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Scholarly book review of Ann Vasaly's Representations: Images of the World in Ciceronian Oratory.
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REPRESENTATIONS: IMAGES OF THE WORLD IN CICERONIAN ORATORY. By Ann Vasaly. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993; pp. ix + 301. $30.00. This book was written to introduce representation theory into the study of Ciceronian persuasion. Vasaly views Latin literature as an expression of a particular time and place, and argues that an understanding of setting—social, political, topographical—is crucial to understanding Ciceronian oratory. In order to understand ancient oratory, overall function must be considered as carefully as form. Thus, Vasaly effectively defends the idea that oratory, once dominated by the desire to establish the application of theory to practice, has now turned to the “rhetoric of rhetoric”—that is, to the analysis of how speeches would actually have convinced their audiences. The book begins with an introduction in which the author outlines the purpose of undertaking the detailed analysis of Cicero’s rhetorical strategies and the role played by the representations of places and monuments within those strategies. Vasaly states that the passages she focuses on in answering these questions have been ignored by scholars. Therefore, she sets out to “force rhetorical analysis into new paths by posing certain questions which I consider fundamental to the understanding of Ciceronian oratorical strategy…” (p. 6). Numerous questions follow, one being “Can persuasion depend on the effect on an audience of the ambiance in which a speech takes place?” She proceeds by admitting of the dangers in the use of isolated extracts from the speeches as a source for “the Roman point of view.” In the six chapters that occupy Representations: Images of the World in Ciceronian Oratory, Vasaly attempts to reconstruct the circumstances of the original performances of Cicero.
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