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I. Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2016

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Extract

There’s a famous moment in Molière’s comedy The Bourgeois Gentleman when the philosopher rather pompously distinguishes between prose and verse; Jourdain, the old buffoon, comments with wonderment, ‘I have been speaking prose for forty years and I never knew it!’. It is easy to take prose for granted. It’s what everyone speaks, after all (and always has done); it’s what is taught at school as the normal and expected manner of communication. Prose is inevitably thought to be the ‘natural’ way to write. So how could a book be called The Invention of Prose? Hasn’t prose always been with us?

Type
Research Article
Information
New Surveys in the Classics , Volume 32: The Invention of Prose , 2002 , pp. 1 - 9
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2002

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References

1 On archaic Greece, the best starting point is Osborne (1996) with excellent bibliography; Snodgrass (1971) is an essential beginning on the archaeology and its importance, to be read with Morris (1987) and, from a cultic perspective, de Polignac (1995) (to be followed up with Alcock and Osborne (1994)). On cultural matters, a stimulating set of essays is Dougherty and Kurke (1993). Andrewes (1956) is still an excellent read on political matters. On cities other than Athens, see e.g. Cartledge (1979) and in general Finley (1981).

2 See e.g. Clarke (1981); Nagy (1990); Goldhill (1986), 138–67; Could (1983) – all of whom deal with the effect of Homer in the period covered by this book.

3 See e.g. Clay (1989); Foley (1994); Lamberton (1988); Martin (1984); Arthur (1982); Arthur (1983); Loraux (1993), 72–1 10; Vernant (1983).

4 The standard work here is Calame (1997); on Theognis, Figueira and Nagy edd. (1985); on performance and epic, Nagy (1979); on sympotics, Murray ed. (1990); Stehle (1997).

5 For the basic facts see Forrest (1966), 143–81; Osborne (1996), 220–5.

6 For text and translation see Kirk, Raven and Schofield (1983) and, for further discussion with bibliography, Barnes (1979), 155–230.

7 The best general introduction is Gagarin (1986); see Snodgrass (1980), 118–22 for the rapid spread of law codes; for the general question of oral/written material, see Thomas (1989); for general questions of Greek law see Foxhall and Lewis edd. (1996); Cartledge, Millett and Todd (1990); Osborne (1985).

8 For tragedy, see Goldhill (1986); Easterling ed. (1997).

9 See, on Draco, Carawan (1998).

10 See the fundamental study of Lloyd (1987).

11 Dem. 19. 184.

12 Aelius Aristides 45 [To Serapis]. 8, where he also calls prose ‘natural’.

13 Aitiai is the plural of the noun aitiê, which means basically ‘cause’ or ‘reason’. The adjective aitios means ‘responsible’, ‘causing’. I have transliterated the noun or the adjective as appropriate, in the form in which they appear in the various texts quoted.

14 The standard work is in German (Heinimann [1945]), but there is a useful introduction in Guthrie (1962-81) vol. III, 55ff. See also below, pp. 48–9. More general and interesting is Farrar (1988); for a political account of the role of nomos see Ostwald (1986); on Herodotus see Humphreys (1987).

15 For the ‘invention of the barbarian’, see Hall (1989); Hartog (1988); Miller (1997).