Overview
In ancient Athenian courts of law, litigants presented their cases before juries of several hundred citizens. Their speeches effectively constituted performances that used the speakers' appearances, gestures, tones of voice, and emotional appeals as much as their words to persuade the jury. Today, all that remains of Attic forensic speeches from the fifth and fourth centuries BCE are written texts, but, as Peter A. O'Connell convincingly demonstrates in this innovative book, a careful study of the speeches' rhetoric of seeing can bring their performative aspect to life. Offering new interpretations of a wide range of Athenian forensic speeches, including detailed discussions of Demosthenes' On the False Embassy, Aeschines' Against Ktesiphon, and Lysias' Against Andocides, O'Connell shows how litigants turned the jurors' scrutiny to their advantage by manipulating their sense of sight. He analyzes how the litigants' words work together with their movements and physical appearance, how they exploit the Athenian preference for visual evidence through the language of seeing and showing, and how they plant images in their jurors' minds. These findings, which draw on ancient rhetorical theories about performance, seeing, and knowledge as well as modern legal discourse analysis, deepen our understanding of Athenian notions of visuality. They also uncover parallels among forensic, medical, sophistic, and historiographic discourses that reflect a shared concern with how listeners come to know what they have not seen.
Full Product Details
Author: Peter A. O'Connell
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Imprint: University of Texas Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 3.00cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.653kg
ISBN: 9781477311684
ISBN 10: 1477311688
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 01 March 2017
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Temporarily unavailable
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Reviews
... this book should be welcomed as an articulate, thought-provoking exploration of a fascinating and rich topic not hitherto treated in the synoptic compass that O'Connell offers us here. It will be of interest to a wide readership. * Bryn Mawr Classical Review * O'Connell's monograph offers refreshing new insights that will help enhance our appreciation of the art of persuasion in Classical Athens. It deserves to be read by a wide audience of specialists and non-specialists. * sehepunkte *
O'Connell's monograph offers refreshing new insights that will help enhance our appreciation of the art of persuasion in Classical Athens. It deserves to be read by a wide audience of specialists and non-specialists. * sehepunkte * ... this book should be welcomed as an articulate, thought-provoking exploration of a fascinating and rich topic not hitherto treated in the synoptic compass that O'Connell offers us here. It will be of interest to a wide readership. * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *
Author Information
Peter A. O’Connell is an assistant professor of classics and communication studies at the University of Georgia.
