The Voices of the Consul

Download or read book The Voices of the Consul written by Brian A. Krostenko and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book probes the ideology of De lege agraria I and II, Cicero's first two speeches as consul, delivered to the senate and the people respectively. The book propounds and applies a model of applied discourse analysis to draw out the implicit ideology of the speeches. Thus analyzed, the speeches reveal distinctive visions of dignitas and libertas, cardinal values of each audience. Those visions make clear Cicero's artful self-fashioning, negotiating the complex cross-currents of late Republican politics, and they make clear as well the depth of his rhetorical art, which draws constantly upon unnamed points of reference, the physical environment, and varied social roles to situate his claims within the psychic imaginary of his audiences. The book thus makes it possible to see that apparent screeds against an agrarian law are thoroughgoing political manifestos-appropriate for the first speeches of a consul"--