Modern literary theory and the ancient novel: poetics and rhetoric

Abstract

The volume’s papers fall into three related categories: literary theory, poetics and rhetoric. The course taken by research in literary studies has demonstrated that rhetoric is a fundamental discipline for the Theory of Literature and for literary praxis. It is not only a science for the future but also a science à la mode, which finds its own place on the edge of structuralism, “New Criticism”, and semiology. In the Greek world under the Roman Empire, the tradition of rhetorical learning reached its heyday in the second century A.D., with the cultural movement named the “Second Sophistic”. Despite the emphasis on rhetoric, literary culture lato senso was was also part of it, granting a special place to poetics and literary criticism. In the wake of this hermeneutical and interdisciplinary approach, the papers assembled in this volume explore significant issues, which are linked to the narrative structure of the ancient novel and to the tradition of rhetorical training, both envisaged as a web of well-constructed narrative devices.