Plutarch's Rhetoric of periautologia: Demosthenes 1–3
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[1] Universität Heidelberg
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- Localización: Classical journal, ISSN 0009-8353, Vol. 113, Nº 3, 2018, págs. 281-301
- Idioma: inglés
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Resumen
This paper approaches Plutarch's prologue to the Lives of Demosthenes and Cicero (Dem. 1–3) from a novel perspective, seeking to examine Plutarch's prefatory self-display in light of his instructions in the essay On Inoffensive Self-Praise. It argues that Plutarch's unusual prefatory self-exposure in the Demosthenes–Cicero prologue constitutes an intriguing rhetorical device that Plutarch employs to enhance his authority as a narrator and researcher and develop and establish his readers' complicity. It also suggests that Plutarch's proemial self-portrait serves as a provocative reflection on significant aspects of the character of the two protagonists of the book, Demosthenes and Cicero, and their world, thus modelling Plutarch as a possible example for the reader to follow and emulate. The discussion proposes a new way in which Plutarch employs synkrisis in the Lives: it shows that Plutarch offers himself as part of the syncretic material of his biographies, as another “mirror” into which the readers gaze and thus reflect better on the character of the two men and on their own lives.
