When a Gesture Was Expected: A Selection of Examples from Archaic and Classical Greek Literature

by Alan L. Boegehold

Overview

A boldly innovative study of nonverbal communication in the poetry and prose of Hellenic antiquity

When a Gesture Was Expected encourages a deeper appreciation of ancient Greek poetry and prose by showing where a nod of the head or a wave of the hand can complete meaning in epic poetry and in tragedy, comedy, oratory, and in works of history and philosophy. All these works anticipated performing readers, and, as a result, they included prompts, places where a gesture could complete a sentence or amplify or comment on the written words. In this radical and highly accessible book, Alan Boegehold urges all readers to supplement the traditional avenues of classical philology with an awareness of the uses of nonverbal communication in Hellenic antiquity. This additional resource helps to explain some persistently confusing syntaxes and to make translations more accurate. It also imparts a living breath to these immortal texts.

Where part of a work appears to be missing, or the syntax is irregular, or the words seem contradictory or perverse—without evidence of copyists' errors or physical damage—an ancient author may have been assuming that a performing reader would make the necessary clarifying gesture. Boegehold offers analyses of many such instances in selected passages ranging from Homer to Aeschylus to Plato. He also presents a review of sources of information about such gestures in antiquity as well as thirty illustrations, some documenting millennia-long continuities in nonverbal communication.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691002637
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	12/05/1999
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	7.75(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Alan L. Boegehold, Professor of Classics, teaches Latin and Greek at Brown University. Within recent years he has published Agora 28. The Lawcourts at Athens; Athenian Identity and Civic Ideology, with Adele Scafuro; and In Simple Clothes, translations into English of eleven poems by Constantine Cavafy.

Table of Contents

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii

NOTE TO THE READER xv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xvii

Introduction 3

ONE Nonverbal Communication 12

Circumstantial Notices in Literature 12

Illustrations 16

Continuities 20

Generally Understandable 22

Mostly Greek 26

Summary 28

TWO Some Attic Red-Figure Scenes 29

The Vote on the Arms of Achilles 29

Sociabilities 32

Come Here 33

Summary 35

THREE Homer 36

Demonstrative: Homer Iliad 16.844 36

"Incomplete" Conditional Sentence 37

Aposiopesis 38

Gesture for Apodosis 39

Gesture for Protasis 45

Summary 46

FOUR Archaic Poets 48

Archilochus 48

Pindar 50

Summary 52

FIVE Tragedy 53

Aeschylus 54

Sophocles 57

Euripides 63

Summary 66

SIX Aristophanes 67

Quotation and Parody 67

Continuities: Curses! 73

Summary 77

SEVEN Orators 78

Forensic Oratory 78

Deliberative or Display Oratory 79

Alcidamas 80

Antiphon 80

Andocides 83

Lysias 85

Demosthenes 88

Lycurgus 90

The Law Code of Gortyn 91

Summary 93

EIGHT Historians 94

Herodotus 94

Thucydides 99

Xenophon 105

Summary 108

NINE Plato 110

Plato's Characters in Action 110

Summary 125

Conclusion 126

BIBLIOGRAPHY 131

ART INDEX 141

lNDEX LOCORUM 143

GENERAL INDEX 149

What People are Saying About This

Mortimer Chambers

By focusing on gestures, facial expressions, and other nonverbal means of communication implied in Greek literature, Alan Boegehold gives the reader new tools with which to read long-famous works. He knows Greece, the Greek people, and Greek customs and popular culture, and draws on this data bank not only to reveal new meanings but also to show that some 'corrections' made by editors and commentators in the texts are unnecessary--sometimes even wrong. There is no other book like this in the field.

From the Publisher

"By focusing on gestures, facial expressions, and other nonverbal means of communication implied in Greek literature, Alan Boegehold gives the reader new tools with which to read long-famous works. He knows Greece, the Greek people, and Greek customs and popular culture, and draws on this data bank not only to reveal new meanings but also to show that some 'corrections' made by editors and commentators in the texts are unnecessary—sometimes even wrong. There is no other book like this in the field."—Mortimer Chambers, University of California, Los Angeles

"When a Gesture Was Expected conveys a huge amount of learning and fascinating material. Its central thesis, that the Greeks have always accompanied their speech with a wide range of gestures and that the ancients saw these gestures as an integral part of the speech act itself, is certainly correct and needs saying."—Carolyn Dewald, University of Southern California

Carolyn Dewald

When a Gesture Was Expected conveys a huge amount of learning and fascinating material. Its central thesis, that the Greeks have always accompanied their speech with a wide range of gestures and that the ancients saw these gestures as an integral part of the speech act itself, is certainly correct and needs saying.

Recipe

"By focusing on gestures, facial expressions, and other nonverbal means of communication implied in Greek literature, Alan Boegehold gives the reader new tools with which to read long-famous works. He knows Greece, the Greek people, and Greek customs and popular culture, and draws on this data bank not only to reveal new meanings but also to show that some 'corrections' made by editors and commentators in the texts are unnecessary—sometimes even wrong. There is no other book like this in the field."—Mortimer Chambers, University of California, Los Angeles

"When a Gesture Was Expected conveys a huge amount of learning and fascinating material. Its central thesis, that the Greeks have always accompanied their speech with a wide range of gestures and that the ancients saw these gestures as an integral part of the speech act itself, is certainly correct and needs saying."—Carolyn Dewald, University of Southern California

Editorial Reviews

"In this nearly organized, well written, and lucid study on non-verbal communication in Archaic and Classical Greek Literature, Professor Alan Boegehold offers interesting and helpful insights into the understanding of passages in both poetry and prose . . . ."—-James J. Clauss, Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews

"There is much to praise in this book. It has an original and creative thesis that provides new insight into some old problems . . . Boegehold makes many perceptive and significant observations. . . . This study is an excellent model of how to tease out new meaning from familiar texts."—-Gregory S. Aldrete, Classical World

From the Publisher

There is much to praise in this book. It has an original and creative thesis that provides new insight into some old problems . . . Boegehold makes many perceptive and significant observations. . . . This study is an excellent model of how to tease out new meaning from familiar texts.

Classical World - Gregory S. Aldrete

In this nearly organized, well written, and lucid study on non-verbal communication in Archaic and Classical Greek Literature, Professor Alan Boegehold offers interesting and helpful insights into the understanding of passages in both poetry and prose . . . .

Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews - James J. Clauss

There is much to praise in this book. It has an original and creative thesis that provides new insight into some old problems . . . Boegehold makes many perceptive and significant observations. . . . This study is an excellent model of how to tease out new meaning from familiar texts.
— Gregory S. Aldrete

Classical World

In this nearly organized, well written, and lucid study on non-verbal communication in Archaic and Classical Greek Literature, Professor Alan Boegehold offers interesting and helpful insights into the understanding of passages in both poetry and prose . . . .
— James J. Clauss

Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews

In this nearly organized, well written, and lucid study on non-verbal communication in Archaic and Classical Greek Literature, Professor Alan Boegehold offers interesting and helpful insights into the understanding of passages in both poetry and prose . . . .
— James J. Clauss

Bryn Mawr Classical Review