A Commentary on Isocrates' Busiris
Niall Livingstone
This volume contains a scholarly commentary on the puzzling work ''Busiris'' - part mythological ''jeu d'esprit'', part rhetorical treatise and part self-promoting polemic - by the Greek educator and rhetorician Isocrates (436-338 BC). The commentary reveals Isocrates' strategies in advertising his own political rhetoric as a middle way between amoral ''sophistic'' education and the abstruse studies of Plato's Academy. Introductory chapters situate ''Busiris'' within the lively intellectual marketplace of 4th-century Athens, showing how the work parodies Plato's ''Republic'', and how its revisionist treatment of the monster-king Busiris reflects Athenian fascination with the ''alien wisdom'' of Egypt. As a whole, the book casts new light both on Isocrates himself, revealed as an agile and witty polemicist, and on the struggle between rhetoric and philosophy from which Hellenism and modern humanities were born.
Année:
2001
Editeur::
Brill Academic Publishers
Langue:
english
Pages:
241
ISBN 10:
1417590769
ISBN 13:
9789004121430
Collection:
Mnemosyne Supplements 223
Fichier:
PDF, 11.74 MB
IPFS:
,
english, 2001