Knowledge in person : the socio-literary self-fashioning of the Greek expository author
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This dissertation investigates how Hellenistic and Imperial-Greek 'expository' authors fashion a textual persona, as well as the consequences that persona holds for the reception of their works. I define the term 'expository' to identify a style of writing that expounds knowledge on an abstract theme, presents it from a unified point-of-view, and grounds authority in an author's intelligence, diligence, or research acumen. The category thus encompasses texts from the exact sciences, medicine, history, and numerous technical or specialized treatises. Through five chapters the disseration demonstrates how social and literary forces jointly shape the Greek expository persona, arguing that beyond its function as a device for asserting didactic authority, the persona emerges as a vivid, elite identity that was felicitous in the Greek cultural context. The first three chapters offer a general account of the textual persona and show, respectively: 1) how prefaces feature a vividly rendered first-person persona, resonant with Greek performance culture, in works that may otherwise suppress that persona; 2) systemic differences in how authors present themselves in relation to patrons and other types of addressee; 3) how chronological changes in third-person naming practices indicate the increasing importance of a literary canon for authorial self-fashioning. Chapters four and five are case studies of Claudius Ptolemy: chapter four connects scientists with civic benefactors, showing how Ptolemy uses the rhetoric of euergetism to construct a unique model of virtual collaboration with past authorities and future readers. Chapter five shows how Ptolemy creatively alludes to Plato's Phaedrus through expressions of a 'desire for knowledge', which in this respect situates him closer to contemporary literary-stylists than to predecessors in the exact sciences. In conclusion, I argue that the authorial persona emerges to establish a place for an expository text in elite, Greek literary culture. It thus serves as a bridge between specialized, non-canonical texts, which largely comprise the 'expository' corpus, and the literary canon: it offers a flash of vivid personality, a moment of performance, an evocation of literary ghosts, for works that may otherwise seem impersonal, unperformable, or non-literary.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2014 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Wietzke, Johannes Mikael |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Classics. |
| Primary advisor | Netz, Reviel |
| Thesis advisor | Netz, Reviel |
| Thesis advisor | Barchiesi, Alessandro |
| Thesis advisor | Gleason, Maud W, 1954- |
| Thesis advisor | Peponi, Anastasia-Erasmia |
| Advisor | Barchiesi, Alessandro |
| Advisor | Gleason, Maud W, 1954- |
| Advisor | Peponi, Anastasia-Erasmia |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Johannes Mikael Wietzke. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Classics. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2014. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2014 by Johannes Mikael Wietzke
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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