Reclaiming Rhetorical Democracy: Reception of the Ancient Greek Sophists in 18th- and 19th-Century Britain

FAIN: FT-54363-06

Karen Elizabeth Whedbee
Northern Illinois University (DeKalb, IL 60115-2828)

This project investigates two questions: (1) How have modern historians portrayed the ancient Greek sophists? (2) What ideological assumptions have informed these various descriptions of the sophists? Texts for analysis include political, philosophical, and literary histories of Greece published in Britain from the period of the American Revolution until World War I. This research will provide the basis for two journal articles. Ultimately, it will also provide the basis for major sections of a book about modern reception of Athenian popular government and culture. The publications resulting from this research will be of interest to literary historians, political historians, classicists, and historians of rhetoric.

Associated Products