chapter 4 is a paired reading of (4a) the story of Coriolanus' trial (VII.21-66) and (4b) the story of Coriolanus' encounter with his mother (VII.39-62). Ch. 4a concentrates on Thucydides and Isocrates, and how Coriolanus' trial binds the Greek literary past to the first-century Roman present. In 4b, I examine how Dionysius manages the shift between high politics and family relationships. Chapter 5, on the decemvirate (X.50-XI.44), explores again Roman tyranny, this time in a Republican frame; the power of the senate is consequently in point here. Chapter 6, on AR XIV-XX, probes the questions of Greek and Roman ethnicity and the individual which had arisen in the earlier chapters. In the conclusion I consider the precise question of Dionysius' Augustanism, relating it to Dionysius' apparent status in Rome.

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Understanding how the Renaissance rhetorical curriculum taught style as behavior makes it possible to unite the study of women writers' identities with formal criticism. Nancy L. Christiansen shows that early modern humanists built on the Isocratean tradition of teaching rhetoric as an ethical practice because they adopted and developed lists of rhetorical figures so extensive as to encompass all human discourse, thought, and behavior. For them, knowing, selecting, and applying these various forms was the ethical practice of good judgment, also called decorum. This type of decorum plays an important role in the rhetorical function of two key texts by early modern women. Margaret Fell and Aemilia Lanyer each use a humanist notion of decorum as the virtue of good judgment to formulate their intellectual and moral authority and to argue that women can exercise the same.

Cette thèse de doctorat étudie la manière dont Aristote, Platon et Isocrate font du recours à la notion d’empeiria et de la promotion d’une certaine conception de l’expérience, le moyen de se défendre contre l’accusation d’inexpérience qui les vise et de polémiquer entre eux sur la question de l’excellence, dans les domaines théorique, technique et pratique. Cet examen permet d’éclairer sous un jour nouveau la question de l’empirisme antique, en considérant, d’une part, la critique que Platon et Aristote adressent à une certaine conception empirico-sophistique des savoirs et de la pratique, en reconsidérant de l’autre, le supposé empirisme d’Aristote. Si la notion d’empirisme n’a pas d’équivalent en grec, Platon fait de la notion d’empeiria, désignant une forme de pratique non-technique ignorant les causes, un instrument polémique permettant de souligner le défaut de technicité des différentes techniques, que les sophistes se font forts de transmettre. En mettant l’accent sur « l’expérience de la vérité », Platon remet en question l’empirisme de ceux qui ignorent la valeur théorique et pratique de la connaissance des réalités intelligibles. Aristote poursuit la réflexion, en reconsidérant le rôle positif, cognitif et pratique, de l’empeiria comme connaissance acquise à partir de la sensation. Aristote poursuit la critique d’un certain empirisme, dont se rendent coupables tous ceux qui échouent à s’élever à la connaissance de l’universel, tout en déplorant le défaut d’empeiria de ceux dont le savoir est purement théorique. Si comme Platon, Aristote n’est pas un empiriste, parce qu’il refuse de faire de la sensation le principe de la connaissance et le critère du vrai, son rationalisme diffère de celui de Platon, par le rôle reconnue à la sensation et l’expérience dans les domaines théorique, technique et pratique. Cette étude entend révéler l’urgence de distinctions en philosophie de la connaissance dans le cadre des études anciennes, comme la distinction entre le rationalisme logique de Platon et le rationalisme empirique d’Aristote, par exemple, permettant de mesurer l’originalité des doctrines antiques sur des problèmes aussi fondamentaux que l’origine et le principe de la connaissance et de l’action bonne. / This dissertation investigates how Aristotle, Plato and Isocrates use the notion of empeiria and promote a certain conception of experience, in order to defend themselves from the charge of inexperience made against them, and also in order to debate about the question of excellence in the theoretical, technical and practical fields. This study sheds some new lights on ancient empiricism, by investigating, on one hand, Plato’s and Aristotle’s criticism against an empiricist sophistic approach of knowledge and action, and, on the other hand, the so-called Aristotelian empiricism. Although the concept of ‘empiricism’ has no equivalent in Greek, Plato uses the notion of empeiria to designate a non-technical form of action, in order to underlie a lack of technicality and to question the value of what some sophists claim to teach under the name of technai. While insisting on a philosophical kind of experience of truth, Plato criticizes what appears to be the empiricism of those who ignore the theoretical and practical value of the knowledge of intelligible realities. Aristotle goes beyond this stance by re-evaluating positively the role of empeiria, both in its cognitive and practical aspects, as a specific kind of knowledge, derived from sense-perception. He still criticizes the empiricism of those who fail to reach a certain kind of knowledge, namely the knowledge of universals, but also adds a criticism against those who lack the knowledge of particulars acquired through sense-perception and experience.If Aristotle is no more an empiricist than Plato, since he does not recognize sense-perception as the principle of knowledge and as the criterion of the truth, his rationalism is quite different from Plato’s, because of the important role he gives to sense-perception and experience in all areas. This study intends to break through in the direction of some distinctions in ancient philosophy, such as the distinction between Plato’s logical rationalism and Aristotle’s empirical rationalism, which would enable us to re-evaluate the originality of the Ancients on some fundamental issues like the problem of the origin and principle of knowledge and of good action.

This study is, in part, a response to arguments that claim higher education fails to prepare students with fundamental communication skills necessary for everyday life and indicative of "educated" persons. Though the validity of such arguments is contestable, they nonetheless reflect fundamental inadequacies in current educational theories and practices that have evolved over centuries of curricular, cultural, and socioeconomic change. Current theories and practices in higher education, specifically general education, reflect a misunderstanding of both the purpose of education in a democracy and the role of the liberal arts, specifically rhetoric, in accomplishing that purpose. The consequences of rhetorically-impoverished general education curricula are manifested not only in the declining literate and communicative practices of recent college graduates but also in the declining civic and democratic practices of a growing number of Americans. By tracing the histories of and relationships among education, rhetoric, and composition instruction, this thesis highlights the purpose of education and the role of writing instruction and rhetoric in accomplishing that purpose. This review demonstrates that the introductory composition course, when informed by epistemic rhetoric, provides curricular coherence in general education while clarifying and accomplishing the primary purpose of education: to facilitate the development of autonomous citizens capable of participating in the democratic practices of their communities. This outcome relies on rhetorical education, or rhetorical training in the language arts, which allows students to understand and articulate their identity as individuals in relation to the various communities to which they belong and with which they interact. The misconception of rhetoric and relegation of writing instruction calls for a university-wide reconceptualization of the purpose of education and the complementary roles of general education and writing instruction in accomplishing that purpose. This thesis invites novice and experienced composition instructors to explore further the relationships among education, democracy, language, and rhetoric to recognize the central role of composition instruction in enabling individual autonomy and sustaining a healthy democracy while improving literate and communicative practices.