E-Book Overview
In Rhetoric and Power, Nathan Crick dramatizes the history of rhetoric by explaining its origin and development in classical Greece beginning the oral displays of Homeric eloquence in a time of kings, following its ascent to power during the age of Pericles and the Sophists, and ending with its transformation into a rational discipline with Aristotle in a time of literacy and empire. Crick advances the thesis that rhetoric is primarily a medium and artistry of power, but that the relationship between rhetoric and power at any point in time is a product of historical conditions, not the least of which is the development and availability of communication media. Investigating major works by Homer, Heraclitus, Aeschylus, Protagoras, Gorgias, Thucydides, Aristophanes, Plato, Isocrates, and Aristotle, Rhetoric and Power tells the story of the rise and fall of classical Greece while simultaneously developing rhetorical theory from the close criticism of particular texts. As a form of rhetorical criticism, this volume offers challenging new readings to canonical works such as Aeschylus's Persians, Gorgias's Helen, Aristophanes's Birds, and Isocrates's Nicocles by reading them as reflections of the political culture of their time. Through this theoretical inquiry, Crick uses these criticisms to articulate and define a plurality of rhetorical genres and concepts, such as heroic eloquence, tragicomedy, representative publicity, ideology, and the public sphere, and their relationships to different structures and ethics of power, such as monarchy, democracy, aristocracy, and empire. Rhetoric and Power thus provides a foundation for rhetorical history, criticism, and theory that draws on contemporary research to prove again the incredible richness of the classical tradition for contemporary rhetorical scholarship and practice.
E-Book Content
rhetoric & power The Drama of Classical Greece
nathan crick
The University of South Carolina Press
© 2015 University of South Carolina Published by the University of South Carolina Press Columbia, South Carolina 29208 www.sc.edu/uscpress 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15
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library of congress cataloging-in-publication data Crick, Nathan, author. Rhetoric and Power : the drama of classical Greece / Nathan Crick. pages cm—(Studies in rhetoric/communication) ISBN 978-1-61117-395-6 (hardbound : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-61117-396-3 (ebook) 1. Greek drama—History and criticism. 2. Rhetoric, Ancient. I. Title. II. Series: Studies in rhetoric/communication. PA3133.C75 2014 882’.0109—dc23 2014007286
To William, Dean, Sofia, and Leo, may you each find your own Ithaca
contents Series Editor’s Preface ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 Chapter 1
Homer’s Iliad and the Epic Tradition of Heroic Eloquence 11 Chapter 2
Heraclitus and the Revelation of Logos 25 Chapter 3
Aeschylus’s Persians and the Birth of Tragedy 43 Chapter 4
Protagoras and the Promise of Politics 62 Chapter 5
Gorgias’s Helen and the Powers of Action and Fabrication 77 Chapter 6
Thucydides and the Political History of Power 96 Chapter 7
Aristophanes’s Birds and the Corrective of Comedy 118 Chapter 8
Plato’s Protagoras and the Art of Tragicomedy 142
viii Contents
Chapter 9
Isocrates’s “Nicocles” and the Hymn to Hegemony 171 Chapter 10
Aristotle on Rhetoric and Civilization 198 Conclusion 218 Notes 227 Bibliography 247 Index 257
series editor’s preface Nathan Crick’s Rhetoric and Power: The Drama of Classical Greece tells the story of how rhetoric emerged as a theory and practice in the centuries leading to Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Crick examines in detail a series of foundational texts in Greek thought based on an understanding of the differen