Staging Masculinity

The Rhetoric of Performance in the Roman World

Erik Gunderson

Publication Year: 2000

Performance was one of the five canonical branches of oratory in the classical period, but it presents special problems that distinguish it from concerns such as composition and memory. The ancient performer was supposed to be a "good man" and his performance a manifestation of an authentic and authoritative manliness. But how can the orator be distinguished from a mere actor? And what is the proper role for the body, given that it is a potential object of desire? Erik Gunderson explores these and other questions in ancient rhetorical theory using a variety of theoretical approaches, drawing in particular on the works of Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Lacan. His study examines the status of rhetorical theory qua theory, the production of a specific version of body in the course of its theoretical description, oratory as a form of self-mastery, the actor as the orator's despised double, the dangers of homoerotic pleasure, and Cicero's De Oratore, as what good theory and practice ought to look like. Erik Gunderson is Assistant Professor of Greek and Latin, Ohio State University.

Published by: University of Michigan Press

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EVERYONE KNOWS WHERE BABIES COME FROM. The same cannot be said for men. Presumably they come from babies. The standard recipe is rather vague: just add time. The theorists of ancient oratory were not content to sit by idly and to wait for nature to take its...

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pp. xi-

Introduction

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pp. 1-28

WHAT DID ANCIENT ORATORY LOOK LIKE? This study started with this question, but it does not end by answering it with a collection of bodily facts. I offer neither a catalog of gestures nor a script to be used for reproducing the ancient orator. At least, I hope...

CHAPTER 1: Reading and Writing

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pp. 29-58

ANCIENT RHETORICAL THEORISTS TEND TO RECOGNIZE five branches of study requisite to the proper study of the art. While some Greeks may have divided the question up differently,¹ the Latin tradition is marked...

CHAPTER 2: Discovering the Body

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pp. 59-86

AN ORATOR MUST STUDY DELIVERY. ¹ In order to perform effectively, the orator needs to have a thorough knowledge of every physical aspect of performance: vocal qualities, movements, even dress and grooming. In the process of acquiring this knowledge, the orator...

CHAPTER 3: Self-Mastery

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pp. 87-110

QUINTlLIAN OPENS HIS INSTITUTIO ORATORIA with a confession that his work does not aspire to novelty. Indeed, many of the finest minds of both Greece and Rome have already treated oratory in great detail (l.pr.l). And while Quintilian despairs of being able to...

CHAPTER 4: Actors

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pp. 111-148

IN THE RHETORICAL TRADITION THE ACTOR is a vexed character.¹ Sometimes he serves as a point of comparison when discussing the orator's own performance; elsewhere he is an example of behavior to be avoided.² This doubling of the actor makes him a figure who...

CHAPTERS 5: Pleasure

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pp. 149-186

IN SEVERAL OF THE PRECEDING CHAPTERS, the orator has constructed himself via an aggressive relationship to his own body and soul and to the bodies and souls of others. This relationship allows him to establish himself as himself in vigorous contradistinction to a...

CHAPTER 6: Love

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pp. 187-222

THIS CHAPTER BRINGS US BACK to the problems of reading, writing, and textuality that we took up in the first chapter. At the same time, this will be the occasion for seeing the good body and good...

Conclusion:We Other Romans

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pp. 223-230

I WISH TO END WITH A READING of a reading of rhetoric. I have chosen as an example a piece by a leading scholar on Roman oratory. This essay is worth reading because its author is the master of a prevalent scholarly mode that others often only imperfectly execute...

Notes

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pp. 231-250

Bibliography

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pp. 251-260

General Index

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pp. 261-266

Index Locorum

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pp. 267-271

E-ISBN-13: 9780472023202
E-ISBN-10: 0472023209
Print-ISBN-13: 9780472111398
Print-ISBN-10: 0472111396

Page Count: 288
Publication Year: 2000

Series Title: Body, in Theory: Histories of Cultural M