The Ancient Aesthetics of Deception
The Ethics of Enchantment from Gorgias to Heliodorus

A bold new history of ancient aesthetics and its entanglement with ethics, with ongoing significance for current debates.

Jonas Grethlein (Author)

9781316518816, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 September 2021

332 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.3 cm, 0.61 kg

The concept of mimesis has dominated reflection on the nature and role, in Greek literature, of representation. Jonas Grethlein, in his ambitious new book, takes this reflection a step further. He argues that, beyond mimesis, there was an important but unacknowledged strand of reflection focused instead on the nuanced idea of apat? (often translated into English as 'deceit'), oscillating between notions of 'deception' and 'aesthetic illusion'. Many authors from Gorgias and Plato to Philo, Plutarch and Clement of Alexandria used this key concept to entwine aesthetics with ethics. In creatively exploring the various reconfigurations of apat?, and placing these in their socio-historical contexts, the book offers a bold new history of ancient aesthetics. It also explores the present significance of the aesthetics of deception, unlocking the potential of ancient reflection for current debates on the ethical dimension of representation. It will appeal to scholars in classics and literary theory alike.

1. Gorgias and the justice of tragic apat?
2. The circulation and significance of apat? in the Classical era
3. The dramatic entanglement of aesthetic illusion with deceit in Sophocles' Electra
4. Immersion and corruption in Plato's Republic
5. The void of Hellenistic criticism
6. The appeal and challenge of apat? in Imperial criticism: Plutarch's De audiendis poetis
7. Lucian and the spell of philosophy
8. How to read ekphrasis: Tabula Cebetis
9. Christian polemics against idolatry: Clement of Alexandria's Protrepticus
10. The aesthetics of deception reconfigured in Heliodorus' Ethiopica
11. From deep-fake to psychotherapy: The aesthetics of deception today.

Subject Areas: Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB], Literary theory [DSA]