The Rhetoric of Identity in Isocrates: Text, Power, Pedagogy (Cambridge Classical Studies) - Hardcover

Yun Lee Too

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 052147406X ISBN 13: 9780521474061

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1995

Synopsis

Shows how Isocrates used writing to provide a model of political engagement distinct from that of his own contemporaries.

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From the Back Cover

The rhetoric of identity in Isocrates offers a sustained interpretation of the Isocratean corpus, showing that rhetoric is a language which the author uses to create a political identity for himself in fourth-century Athens. Dr Too examines how Isocrates' discourse addresses anxieties surrounding the written word in a democratic culture which values the spoken word as the privileged means of political expression. Isocrates makes written culture the basis for a revisionary Athenian politics and of a rhetoric of Athenian hegemony. In addition, Isocrates takes issue with the popular image of the professional teacher in the age of the sophist, combating the negative stereotype of the greedy sophist who corrupts the city's youth in his portrait of himself as a teacher of rhetoric. He daringly reinterprets the pedagogue as a figure who produces a discourse which articulates political authority. This book offers an interdisciplinary approach to ancient rhetoric and should appeal to people with interests in the fields of classics, history, the history of political thought, literature, literary theory, philosophy and education. All passages in Greek and Latin have been translated to ensure accessibility to non-classicists.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 052147406X
• ISBN 13: 9780521474061
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 290