‘Decline’ and ‘flourishing’ of oratory and literary rhetoric? A comparative study of Hellenistic and imperial Greece

演讲和文学修辞的“衰落”和“繁荣”？

• 批准号: 390190081
• 负责人: Dr. Jan Erik Heßler
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: School of Humanities and Social Sciences
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Fellowships
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2016-12-31 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/390190081?language=en
• 关键词: Decline; flourishing; oratory; literary; rhetoric

My project is intended to be a diachronic tour d’horizon of Greek rhetoric and oratory between 322 BC and 240 AD: According to the traditional view, after 322 BC Greek oratory lost its original function, i.e. delivering political and juridical speeches (proven by the fact that nearly no continuous texts are extant). Recent studies, however, have treated this period as significant part of the rhetorical tradition—but a thorough investigation still is lacking. By contrast, the Imperial period, especially the period from 60 to 240 AD (known as ‟Second Sophistic“), is regarded as renewal of Greek literature and oratory. But since scholars have concentrated on elite orators and their social status, important aspects are still to be investigated. Due to reservations concerning the fragmentary evidence of the Hellenistic writings and a focus on the particular features of the Second Sophistic, the fact that rhetoric rather underwent changes within a continuous tradition was largely overlooked. The study will show that much more than often assumed can be stated about the role of rhetoric and oratory in Hellenistic literature and society. For this purpose, I will collect and analyze for the first time the relevant literary and documentary texts at hand, including papyri and inscriptions. A revaluation of narratives of ancient literary criticism and selected statements about the decay of art, religion etc. will reveal that the Second Sophistic is rather a continuation of a tradition that runs without disruption from the classical to the Imperial age, even though the political and social framework changes.

我的项目旨在对公元前322年至公元240年之间的希腊修辞学和演讲术进行历时性的考察：根据传统观点，公元前322年之后，希腊演讲术失去了其原始功能，即发表政治和司法演讲（事实证明，几乎没有连续的文本现存）。然而，近年来的研究将这一时期视为修辞传统的重要组成部分，但仍缺乏深入的研究。相比之下，帝国时期，特别是公元60年至240年（被称为“第二智者”），被认为是希腊文学和演讲术的复兴。但是，由于学者们集中在精英演说家和他们的社会地位，重要的方面仍然有待研究。由于对希腊化时期作品的零碎证据持保留态度，以及对《第二智者》的特殊特征的关注，修辞在一个连续的传统中经历了变化，这一事实在很大程度上被忽视了。这项研究将表明，修辞和演讲在希腊化文学和社会中的作用比通常假设的要多得多。为此，我将首次收集和分析手头的相关文学和文献资料，包括纸莎草纸和铭文。重新评估古代文学批评的叙述和关于艺术、宗教等的衰落的一些陈述，就会发现，《第二智者论》是一种传统的延续，这种传统从古典时代一直延续到帝国时代，尽管政治和社会框架发生了变化。