It is symptomatic of the way in which classical studies has developed as a discipline that a section on theories of interpretation should come at the end of this chapter. Thus far this chapter has explored the categories ‘‘rhetoric’’ and ‘‘literature’’ as though they themselves were an appropriate way of looking at Roman textual production in its own unique historical conditions. However, the difficulty of finding clear distinctions between these areas has been apparent throughout this chapter, which has skirted around the edges of these terms looking at ways in which tensions within Roman conceptions of rhetoric can respond to a modern concern about the relationship between rhetoric and literature. It would have been easier to begin with a theoretical attack on the concepts to demonstrate that they assumed a separation of ideas resulting from mental structures that have evolved over the last three centuries. There would then have been no need for a chapter on what was in effect a nonexistent topic; moreover readers, unused to theoretical discussions within the context of a general work on Roman rhetoric, would be deterred by a discussion that began with ‘‘hermeneutics.’’ Yet it is an understanding of hermeneutics that holds the key to the appreciation of how rhetoric works at Rome: by attempting to ‘‘unthink’’ the categories with which we approach ancient texts, in particular the largely unconscious assumptions about how to approach literature, we can arrive at an understanding of Rome that is less colored by conceptions that only have a remote connection to it.
Because, however, hermeneutics is a general term, and not one of broad currency even among professional scholars, it is necessary for me to present an outline of its function. Hermeneutics is in origin a theory of literary criticism that developed out of the special problems raised by reading the Bible and related texts. It began with the question of how to reconcile a historical understanding of these texts with interpretations inflected by matters of faith and dogma. In its most exhaustive elaboration (Gadamer 19892) hermeneutics is the theory of how questions of history relate to the reading of texts. Gadamer begins by pointing out how even concepts that we employ without giving them much thought, concepts such as ‘‘taste’’ or ‘‘common sense,’’ have in fact their own, very specific histories, and carry with them strong connotations that make them inappropriate for other historical contexts. Gadamer then proceeds to explore a method by which we can develop greater awareness of our own critical concepts; in essence, this charting of the history of changing ways of looking at texts developed into the branch of criticism known as ‘‘reception.’’ Its aim was to arrive at a better understanding of the original text by unraveling the many layers of interpretation which had accumulated over time, thus producing simultaneously an understanding of the text, of the critical position of the reader, and thirdly, of how the critical position had developed out of the accumulated reinterpretations of the text. Scholarship in the field of reception has in practice rarely maintained its connection with the hermeneutic impulses from which it developed, and has become more like a variety of comparative literary criticism, comparing different incarnations of similar ideas and themes. Unfortunately it has lost, in particular, its emphasis upon clarifying and exploring the critical concepts which structure the approach of the modern reader to historical texts.
In this case, it is our conceptions of rhetoric and literature that require more careful examination. Even a cursory glance will reveal that neither category is particularly well suited to an appreciation of Roman textual production. Literature, as a way of grouping together a group of texts, is itself a form of demarcation that is difficult to apply to Rome. The causes for the modern demarcation of literature as a separate category are conventionally ascribed to the transition between the thinking of the Enlightenment and Romantic periods which took place between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There are two main developments at the center of this change in mentality which have, along with many other factors, shaped our intellectual world into something substantially different from the Roman one. The first is the growth of academic specialization and the production of academic disciplines: this has led us to treat as much more concrete the boundaries of such terms as rhetoric, history, politics, and poetry. Particularly, perhaps, since our own examination of the classical world operates from within the academy, these specialisms have a profound effect not only upon how we categorize ancient texts (largely into ‘‘sources’’ of different kinds), but also how we assume those texts were produced. We group poets, without much thought, into different genres from philosophers or historians, and although there clearly are well-developed generic boundaries operating in Rome, these do not have the same significance as their modern disciplinary equivalents. Historiography is a good example. Roman historiography is so vastly different from its modern counterpart that modern readers are still to a large extent unable to give an effective account of the relationship between historiography and other forms of communication about Rome’s past, or indeed, between historiography and rhetoric. The disciplinary boundaries of our own time are easily projected onto significantly different Roman equivalents, but it is difficult for us to liberate ourselves from our own preconceptions and appreciate that at Rome, the representation of the past had a much wider social significance than it does in the work of today’s professional historians.
Literature, as a term, contains a wide range of preconceptions inappropriate to the Roman context. The second major development in modern conceptions that is relevant to this discussion is the clear demarcation of aesthetics from politics. This is a division most explicitly explored by Immanuel Kant, and reinforced by the philosophers of Romanticism. The world of art and the experience of art came to be seen as distinct from other aspects of human expression and experience, and aesthetics became defined likewise as a separate branch of philosophy. This represents an extremely important shift in understanding, giving rise to a different conception of authorship: after Romanticism, the author becomes defined by the idea of artistic genius, a form of creativity characterized by its emphasis upon the individual, rather than, as we find in the Roman rhetorical context, the role of the individual within a community of similar speakers. Similarly, artistic and literary production becomes regarded as different from other aspects of social reality; entertainment occupies a different mental realm from politics or society.
Education too becomes a specialist activity, and this has an enormous effect upon the significance of rhetoric. As the exploration of the formal qualities of texts or oral performances, rhetoric does act as the forerunner of modern literary criticism, and a rhetorical approach to literary analysis can still be employed today. However, this continuity is misleading, since the idea of ‘‘formal analysis,’’ where the stylistic is clearly distinguished from the moral, is a reflection of a post-Romantic mindset, one that would have been virtually meaningless to ancient writers. A rhetorical education, up until around the middle of the eighteenth century, was something which aimed to produce effective citizens, in a manner which would have been recognizable to Cicero or Quintilian. The robust defense of rhetoric mounted by Vico (1668-1744), against what he saw as the pointless specialism of scientific knowledge, is among the last attempts to maintain a clear continuity with the educational values of antiquity, a system in which the development of skill in style and language was indivisible from the development of a sense of social and moral purpose (see Vico 2000; Pompa 2002). Vico’s ultimate ancestor was, of course, Cicero, who provides so many models of the integration of rhetorical expertise with political responsibility (however idealized those may be). So while some of the essays in this volume use rhetoric as a tool of literary criticism which appears to match the historical context of the terminology to that of the texts under discussion, we must not mistake this for continuity in understanding or interpretation of the text. Our own preconceptions about the function of literature make any such continuity highly problematic. Formal analysis in antiquity does not have the same context, and the moral and educative functions of ancient texts are not readily separable from their rhetorical techniques. Again, historiography provides useful, if extreme, examples. In criticizing the style of Thucydides, Dionysius seems unable to distinguish between stylistic, moral, and historical criticism. When writing the Melian dialogue, Thucydides is guilty, in Dionysius’ view, of producing bad Greek style, distorting historical events, and attempting to exert a negative moral effect upon his readers (Fox 1996: 71-4). Modern categories, such as rhetoric, literature, politics, or even philosophy, cannot readily account for a much more holistic attitude toward the creation and consumption of texts, of which Dionysius’ criticisms are but one example.
So the creation of the disciplines, and the demarcation of the aesthetic from the moral, political, and social arena, have produced a mindset which is almost inescapable, and which poses considerable challenges to the appreciation of the different ways of thinking that existed before. The notion of the literary genius, for example, as someone estranged from the world and capable, therefore, of particularly shattering insights into it, is a Romantic notion with no counterpart in ancient thought. The Romantic idea of literary genius, in turn, shapes our idea of what an author is, and, by extension, what an author is doing in producing literature. All of these ideas so dominate our perceptions about what literature is for, that the Roman context can only be grasped intermittently and with considerable effort.
World History
