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Rhetoric and Rhythm in Byzantium: The Sound of Persuasion
Author(s): Vessela Valiavitcharska (Author)
- Publisher: Cambridge University Press
- Publication Date: September 23, 2013
- Language: English
- Print length: 248 pages
- ISBN-10: 1107037360
- ISBN-13: 9781107037366
Book Description
Rhetoric and Rhythm in Byzantium takes a fresh look at rhetorical rhythm and its theory and practice, highlighting the close affinity between rhythm and argument. Based on material from Byzantine and Old Church Slavonic homilies and from Byzantine rhetorical commentaries, the book redefines and expands our understanding of both Byzantine and Old Church Slavonic prose rhythm. It positions rhetorical rhythm at the intersection of prose and poetry and explores its role in argumentation and persuasion, suggesting that rhetorical rhythm can carry across linguistic boundaries, and in general aims to demonstrate the stylistic and argumentative importance of rhythm in rhetorical practice. Along the way, it challenges the entrenched separation between content and style and emphasizes the role of rhythm as a tool of invention and a means of creating shared emotional experience.
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
A study of the presence and effects of rhythm in Byzantine rhetoric, its musical qualities, and its function in argumentation.
About the Author
Vessela Valiavitcharska is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her interests lie in classical and Byzantine rhetoric and pedagogy, medieval scholia and rhetorical commentaries, rhetoric and poetics, and textual criticism.
