Greek Dialogue in Antiquity reexamines evidence for Greek dialogue between the mid-fourth century BCE and the mid-first century CE - that is, roughly from Plato's death to the death of Philo of Alexandria. Although the genre of dialogue in antiquity has attracted a growing interest in the past two decades, the time covered in this book has remained overlooked and unresearched, with scholars believing that for much of this period the dialogue genre went through a period of decline and was revived only in the Roman times. The book carefully reassesses Post-Platonic and Hellenistic evidence, including papyri fragments, which have never been discussed in this context, and challenges the narrative of the dialogue's decline and subsequent revival, postulating, instead, the genre's unbroken continuity from the Classical period to the Roman Empire. It argues that dialogues and texts creatively interacting with dialogic conventions were composed throughout Hellenistic times, and proposes to reconceptualize the imperial period dialogue as evidence not of a resurgence, but of continuity in this literary tradition.

About the Author
Katarzyna Jazdzewska is Associate Professor at Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (Aarhus University) and a Classicist working on ancient prose. She is interested in literary formats of ancient texts and has published on various aspects of Greek dialogue, on laughter in antiquity, and on animal exemplarity in moralizing prose. She has also published several book-length translations from ancient Greek into Polish.

Reviews
In Greek Dialogue in Antiquity, Katarzyna Jazdzewska challenges the traditional narrative of a decline and displacement of dialogue in post-Platonic antiquity followed by a revival of the genre in the imperial period. * Greece & Rome *



Book Information
ISBN 9780192893352
Author Katarzyna Jazdzewska
Format Hardback
Page Count 312
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 632g
Dimensions(mm) 240mm * 162mm * 22mm