Rhetorical ethos and poetical persona in ancient Rome

• Grant number: 13/15811-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: October 15, 2013
• End date: January 14, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Classical Literatures
• Principal Investigator: Paulo Sérgio de Vasconcellos
• Grantee: Paulo Sérgio de Vasconcellos
• Host Investigator: Juergen Paul Schwindt
• Host Institution: Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Heidelberg University, Germany

Abstract

Since 2010 I have been researching both the biographist interpretation of Roman love poetry written in first person and the reception of this poetical "genre" in Antiquity. In my post-doctoral research at the University of Heidelberg (October 2013-February 2014), I intend to develop further the themes associated with that research: How ancient rhetoric, especially the Roman, dealt with the construction of "ethos" in discourse and how such a discussion could clarify how the ancients perceived the poetical "persona" in their first-person poetry. Can the "ethos", in Roman rhetorical theory, be separated from the orator's real qualities? According to the Ciceronian tradition, it seems that this is not possible, but my research has shown that the question is much more complex. One of my key objectives will be to contribute to the discussion about the relationship between rhetorical "ethos" and poetical "persona" in Antiquity, by confronting modern and ancient biographism and addressing the assumptions of our analyses about Roman love poetry in the first person. (AU)