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Pericles' Funeral Oration
"Pericles's Funeral Oration" (Ancient Greek: Περικλέους Επιτάφιος) is a famous speech from Thucydides' '' History of the Peloponnesian War''. The speech was supposed to have been delivered by Pericles, an eminent Athenian politician, at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War () as a part of the annual public funeral for the war dead. Background It was an established Athenian practice by the late to hold a public funeral in honour of all those who had died in war. The remains of the dead were left in a tent for three days so that offerings could be made. Then a funeral procession was held, with ten cypress coffins carrying the remains, one for each of the Athenian tribes, and another left symbolically empty for the missing or those whose remains were unable to be recovered. Finally they were buried at a public grave (at Kerameikos). The last part of the ceremony was a speech delivered by a prominent Athenian citizen chosen by the state. Severa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Menexenus (dialogue)
The ''Menexenus'' (; el, Μενέξενος) is a Socratic dialogue of Plato, traditionally included in the seventh tetralogy along with the '' Greater'' and '' Lesser Hippias'' and the ''Ion''. The speakers are Socrates and Menexenus, who is not to be confused with Socrates' son Menexenus. The Menexenus of Plato's dialogue appears also in the '' Lysis'', where he is identified as the "son of Demophon", as well as the ''Phaedo''. The ''Menexenus'' consists mainly of a lengthy funeral oration, referencing the one given by Pericles in Thucydides' account of the Peloponnesian War. Socrates here delivers to Menexenus a speech that he claims to have learned from Aspasia, a consort of Pericles and prominent female Athenian intellectual. ''Menexenus'' is unique among the Platonic dialogues in that the actual 'dialogue' serves primarily as exposition for the oration. For this reason, perhaps, the ''Menexenus'' has come under some suspicion of illegitimacy, although Aristotle's invoca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anastrophe
Anastrophe (from the el, ἀναστροφή, ''anastrophē'', "a turning back or about") is a figure of speech in which the normal word order of the subject, the verb, and the object is changed. For example, subject–verb–object ("I like potatoes") might be changed to object–subject–verb ("potatoes I like"). Examples Because English has a settled natural word order, anastrophe emphasizes the displaced word or phrase. For example, the name of the City Beautiful urbanist movement emphasises "beautiful". Similarly, in "This is the forest primeval", from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's ''Evangeline'', the emphasis is on "primeval". If the emphasis that comes from anastrophe is not an issue, the synonym ''inversion'' is perfectly suitable. Anastrophe is common in Ancient Greek and Latin poetry, such as in the first line of the ''Aeneid'': :''Arma virumque cano, Troiæ qui primus ab oris'' ::("I sing of arms and the man, who first from the shores of Troy") In the examp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asyndeton
Asyndeton (, ; from the el, ἀσύνδετον, "unconnected", sometimes called asyndetism) is a literary scheme in which one or several conjunctions are deliberately omitted from a series of related clauses. Examples include '' veni, vidi, vici'' and its English translation "I came, I saw, I conquered". Its use can have the effect of speeding up the rhythm of a passage and making a single idea more memorable. Asyndeton may be contrasted with syndeton ( syndetic coordination) and polysyndeton, which describe the use of one or multiple coordinating conjunctions, respectively. More generally, in grammar, an asyndetic coordination is a type of coordination in which no coordinating conjunction is present between the conjuncts. ''Quickly, resolutely, he strode into the bank.'' No coordinator is present here, but the conjoins are still coordinated. Examples Omission of conjunction "and" Aristotle wrote in his ''Rhetoric'' that this device was more effective in spoken orator ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anacoluthon
An anacoluthon (; from the Greek ''anakolouthon'', from ''an-'': "not" and ἀκόλουθος ''akólouthos'': "following") is an unexpected discontinuity in the expression of ideas within a sentence, leading to a form of words in which there is logical incoherence of thought. Anacolutha are often sentences interrupted midway, where there is a change in the syntactical structure of the sentence and of intended meaning following the interruption. An example is the Italian proverb "The good stuff – think about it." This proverb urges people to make the best choice. When anacoluthon occurs unintentionally, it is considered to be an error in sentence structure and results in incoherent nonsense. However, it can be used as a rhetorical technique to challenge the reader to think more deeply or in "stream of consciousness" literature to represent the disjointed nature of associative thought. Anacolutha are very common in informal speech, where a speaker might start to say one thing, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antithesis
Antithesis ( Greek for "setting opposite", from "against" and "placing") is used in writing or speech either as a proposition that contrasts with or reverses some previously mentioned proposition, or when two opposites are introduced together for contrasting effect. This is based on the logical phrase or term. Antithesis can be defined as "a figure of speech involving a seeming contradiction of ideas, words, clauses, or sentences within a balanced grammatical structure. Parallelism of expression serves to emphasize opposition of ideas". An antithesis must always contain two ideas within one statement. The ideas may not be structurally opposite, but they serve to be functionally opposite when comparing two ideas for emphasis. According to Aristotle, the use of an antithesis makes the audience better understand the point the speaker is trying to make. Further explained, the comparison of two situations or ideas makes choosing the correct one simpler. Aristotle states that anti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhetorical Devices
In rhetoric, a rhetorical device, persuasive device, or stylistic device is a technique that an author or speaker uses to convey to the listener or reader a meaning with the goal of persuading them towards considering a topic from a perspective, using language designed to encourage or provoke an emotional display of a given perspective or action. Rhetorical devices evoke an emotional response in the audience through use of language, but that is not their primary purpose. Rather, by doing so, they seek to make a position or argument more compelling than it would otherwise be. Modes of persuasion Originating from Aristotle's ''Rhetoric'', the four modes of persuasion in an argument are as follows: ;Logos : is an appeal to logic using intellectual reasoning and argument structure such as giving claims, sound reasons for them, and supporting evidence.Selzer, J. (2004). Rhetorical Analysis: Understanding How Texts Persuade Readers. In C. Bazerman & P. Prior (Eds.), ''What Writing D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Classical Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic period (), and the Classical period (). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language. From the Hellenistic period (), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek, which is regarded as a separate historical stage, although its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek. There were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek, of which Attic Greek developed into Koine. Dia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Equal Justice Under Law
Equal justice under law is a phrase engraved on the West Pediment, above the front entrance of the United States Supreme Court building in Washington D.C. It is also a societal ideal that has influenced the American legal system. The phrase was proposed by the building's architects, and then approved by judges of the Court in 1932. It is based upon Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence, and has historical antecedents dating back to ancient Greece. Proposed by architects and approved by justices This phrase was suggested in 1932 by the architectural firm that designed the building. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes and Justice Willis Van Devanter subsequently approved this inscription, as did the United States Supreme Court Building Commission which Hughes chaired (and on which Van Devanter served). The architectural firm that proposed the phrase was headed by Cass Gilbert, though Gilbert himself was much more interested in design and arrangement, than in meaning. Thus, accor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of Classical Antiquity, classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically related polis, city-states and other territories. Most of these regions were officially unified only once, for 13 years, under Alexander the Great's Macedonian empire, empire from 336 to 323 BC (though this excludes a number of Greek city-states free from Alexander's jurisdiction in the western Mediterranean, around the Black Sea, Cyprus, and Cyrenaica). In Western history, the era of classical antiquity was immediately followed by the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine period. Roughly three centuries after the Late Bronze Age collapse of Mycenaean Greece, Greek urban poleis began to form in the 8th century BC, ushering in the Archaic Greece, Archaic period and Greek colonis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Delian League
The Delian League, founded in 478 BC, was an association of Greek city-states, numbering between 150 and 330, under the leadership of Athens, whose purpose was to continue fighting the Persian Empire after the Greek victory in the Battle of Plataea at the end of the Second Persian invasion of Greece. The League's modern name derives from its official meeting place, the island of Delos, where congresses were held in the temple and where the treasury stood until, in a symbolic gesture, Pericles moved it to Athens in 454 BC. Shortly after its inception, Athens began to use the League's funds for its own purposes, which led to conflicts between Athens and the less powerful members of the League. By 431 BC, the threat the League presented to Spartan hegemony combined with Athens's heavy-handed control of the Delian League prompted the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War; the League was dissolved upon the war's conclusion in 404 BC under the direction of Lysander, the Spartan command ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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