Publication details
Proměna rétoriky po Ciceronovi: tradice a inovace
| Title in English | The transformation of rhetoric after Cicero: tradition and innovation |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2022 |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | he traditional picture of Roman oratory after the death of Cicero is one of dark denunciation, declining doctrine and empty speeches that have lost their essential quality of persuasion. With a degree of exaggeration, it can be said that this image influenced the literary image of the emerging principate in general, even though there was a real cultural surge, and thus also influenced the modern view of the culture of the principate. Did Roman rhetoric really hit rock bottom with the rise of the principate, taking the culture as a whole down with it? Or was it a gradual change towards the aestheticization of rhetoric, which traditional senatorial circles in particular had accepted rather reservedly, and whose condemnation was a proxy for their political powerlessness? How to explain in this context the abundant manifestations of rhetoricisation that have pervaded other genres, namely even into a genre that was at the very top of the ancient genre hierarchy, the epic? The importance that rhetoric gained as a doctrine in the educational system in the form of official imperial support (through the establishment of the position of state teacher of rhetoric) shows rhetoric not as a declining doctrine, but as a doctrine that became the basis of education in general, thus fulfilling in some ways Cicero's ideals. |
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