Audience Response in Ancient Greek and Latin Literature

The volume investigates the patterns of audience response across various genres of Greek and Latin literature and concentrates on the various means by which Greek and Latin authors communicated effectively with their audiences. All sections study the relationship between Ancient Greek and Latin texts and their audience(s) (author-audience relationship), offering insights into how the generic identity of the texts affected issues of audience response, and how the cultural background and the contemporary environment affected issues of readership. The topics addressed include the study of audience positions embedded in the texts; internal addressees and external audience; gendered dynamics in audience response; the ways in which “intended” audiences determined the stylistic and compositional choices of the authors; author intention and audience response match; the emphasis on audience / de-emphasis on author; demands and pressures placed on the authors by their audiences. The discussion of various related concepts, as well as contexts and conflicts aims to shed light on the multiple approaches to author-audience relationship. This study revolves, therefore, around the various ways in which ancient authors catered for their audiences by fulfilling, manipulating and frustrating their expectations.

Preface
List of Abbreviations

A. Ancient Greek Epic and Lyric Poetry
1. Ronald Blankenborg, ‘“Odysseus” by Popular Demand: Restoring One’s Identity through the Internal Audience’
2. Christodoulos Zekas, ‘Silencing Epic Performance: Audience Responses to the Song of Phemius in Homer’s Odyssey 1.325-64’
3. Anton Bierl, ‘Shifting Audience Response and Multiple Addressees in Sappho between Performance and Reperformance’
4. Thea S. Thorsen, ‘A Pig Problem: Scholarly Approaches to Audience Responses in the Fragments and Ancient Reception of Corinna of Boeotia’

B. Ancient Greek Drama
1. Pascale Brillet-Dubois, ‘Calling for the Attention of Internal and External Audiences: Ἰδού in Euripides’
2. Andrea Rodighiero, ‘Reading the Audience’s Mind: The Successful Excess of Euripides’
3. Eirini-Niki Briakou, ‘Talthybius, the Achaeans’s Herald: An alter ego of the Athenian Spectator? A Study of Euripides’ Hecuba and Trojan Women’
4. Théo Millat-Carus, ‘Clever Demos/dēmos in Aristophanes’ Knights? Differences and Similarities between the Audience and Its Scenic Representation’
5. Helen Gasti, Eleftheria Ioannidou and Sophia Kouteri, ‘Aspects of Aristophanes’ Theatrical Transaction with the Audience in the Ancient Scholia’

C. Latin Prose
1. Gabriel Evangelou, ‘The Pseudo-private Nature of Cicero’s Conciliatory Letters’
2. Panagiotes Kontonasios, ‘Cicero’s Correspondence: Reading, Commenting on, Reviewing, and Criticizing Contemporary Literature’
3. Despina Iosif, ‘Per suffragium populi. Provincial voices’

D. Latin Poetry
1. Stella Alekou, ‘Reader-Response Criticism in Cydippe’s Legal Reply to Acontius’s Letter (Ovid, Heroides 20-21)’
2. Andreas Gavrielatos, ‘Poetic Recitations and Debauched Audiences in Persius’s Literary Criticism’
3. Hannah Baldwin, ‘How to Win Over Your Audience and Influence People: Martial and Social Climbers’
4. Vasileios Pappas, ‘Perlege hoc…opusculum: Ausonius’s Address to His Readers in the Prose Parts of Cento Nuptialis’
5. Scott McGill, ‘The Compact Reader: Reading in the Virgilian Argumenta of Sulpicius Carthaginiensis’

Bibliography
General Index
List of Contributors