Hippocratic oratory : the poetics of early Greek medical prose / James R. Cross.

  • Cross, James (James Roger), 1981-
Date:
2018
  • Books

About this work

Description

"On Ancient Medicine, On the Art, On Breaths, On the Nature of Human Beings and On the Sacred Disease are among the most well-known and sophisticated works of the Hippocratic collection. The authors of these treatises were seeking to find means to express their arguments that built on authoritative models of their predecessors. By examining the range of expressive resources used in their expository prose, James R. Cross demonstrates how oral tradition and written techniques, such as sound patterning, sign-posting and antithetical formulae, were deployed to help the writers develop a case. The book demonstrates that there were various layers of meaning and manners of communicating ideas which can be found in Hippocratic expository prose, and offers fresh insights into the oral debating culture and experiments in persuasion which characterise the ancient Greek world of the late fifth-century BCE. James Cross is a tutor in classical civilisation at University College London. He completed his PhD in Classics at King's College London. His research focuses on connections between ancient medicine and literature"--Jacket.

Publication/Creation

London : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2018.

Physical description

viii, ix, 159 pages ; 24 cm.

Bibliographic information

Includes bibliographical references (pages 145-155) and index.

Contents

Hippocratic expository prose -- Models of logos and medical oratory -- Hippocratic epideixis and the orality of medical oratory -- Gorgias, Heraclitus and the persuasive functions of sound in On breaths -- In the agon : the persuasive functions of antithesis in Hippocratic oratory.

Language note

Text in English; some passages in Greek with English translation.

Notes

Copy 1. Donor: James R. Cross.

Where to find it

  • LocationStatus
    History of Medicine
    CU.AA1
    Open shelves

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Identifiers

ISBN

  • 9781472474155