Rhetoric and Rhythm in Byzantium
The Sound of Persuasion

A study of the presence and effects of rhythm in Byzantine rhetoric, its musical qualities, and its function in argumentation.

Vessela Valiavitcharska (Author)

9781107037366, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 15 August 2013

248 pages, 5 b/w illus. 9 tables
23.5 x 15.7 x 1.6 cm, 0.49 kg

Rhetoric and Rhythm in Byzantium takes a fresh look at rhetorical rhythm and its theory and practice, highlighting the close affinity between rhythm and argument. Based on material from Byzantine and Old Church Slavonic homilies and from Byzantine rhetorical commentaries, the book redefines and expands our understanding of both Byzantine and Old Church Slavonic 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 in general aims to demonstrate 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.

Introduction: why rhythm? 1. Meter and rhythm in Byzantine eyes: Hellenistic traditions and Byzantine theory
2. Between prose and poetry: 'Asianic' rhythms, accentual poetry, and the Byzantine festal homily
3. Dirhythmia in the Byzantine classroom
4. Argument, figure, and rhythm
5. Rhythm in translation: some evidence from Old Church Slavonic homilies
Conclusion: why recover rhythm?
Appendix A. Text comparison: corpus and methodology
Appendix B. Tables and flow charts.

Subject Areas: Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500 [HBLC], Historical & comparative linguistics [CFF], Music [AV]