The Composite of Spoken and Written Speech. The Deipnosophists of “Athenaeus” as a Medium of the Invention and Documentation of Sources on Rhetoric between Fictionality and Factuality

Abstract

The “Deipnosophists” of Athenaeus of Naucratis are a literary work that presents us an insight into ancient rhetoric and speech from various perspectives. Being composed of fictive speeches that join the texts of ancient writings in paraphrases and citations in the conversations of the participants during a banquet, the work reveals in different layers, the composition of the work itself, the conversations, and their writings, especially the ones that focus on rhetorical topics, speech in the essential form of this piece of literature. We argue that Athenaeus invents and composes here a multimedia memory that arranges topics related to the culture of banquets in speeches that range from the factuality of historical accounts about rhetoricians to the fictional story of the event itself that nearly completely consists of speeches as praise of this kind of culture. The “Deipnosophists” of Athenaeus comprises both spoken and written aspects of ancient rhetorics and speeches that blend into each other ranging from the framing narrative of a meeting of Athenaeus who tells the story of the event to a friend, the speeches of the deipnosopshists, and the presentation of the texts of the works paraphrased and cited as speech in the banquet. 

Cuvinte-cheie: retorica, banchet, elenism, vorbirea epideictică, literatura greacă, Imperiul Roman

REZUMAT

Lucrarea „Deipnospophists” de Athenaeus din Naucratis este o operă care face incursiune, din diverse perspective, în retorica antică și discurs. Fiind compusă din discursuri fictive, care sunt subsumate textelor unor scrieri antice în parafrazări și citări din conversațiile participanților unui banchet, ea dezvăluie, în diferite straturi, compoziția în sine a acestor conversații și scrieri, mai cu seamă, cele ce țin de subiecte retorice și vorbire. Autorul introduce aici o memorie multimedia care aranjează subiecte legate de cultura banchetelor în discursuri care variază de la factualitatea relatărilor istorice despre retoricieni la istorisirea fictivă a evenimentului în sine, care constă aproape în întregime din discursuri de laudă cu referire la cultura în cauză. Lucrarea dezvăluie aspecte atât orale, cât și scrise ce țin de retorica antică și discursuri care se contopesc între ele, de relatarea frapantă a unei întâlniri a lui Athenaeus, pe care acesta o face unui prieten, de prezentarea textelor lucrărilor parafrazate și citate ca discurs de banchet. 

LANGUAGE OF PUBLICATION

English (main text); Greek (some units of the main text)

UDC: 821.14`02:808.51

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Corpus

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Received: October 10, 2016 | Reviewed: November 18, 2016 | Accepted for publication: November 24, 2016

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