ENGLISH

A Commentary on Isocrates' Busiris

By Niall Livingstone

Book information

Publisher
Brill Academic Publishers
Year
2001
ISBN
9781417590766, 9789004121430, 9004121439
LCC
PA4216.B87 L58 2001
Open Library ID
OL3947511M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
12 MB (12306114 bytes)
Series
Mnemosyne Supplements 223
Pages
241\241
Orientation
yes
Scanned
yes
Time added
2011-04-11 19:55:47

Description

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.

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