The letters attributed to Alciphron are edited into four groups according to the speakers’ occupation. The identity of senders and addressees is essential in order to recognize the author’s intentions: mimetic letters, as a literary genre, show a discourse that reveals each time the speaker’s character, according to the rhetoric theory of “ethopoiia”. There are 27 letters from female senders (28 including fr. 5), 13 of them sent to female recipients. Through the analysis of four Alciphron’s letters, 1.11-12, 2.35, 4.1, and of the uncertain fr. 5, the peculiarity of feminine voices in Alciphron proves to be their continuous turning to literary models by female authors or by female speakers, as well as the tone of his words which challenges «traditional structures of hierarchy and power relations» (P. Rosenmeyer). Unlike Hermogenes’s theory (On types of style 2.3), Alciphron’s female speakers and not just the educated courtesans express thoughts that, far from being “simple”, reproduce and represent the author’s sophistry.
Women’s Voices: Four or Five Women’s Letters by Alciphron
Vox, Onofrio
2018-01-01
Abstract
The letters attributed to Alciphron are edited into four groups according to the speakers’ occupation. The identity of senders and addressees is essential in order to recognize the author’s intentions: mimetic letters, as a literary genre, show a discourse that reveals each time the speaker’s character, according to the rhetoric theory of “ethopoiia”. There are 27 letters from female senders (28 including fr. 5), 13 of them sent to female recipients. Through the analysis of four Alciphron’s letters, 1.11-12, 2.35, 4.1, and of the uncertain fr. 5, the peculiarity of feminine voices in Alciphron proves to be their continuous turning to literary models by female authors or by female speakers, as well as the tone of his words which challenges «traditional structures of hierarchy and power relations» (P. Rosenmeyer). Unlike Hermogenes’s theory (On types of style 2.3), Alciphron’s female speakers and not just the educated courtesans express thoughts that, far from being “simple”, reproduce and represent the author’s sophistry.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
