Greek Drama and the Invention of Rhetoric

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Greek Drama and the Invention of Rhetoric

David Sansone

A John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Publication

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This edition first published 2012

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sansone, David.

Greek drama and the invention of rhetoric/David Sansone.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-118-35708-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)

1. Rhetoric–History. 2. Greek drama–History and criticism. I. Title.

PN183.S26 2012

808.009–dc23

2012011202

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Jacket image: Greek theatre mask © Repina Valeriya / Shutterstock

Jacket design by Nicki Averill

Set in 10/12pt Sabon by SPi Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India

1 2012

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For Alexander and Nicolas

οὔ τ ̓ ἀ ν ο μ ο ι ο τ έ ρ ο υ ς κ ε κ α σ ι γ ν ή τ ο υ ς π ο τ ̓ ἐ ϕ ε ύ ρ ο ι ς , οὔ τ ε β ε β α ι ο τ έ ρ ο υ ς ἐ ν ϕ ι λ ό τ η τ ι π α τ ρ ό ς .

ffirs.indd vffirs.indd v 5/30/2012 1:52:17 AM5/30/2012 1:52:17 AM

la philologie mène au crime

Eugène Ionesco

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Contents

Preface x

Part I What Drama Does and How It Does It 1

1 Setting the Stage 3

2 Seeing Is Believing 21

3 The Muse Takes a Holiday 37

4 “It’s Counterpoint,” He Countered, and Pointed 57

5 Illusion and Collusion 76

6 Reaction Time 104

Part II The Second Stage: The Invention of Rhetoric 117

7 Paradigm Shift Happens 119

8 Perhaps You Will Object 147

9 Putting the Accuser on Trial 185

Works Cited 225

Index 248

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Preface

In his review of Lorna Hutson’s The Invention of Suspicion , a book

concerned with the transformative influence of legal terminology and

rhetoric on Renaissance drama, Peter Holbrook writes that “the move from

a primarily symbolic or gestural drama” to the more realistic theater of

Shakespeare and his contemporaries “is dazzling, an innovation as momen-

tous as when silent movies gave way to the talkies, or Hollywood adopted

Technicolor; at the time, people must have felt a new world had been discov-

ered.” Oddly missing from Holbrook’s comparanda is the momentous

creation of the cinema itself, or the invention of drama. The thesis of the

book that you hold in your hands or that momentarily occupies your digital

display is that, first, the invention of the drama in Athens around 500 bc

was at least as dazzling and momentous an innovation as the introduction

of Technicolor; and, second, that this revolutionary innovation inspired the

formal study of rhetoric. The first part of this thesis is uncontroversial,

perhaps even self-evident; the second part is heretical.

Ever since the time of Aristotle, it has been an article of faith that the

drama became more rhetorically sophisticated in the fifth century bc as a result of its exposure to the influence of rhetorical theorists and teachers.

But the origins of rhetoric are so uncertain, and the accounts of those origins

so confused and unsatisfactory, that we ought not to rely on faith when, it is

proposed, a more reasonable explanation of the relationship between

rhetoric and the invention of the drama is available. Specifically, I will argue

that the essential feature of the drama – that the playwright is required to

compose speeches for characters, who are often in a state of conflict, to use

in interaction with one another before an audience in the theater – is

sufficient to account for the self-conscious theorizing about forms of argu-

mentation that is the essential feature of formal rhetoric. And, since the

development of formal rhetoric is acknowledged, even by those who adhere

to the traditional account, to be later than the invention of the drama, it

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Preface xi

would seem appropriate to entertain the possibility that rhetoric owes more

to the drama than vice versa. Still, the authority of Aristotle and the seductive

force of longstanding tradition are formidable obstacles to overcome, espe-

cially given the nature of the available evidence. And so it will be necessary

to argue in support of this thesis at some length. It is hoped that even those

readers who are not, in the end, convinced by the arguments presented here

will at least find that it has been invigorating to have their faith tested.

Polite audiences in Chicago, New Haven, and Urbana have been subjected

to having their faith, and perhaps their patience, tested by oral presentations

of some of the arguments advanced in this book. I am grateful for their

indulgence and their valuable comments. I am also grateful for the financial

support of the Loeb Classical Library Foundation, which made possible a

sabbatical leave that was devoted to work on the early stages of this project.

Jonathon Auxier, Victor Bers, Tom Conley, Scott Garner, John Gibert,

Donald Mastronarde, and Doug Olson have all contributed in various ways;

I thank them for their assistance and their personal support, which, I hasten

to add, does not necessarily extend to their support of the thesis argued here.

Finally, I wish to express my thanks to my editor at Wiley-Blackwell, Haze

Humbert, and to the reader for the press, whose healthy skepticism has

caused me to reformulate a number of my more confident statements.

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