Hermogenes' on Types of Style - Hardcover

III, Cecil W. Wooten

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807817287 ISBN 13: 9780807817285

Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press, 1987

Synopsis

Cecil Wooten has produced the first translation into any modern langauage of a key treatise of the ancient world. He provides a faithful English translation of Hermogenes' analysis based on a reliable Greek text established by Rabe at the beginning of this century and includes a substantial scholarly introduction and notes that will help the reader better understand Hermogenes, his exposition, and the historical and cultural context in which it was produced.

Hermogenes' work is both systematic and complex. He outlines, with almost mathematical precision, seven basic types of ideal forms of style -- Clarity, Grandeur, Beauty, Rapidity, Character, Sincerity, and Force -- some of which he breaks down into subtypes. Wooten explains how the stylistic system works, what it has in common with other systems developed in antiquity, and the special problems it presents to the translator.

Wooten also provides two short essays. The first compares the system of stylistic analysis developed by Hermogenes with those of earlier critics, in particular Cicero and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. A single passage of Demosthenes is analyzed according to these three systems in order to illustrate how Hermogenes' system best captures its subtleties and nuances. The second essay discusses Hermogenes' concept of panegyric oratory and how it relates to the larger problem of secondary rhetoric.

This translation makes On Types of Style accessible to classicists as well as Byzantinists, students and scholars of the Renaissance, rhetoricians, and, more broadly, students of literary criticism at any level.

Originally published in 1987.

A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

About this title

Review

"Hermogenes' "On Types of Style" is the most sophisticated ancient treatment of the subject and was very influential both in Byzantine and in Renaissance times. . . . Wooten has endeavoured to make a difficult text accessible both to classical scholars and to those with more general literary interests."--D. A. Russell, St. John's College, Oxford

About the Author

Cecil W. Wooten is associate professor of classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Edition details

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Publication date: 1987
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807817287
• ISBN 13: 9780807817285
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 184