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7 - Time and Foresight in Thucydides

from Part I - Context and Method

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2023

By
Rosaria Vignolo Munson
Edited by
Polly Low
Polly Low
Affiliation:
University of Durham
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Summary

This chapter examines statements in Thucydides’ work that predict or foreshadow the future (prolepses), placing them in the context of a wider study of the narratological structure of the History as a whole. It analyses predictions made by the narrator himself (including 1.22.4’s famous claim about the future utility of the work), as well as the (often unreliable) claims that characters in the History make about the future course of events. The combined effect of these prolepses is a notable instability in the ‘unreal future’ that the text predicts. Thucydides’ work offers us no clear conclusion about the ultimate significance of the war that he has described: the work as a whole is not a teleological narrative.

Keywords

narratologystructurestyletragedy
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Thucydides , pp. 89 - 109
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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