Dionysius, Lucian, and the Prejudice against Rhetoric in History

2001 ◽  
Vol 91 ◽  
pp. 76-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Fox
Keyword(s):  
Rhetorical Theory ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Aesthetic Theory ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Dionysius Of Halicarnassus ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Do So ◽  
Historical Theory

This article will explore the familiar polarity between history and rhetoric by comparing two rather different accounts from the early Empire. The treatment of history in the rhetorical theory of Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the curious work of historical theory by Lucian will be contrasted to open up some new areas of debate. Although the relationship between rhetoric and history has been the subject of numerous studies, none have given much weight to one central aspect of the juxtaposition: the dialectic between rhetoric and aesthetics, and the place of that dialectic in ancient historical theory. Since scholars generally agree that ancient historiography exists, like all other forms of ancient writing, within a culture where rhetoric provides all educational resources, and thus acts as a substitute for aesthetic theory, this is not in itself surprising. A close reading of these particular texts, however, produces a more differentiated view of what rhetoric might mean to those seeking to define historiography. Dionysius and Lucian are both concerned with the relationship between rhetoric and wider issues of moral and social education. But because rhetoric is not philosophy, but rather a system concerned above all with the formal qualities of spoken utterance, these moral issues become closely implicated with aesthetic concerns. More startlingly, they do so in each author in a significantly different way. The interweaving of moral and aesthetic may at first sight seem strange; we are accustomed to think of the aesthetic and the moral as operating in rather different spheres, at least when it comes to literary production.

scholarly journals Spinoza’s affective aesthetics: Art and architecture from the viewpoint of life

2021 ◽  
pp. 64-72
Author(s):  
Gökhan Kodalak
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Aesthetic Theory ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Art And Architecture ◽  
The Relationship

There is a peculiar aesthetic undercurrent traversing Baruch Spinoza’s philosophy, harbouring untapped potentials and far-reaching consequences for contemporary discussions on aesthetics. The relationship between aesthetics and Spinoza’s philosophy, however, has been nothing but a huge missed encounter, resulting in the publication of only a few books and a handful of articles throughout a vast period of more than three-and-a-half centuries. Which begs the question: might there be, despite our persistent negligence, much more to the relationship of Spinoza and aesthetics than first meets the eye? I will argue that there might be. For once Spinoza’s philosophy as a whole, ranging from his philosophical and political treatises to his private letters and unfinished manuscripts, is read between the lines, latent seeds of a peculiar aesthetic theory become visible—an aesthetic theory that moves beyond subjective and objective approaches that have come to dominate the field, and rather grounds itself on affective interactions and morphogenetic processes. A subterranean journey through Spinoza’s affective aesthetics constitutes the subject matter of this paper, which interweaves subtle aesthetic hints buried deep within his philosophical archive, while unfolding relevant ramifications of these promising discoveries for the current aesthetic discourse.

‘To be or not to be’: Hamlet’s Humanistic Quaestio

2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (296) ◽  
pp. 640-658
Author(s):  
Vanessa Lim
Keyword(s):  
Rhetorical Theory ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Right ◽  
The University ◽  
Scholarly Attention ◽  
Do So

Abstract Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ speech has long been the subject of intense scholarly attention. By situating the speech against the backdrop of classical and Renaissance rhetorical theory, this essay demonstrates that there is still much more to be said about it. The speech ostensibly examines a quaestio infinita or a thesis, and follows the rhetorical rule that the right way to do so is by the invocation of commonplaces. This reading of Hamlet’s speech is not only consistent with Shakespeare’s characterization of the university-educated prince, who frequently invokes commonplaces, but also has significant implications for our understanding of the play and Shakespeare’s own practice as a writer. The book that Hamlet is reading could well be his own commonplace collection, and it is perhaps in looking up his entries under the heading of ‘Death’ that Hamlet finds what he needs in order to examine his quaestio.

Photography and the Perils of Automaticity: P. H. Emerson, Copyright, and the Agency of the Artist

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
JiHae Koo
Keyword(s):  
Copyright Law ◽  
Aesthetic Theory ◽  
Medium Specificity ◽  
Cultural Imaginary ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Artistic Medium ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Two Stages ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract The photographer Peter Henry Emerson (1856–1936) is known today for the splash he made on the Victorian photographic scene in the 1880s with his bold refusal to follow his fellow art photographers (collectively known as the Pictorialists) in latching the new medium on to the aesthetic conventions of painting. His conventional position within art history is thus as a precursor to the Modernist conception of photography’s medium-specificity. Yet even if Emerson’s work was ahead of its time in its proto-Modernist refusal of painterly conventions, it also has qualities that place it more squarely within late-Victorian discourses. In particular, I argue, Emerson’s ongoing efforts to secure his photographs via copyright law need to be understood as reflective of a distinctly nineteenth-century cultural imaginary. This essay addresses the relationship between Emerson’s aesthetic theory and copyright law by dividing Emerson’s career into two stages, before and after 1891, this being the year in which Emerson abruptly disavowed photography as an artistic medium in his short pamphlet ‘The Death of Naturalistic Photography’. Examining two photography books – Pictures of East Anglian Life (1888) and On English Lagoons (1893) – alongside late-Victorian debates about photographic copyright, I show that Emerson’s earlier belief in photographic copyright’s ability to retain the integrity of an artist’s vision breaks down after 1891. He loses faith in the ‘copyrightability’ of photography in 1891 when he recognizes the mechanical nature – or automaticity – of the camera. That is, Emerson realizes that the photograph is never purely the product of the artist. In sum, this case study shows that by the 1890s, photographic copyright was becoming detached from the notion of creativity and thus could no longer be the guarantee of a photographer’s claim to artistic individuality.

scholarly journals Intraspecific structural signs of curly silver fir (Abies alba Mill.) growing in the Ukrainian Carpathians

2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (No. 7) ◽  
pp. 299-308
Author(s):  
Ivan Sopushynskyy ◽  
Ruslan Maksymchuk ◽  
Yaroslav Kopolovets ◽  
Sezgin Ayan
Keyword(s):  
Wood Density ◽  
Abies Alba ◽  
Subject Area ◽  
Wood Products ◽  
Silver Fir ◽  
Annual Rings ◽  
Stem Wood ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Relationship

The aim of this paper is to present the intraspecific differentiation of the curly silver fir (Abies alba Mill.) by the wood structure growing in the Ukrainian Carpathians. To find the morphological distinctions by using the silvicultural and biometric methods, 50 silver fir trees with anomalous wavy-relief stemwood formations were investigated. The trees aged from 94 to 132 years were characterised by the diameter at breast height of 32–59 cm. The length of the wave-grained stemwood varied from 6 to 11.5 m. The amplitude of the wood fibre waves varied from 4.4 to 24.1 mm. The smallest values of the amplitude of the wave-grained wood corresponded to the smaller wavelengths. The significant differences in the wood density and annual growth between the silver fir trees with the straight-grained and wave-grained stem wood were determined. The number of annual rings in 1 cm of the curly silver fir was 27.1% lower and 22.7% higher than the same characteristics for the straight-grained stem wood. The obtained linear equation described the relationship between the number of annual rings in 1 cm and the basic wood density of the silver fir with the straight-grained wood. The aesthetic features of the curly silver fir stem wood were discussed in the subject area of a new niche of exclusive wood products.

“I’m Not Really 100% a Woman If I Can’t Have a Kid”: Infertility and the Intersection of Gender, Identity, and the Body

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 629-651 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann V. Bell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Gender Identity ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Body ◽  
Social Constraints ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Do So

Despite establishing the gendered construction of infertility, most research on the subject has not examined how individuals with such reproductive difficulty negotiate their own sense of gender. I explore this gap through 58 interviews with women who are medically infertile and involuntarily childless. In studying how women achieve their gender, I reveal the importance of the body to such construction. For the participants, there is not just a motherhood mandate in the United States, but a fertility mandate—women are not just supposed to mother, they are supposed to procreate. Given this understanding, participants maintain their gender by denying their infertile status. They do so through reliance on essentialist notions, using their bodies as a means of constructing a gendered sense of self. Using the tenets of transgender theory, this study not only informs our understanding of infertility, but also our broader understanding of the relationship between gender, identity, and the body, exposing how individuals negotiate their gender through physical as well as institutional and social constraints.

scholarly journals Journalism or Writing? (On the Syncretism of the Documentary and Fiction in Russian Writers Creative Works)

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 421-432
Author(s):  
Olga Skibina
Keyword(s):  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Ethical Aspect ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Nonfiction Text ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Artistic Image ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Selection Of

The article continues the discussion of the “phenomenon of journalism” in the creative heritage of Russian writers of the early twentieth century. The diary as a genre has always been at the center of research interests, but so far the criteria for “diary” have not been defined either by literary critics, or by theorists of journalism. At the turn of the century, diaries were kept by many artists of the word, it was the only genre that allowed expressing thoughts on pressing issues, which made it possible to attribute this genre definitely to journalism. At the same time, there is a tendency in the works of scientists to note the “informational possibilities of this type of ego-document for the study of the humdrum of a particular topos” (E.M. Krivolapovа), thus relating it to documentary prose. The subject of the analysis is the genre of diary prose by Ivan Bunin and Mikhail Prishvin. Written at the same time, the diaries of these writers reflect — each in its own way — one era — the bloody revolutionary present. The article poses the problem of the relationship between documentary and fiction in the diary genre. By comparing the diaries of Bunin and Prishvin, the author proves that a nonfiction text may well have a certain aesthetic value, but not the aesthetic, but rather the ethical aspect becomes dominant in nonfiction. This is manifested in the topical, socially significant problems of the work, and in the author’s striving to reduce the distance between his consciousness and the consciousness of the reader, and in the special lexical and grammatical structure of the phrase (Bunin's Cursed Days). Prishvin's diaries on the selection of vital material suggest that his position is artistic when the artistic image becomes the only true one in the presentation and perception of the world.

scholarly journals Tenganan Pegringsingan Bali In Ethnography

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 88-92
Author(s):  
I Komang Arba Wirawan
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Data Exploration ◽  
Technical Level ◽  
Aesthetic Theory ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Anthropological Perspective ◽  
Depth Data ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Village

The purpose of this study is to create photos that visualize the activities of the Tenganan Pegringsingan community based on Tri Hita Karana’s cause of happiness to achieve balance and harmony. First, Parahyangan is a balanced relationship between humans and God, second, Pawongan a harmonious relationship between humans and humans, and thirdly Palemahan means a harmonious relationship between humans and the surrounding natural environment. This research and photography creation method was in the form of in-depth data exploration (depth observations) in the form of interviews and observations. Art and cultural activities and ceremonies in Pegringsingan Village were explored through in-depth research and presented with the concept of ethnophotography. Ethnography does not see a photograph of the work alone, but it is an ethnographic method of viewing society from an anthropological perspective. The anthropological world of photography emphasizes the extraordinary side of conventional things. The harmony of life-based on Tri Hita Karana was reflected in the Tenganan Pegringsingan community as the subject matter of ethnographic creation. Ethnographic results and analysis in Tenganan Village were dissected with the aesthetic theory of photography. First, the aesthetic of photography created through the beauty of photographs based on an ideational and technical level. It was the ethnographic ideational level of upakara in Tenganan Pegringsingan Village. The technical level was related to technical concerning the equipment used for creation. The second theory of semiotic photography analyzed photographs based on the signs contained in the photo. The results of the ethnographic creation of the community in Tenganan Pegringsingan Village found a harmonious relationship between the community and nature, humans and God in the village. This relationship is the subject of representative ethnophotography. The results of ethnographic creation reflect harmonious relationships through the implemented ceremonies that reflect Tri Hita Karana.

Imagining the King’s Death: Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide, 1793–1796, John Barrell, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 196-208
Author(s):  
Danny Hayward
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Review Essay ◽  
Samuel Taylor Coleridge ◽  
The Other ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Second Line ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The One

Abstract This review essay has two divisions. In its first division it sets out a brief overview of recent Marxist research in the field of ‘Romanticism’, identifying two major lines of inquiry. On the one hand, the attempt to expand our sense of what might constitute a ruthless critique of social relations; on the other, an attempt to develop a materialist account of aesthetic disengagement. This first division concludes with an extended summary of John Barrell’s account of the treason trials of the middle 1790s, as set out in his book Imagining the King’s Death. It argues that Barrell’s book is the most significant recent work belonging to the second line of inquiry. In its second division the review responds to Barrell’s concluding discussion, in which the aesthetic consequences of the treason trials are established by means of a close reading of some of the poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The division finishes with some more general remarks on the subject of a materialist aesthetics of disengagement.

‘It's all in Plato’: Platonism, Cambridge Platonism, and C.S. Lewis

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
James Bryson
Keyword(s):  
Doctoral Dissertation ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Spiritual Journey ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Cambridge Platonism ◽  
Henry More ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Crucial Part ◽  
The Way ◽  
Platonic Tradition

In 1924 C.S. Lewis began work on a doctoral dissertation, the subject of which was to be the Cambridge Platonist Henry More (1614–1687). A number of scholars gloss this important moment in Lewis's intellectual and spiritual journey, and some offer penetrating, if cursory, analysis of how Lewis's close reading of More would have helped to shape the young scholar's philosophical and theological imagination. These important contributions notwithstanding, the influence of More and, by extension, the Platonic tradition longue durée are not properly understood in Lewis scholarship. This article argues that Cambridge Platonism and Henry More in particular were a crucial part of Lewis's initiation into, and appropriation of, the Platonic tradition. The tradition of Platonism to which the Cambridge Platonists introduced Lewis shaped the way he thought about a number of topics central to his own moral, philosophical, and religious outlook, including the relationship between the moral and the numinous, and imagination and reality, but also pneumatology, angelology, and his understanding of the supernatural, miracles, prophetic wisdom, and, especially, the nature of love.

History and Rhetoric in Dionysius of Halicarnassus

1993 ◽  
Vol 83 ◽  
pp. 31-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Fox
Keyword(s):  
Rhetorical Theory ◽  
Rhetorical Education ◽  
Dionysius Of Halicarnassus ◽  
Historical Truth ◽  
The Relationship

This article explores the relationship between historical truth and rhetorical education in theAntiquitates Romanaeof Dionysius of Halicarnassus. These two concerns dominate Dionysius' output, and have provided fuel for a long tradition of adverse criticism. Schwartz'sREarticle set the standard for a series of dismissive accounts; his premise is that by choosing a period of such remote history, Dionysius can fulfil his desire to make history the servant of rhetorical display, adding, with scorn, that Dionysius' love of the Romans disqualifies him from being a real Greek. Palm, still using Schwartz over fifty years later, is so convinced that Dionysius cannot have believed what he was writing that he ascribes the meticulously executed proof that the Romans were Greeks to ‘paradoxe Effekte’, in which anyone writing a rhetorical exercise of this kind would be careful to indulge. Polemic has recently waned, although by far the most common use of Dionysius' history is as a source for antiquarian anecdote or the lost annalistic tradition, often to highlight the originality of Livy. The recently published lectures of Gabba will do much to redress the balance, and are the first concerted attempt at harmonizing the details of Dionysius' rhetorical theory with his history.

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