The Roman World of Cicero’s De Oratore

Auteur: Fantham, Elaine
Titre: The Roman World of Cicero’s De Oratore
Lieu èdition: Oxford
Éditeur: Oxford University Press
Annèe edition: 2004
Pages: x, 354
Mots-clès: Histoire - Storia - History, Politique - Politica - Politics, Rhétorique - Retorica - Rhetorics
Comptes rendus:

James E. G. Zetzel, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2005.09.05 (Link) – Fredrick, Daniel R, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, January 1, 2006 – May, James M., Classical World – Volume 99, Number 4, Summer 2006, pp. 470-471 – Alexander Arweiler, Rhetorical Review 5:1, February 2007 (Link) – Görler, Woldemar
Classical Review56, 2006, 95-97 – Zetzel, « Bryn Mawr Classical Review », 2005, (9), non paginé – Baglivi, « Bollettino di studi latini », 2005, 35, (1), 230-231 – Van der Blom, « Greece and Rome », 2005, S2, 52, (2), 246-249 – Corbeill, « American Journal of Philology », 2006, 127, (1), 144-149 – Alexander, « Classical Philology », 2006, 101, (1), 93-98 – Görler, « Classical Review », 2006, NS, 56, (1), 95-97 – Ducos, « Revue des études latines », 2006, 84, 370-371 – Fredrick, « Rhetoric Society Quarterly », 2006, 36, (1), 123-127 – Rochette, Bruno, « L’Antiquité Classique », 76,  pp. 322-323, 2007 (Link)

Description: [Abstract] The Roman World of Cicero’s De Oratore aims to provide an accessible study of Cicero’s first and fullest dialogue, on the ideal orator-statesman. It illustrates the dialogue’s achievement as a reflection of a civilized way of life and a brilliantly constructed literary unity, and considers the contribution made by Cicero’s recommendations to the development of rhetoric and higher education at Rome. Because Cicero deliberately set his extended conversation in the generation of his childhood teachers, a study of the dialogue in its historical setting can show how the political and cultural life of this earlier period differed from Cicero’s personal experience of the collapse of senatorial government, when the overwhelming power of the "first triumvirate" forced him into political silence in the last decade of the republic. After an introductory chapter reviewing Cicero’s position on return from exile, chapters include a comparative study of the careers of M. Antonius and L. Licinius Crassus, protagonists of the dialogue, a discussion of Cicero’s response to Plato’s criticisms of rhetoric in the Gorgias and Phaedrus , and his debt to Aristotle’s Rhetoric , analysis of the dialogue’s treatment of Roman civil law, existing Latin literature and historical writing, Strabo’s survey of the sources and application of humor, political eloquence in senate and contio , theories of diction and style, and the techniques of oral delivery. An epilogue looks briefly at Cicero’s De re publica and Tacitus’ Dialogus de oratoribus as reflections on the transformation of oratory and free (if oligarchic) republican government by debate to meet the context of the new autocracy.
Oeuvres:
Sigle auteur: Fantham 2004