RHETORIC AND RHYTHM IN BYZANTIUM Rhetoric and Rhythm in Byzantium presents a fresh look at rhetorical rhythm in theory and in practice, and highlights the close affinity between rhythm and argument. Based on material drawn from Byzantine and Old Church Slavic homilies as well as Byzantine rhetorical commentaries, the book redefines and expands our understanding of both Byzantine and Old Church Slavic 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 demonstrating 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. vessela valiavitcharska is 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.
RHETORIC AND RHYTHM IN BYZANTIUM The Sound of Persuasion VESSELA VALIAVITCHARSKA
University Printing House, Cambridge cb28bs, United Kingdom Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. Information on this title: /9781107037366 C 2013 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2013 Printed in the United Kingdom by Clays, St Ives plc A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Valiavitcharska, Vessela, 1971 Rhetoric and rhythm in Byzantium : the sound of persuasion / by. pages cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-1-107-03736-6 (hardback) 1. Byzantine literature History and criticism. 2. Rhetoric, Medieval Byzantine Empire History and criticism. 3. Rhythm in literature. I. Title. pa5115.v35 2013 880.9 002 dc23 2012050905 isbn 978-1-107-03736-6 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Contents Acknowledgments page vii Introduction: Why rhythm? 1 1 Rhythm and meter in Byzantine eyes: Hellenistic traditions and Byzantine theory 23 Pulse and flow 25 The rhythmical unit of prose 33 Tempo and melody 50 2 Between prose and poetry: Asianic rhythms, accentual poetry, and the Byzantine festal homily 56 Asianic oratory and clausular cadence 57 Figures, rhyme, and rhythm 65 Homilies and accentual poetry 76 3 Dirhythmia in the Byzantine classroom 90 Learning to read and follow the rhythm 90 Advanced grammar: Eustathius of Thessalonica on Homer 100 Advanced rhetoric: John Siculus on Hermogenes 106 4 Argument, figure, and rhythm 115 Enthymeme 116 Period 125 Pneuma 132 5 Rhythm in translation: Some evidence from Old Slavic homilies 142 Rhythm in Old Slavic texts 143 Text comparison and statistics 157 Old Slavic rhythm reconsidered 170 Conclusion: Why recover rhythm? 182 v
vi Contents Appendix A: Text comparison: Corpus and methodology 187 Old Slavic texts: Syllables 188 Greek texts: Accent and stress 193 Old Slavic texts: Accent and stress 195 Control texts 198 Conclusions 203 Appendix B: Tables and flow charts 205 Bibliography 220 Index 241
Acknowledgments I am greatly indebted to many people who took an active part in the completion of this book. In the first place, to my PhD dissertation supervisors, Professor Jeffrey Walker and Professor Marjorie C. Woods from the University of Texas at Austin, who generously shared their deep knowledge, intellectual brilliance, and academic experience, and who helped shape the direction of my inquiries, I owe a gratitude difficult to describe adequately. To Professors Wolfram Hörandner and Heinz Miklas from the University of Vienna, whose encouragement, expertise, and comments on individual chapters have been of tremendous value, I am also deeply indebted. To Professors Jeanne Fahnestock and Jane Donawerth from the University of Maryland at College Park, whose critical acumen, collegial generosity, human warmth, and willingness to go through large amounts of technical detail and poor writing have been crucial in the labor of overhauling and improving the general readability of the manuscript, I will owe any readers, present and future, that this book may incidentally attract. To Professor Dirk Krausmüller from Mardin Artuklu University, Turkey, who has always freely offered his outstanding expertise in the Byzantine Greek language and literature and whose opinions on scholarly issues I value highly, I owe much for his incisive critique and scholarly support. To Professors Manfred Kraus from the University of Tübingen, Germany, and Craig Gibson from the University of Iowa, I owe many thanks for helping me avoid errors with the arcane ideas and convoluted Greek of the tenth-century Anonymous Commentator on Hermogenes. Many other people have contributed time, labor, and expertise in one way or another, and I am particularly grateful to Professors Michael Gagarin, Glenn Peers, John Kolsti, and Linda Ferreira-Buckley from the University of Texas at Austin; to Maria Sarinaki, Kristin Dorsey, and Donna Hobbs from the University of Texas at Austin; to Professor Apostolos Karpozilos from the University of Ioannina; to Professor Michael Israel from the University of Maryland at College Park; to Joshua William Mills from vii
viii Acknowledgments Florida State University; to Professor Ralph Cleminson from the University of Portsmouth; to my readers at Cambridge University Press; to Roxann Ashworth from Johns Hopkins University; and to my husband David Marcum, who designed the cover art. I owe much also to Dr. Michael Sharp and Christina Sarigiannidou at Cambridge University Press, and especially to Dr. Iveta Adams, whose outstanding work as a copy-editor contributed greatly toward removing errors and improving the quality of the writing. At various stages, my research has been supported by the generosity of an Ernst Mach Fellowship from the Austrian Academic Exchange, a Junior Fellowship in Byzantine Studies from the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Center, a Continuing Fellowship from the University of Texas at Austin, and a grant from the General Research Board of the University of Maryland at College Park. At all times, however, it has been sustained by the love and generosity of my husband David and daughter Anna Elena to whom, love as always.