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The Rhetoric of Seeing in Attic Forensic Oratory / Peter A. O'Connell.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Austin : University of Texas Press, [2021]Copyright date: ©2017Description: 1 online resourceContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9781477311691
Subject(s): LOC classification:
  • PA3263 .O34 2017
  • PA3263 .O34 2017
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Abbreviations of Ancient Authors -- Abbreviations of Modern Editions -- Note on Translations and the Spelling of Greek Names -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Vision and performance in the courts of classical Athens -- PART ONE: PHYSICAL SIGHT -- 1. Visual Rhetoric and Visual Evidence -- 2. The Meanings of Movement -- PART TWO: THE LANGUAGE OF DEMONSTRATION AND VISIBILITY -- 3. Showing and Seeing : The Procedural Terminology of Witnessing -- 4. Saying as Showing, Hearing as Seeing -- PART THREE: IMAGINARY SIGHT -- 5. Visualizing Civic Suffering -- 6. Shared Spectatorship. Bridging the Gap between Past and Present and Here and There -- Conclusion -- Appendix of Speeches -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index of Ancient Texts -- General Index
Summary: In ancient Athenian courts of law, litigants presented their cases before juries of several hundred citizens. Their speeches effectively constituted performances that used the speakers’ appearances, gestures, tones of voice, and emotional appeals as much as their words to persuade the jury. Today, all that remains of Attic forensic speeches from the fifth and fourth centuries BCE are written texts, but, as Peter A. O’Connell convincingly demonstrates in this innovative book, a careful study of the speeches’ rhetoric of seeing can bring their performative aspect to life. Offering new interpretations of a wide range of Athenian forensic speeches, including detailed discussions of Demosthenes’ On the False Embassy, Aeschines’ Against Ktesiphon, and Lysias’ Against Andocides, O’Connell shows how litigants turned the jurors’ scrutiny to their advantage by manipulating their sense of sight. He analyzes how the litigants’ words work together with their movements and physical appearance, how they exploit the Athenian preference for visual evidence through the language of seeing and showing, and how they plant images in their jurors’ minds. These findings, which draw on ancient rhetorical theories about performance, seeing, and knowledge as well as modern legal discourse analysis, deepen our understanding of Athenian notions of visuality. They also uncover parallels among forensic, medical, sophistic, and historiographic discourses that reflect a shared concern with how listeners come to know what they have not seen.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781477311691

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Abbreviations of Ancient Authors -- Abbreviations of Modern Editions -- Note on Translations and the Spelling of Greek Names -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Vision and performance in the courts of classical Athens -- PART ONE: PHYSICAL SIGHT -- 1. Visual Rhetoric and Visual Evidence -- 2. The Meanings of Movement -- PART TWO: THE LANGUAGE OF DEMONSTRATION AND VISIBILITY -- 3. Showing and Seeing : The Procedural Terminology of Witnessing -- 4. Saying as Showing, Hearing as Seeing -- PART THREE: IMAGINARY SIGHT -- 5. Visualizing Civic Suffering -- 6. Shared Spectatorship. Bridging the Gap between Past and Present and Here and There -- Conclusion -- Appendix of Speeches -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index of Ancient Texts -- General Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

In ancient Athenian courts of law, litigants presented their cases before juries of several hundred citizens. Their speeches effectively constituted performances that used the speakers’ appearances, gestures, tones of voice, and emotional appeals as much as their words to persuade the jury. Today, all that remains of Attic forensic speeches from the fifth and fourth centuries BCE are written texts, but, as Peter A. O’Connell convincingly demonstrates in this innovative book, a careful study of the speeches’ rhetoric of seeing can bring their performative aspect to life. Offering new interpretations of a wide range of Athenian forensic speeches, including detailed discussions of Demosthenes’ On the False Embassy, Aeschines’ Against Ktesiphon, and Lysias’ Against Andocides, O’Connell shows how litigants turned the jurors’ scrutiny to their advantage by manipulating their sense of sight. He analyzes how the litigants’ words work together with their movements and physical appearance, how they exploit the Athenian preference for visual evidence through the language of seeing and showing, and how they plant images in their jurors’ minds. These findings, which draw on ancient rhetorical theories about performance, seeing, and knowledge as well as modern legal discourse analysis, deepen our understanding of Athenian notions of visuality. They also uncover parallels among forensic, medical, sophistic, and historiographic discourses that reflect a shared concern with how listeners come to know what they have not seen.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Apr 2022)