Making a new man
Subtitle: Ciceronian self-fashioning in the rhetorical works
By: John Dugan.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2005
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 388
Subjects: Cicero, Marcus Tullius; Speeches, addresses, etc., Latin -- History and criticism; Self in literature; Rhetoric, Ancient; Oratory, Ancient; Orators -- Rome
Description: "Making a New Man investigates how Cicero, Rome's most influential orator (106-43 B.C.E.), used a series of treatises on rhetorical theory in order to mould his identity within Roman culture. John Dugan argues that Cicero's rhetorical works - far from being disinterested, purely abstract investigations of oratory - form part of a discernible programme in which Cicero constructs his self. Cicero uses these cultural works to solidify his political and literary legacy and to frame himself as a new entity within Roman cultural life: a leader who bases his authority upon intellectual, oratorical, and literary accomplishments instead of the traditional avenues for prestige - a distinguished familial pedigree, political or military feats.

Eschewing conventional Roman notions of manliness, Cicero constructs a distinctly aestheticized identity that flirts with the questionable domains of the theatre and the feminine, and thus fashions himself as a 'new man'."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [350]-365) and index.
Table of contents: title: Epideixis, textuality, and self-fashioning in the Pro archia and In Pisonem; title: Fashioning the ideal orator : theatricality and transgressive aesthetics in the De oratore; title: The Brutus : Cicero's 'rhetorical' history; title: The orator : fashioning a Ciceronian sublime.