Ekstasis, analysis, and the conventions of response: Ancient rhetoric and contemporary reading

Contemporary criticism, equating "reading" with "analysis," loses an element important to ancient rhetoric: "ekstasis," the involvement with language that brings things "before an audience's eyes." Ancient Greek stylistic theory, which linked effects to linguistic stimuli, can inform contemporary inquiry into the experience of reading. Ancient theory investigated "performative discourse," language of all genres that created effects in audiences.; Chapter 1 examines "text" in situations of speech and writing. Audience activity and linguistic inquiry are influenced by the presence or absence of written text. But similarities exist in processing speech and writing as audiences create mental representations of discourse, "mental text." Listeners performed complex operations, seen in examining the Odyssey and Encomium of Helen.; Chapter 2. Plato argues in Gorgias and Phaedrus that rhetoric is aphilosophical; he antithesizes inspiration and techne. But early inquiry shows a philosophic base. The Encomium of Helen follows the model of early philosophic inquiry. The Odyssey depicts speech performances and shows traditional notions about language and effect that establish the categories into which later linguistic inquiry grows. Plato sets out tasks for discourse inquiry but does not add technical knowledge.; Chapter 3. On the Sublime contributes to linguistic inquiry by making inspiration central to techne. It observes effects produced by writing. Drawing its examples from various genres, it forces modern readers to evaluate the relationship between literary and non-literary discourse.; Chapter 4. On Style classifies four essential style types. The classification centers on form, but is implicitly informed by the consideration of effect and awareness of the appropriateness of discourse as dictated by situation.; Chapter 5 argues for an approach to describing reading operations that is informed by ancient stylistics and modern linguistics: "technical pragmatics." Response and criticism are different stages of the reading process. Verbal time creates energeia in Herodotus' Histories and Hemingway's "Cat in the Rain" and "Soldier's Home," placing narrative scene "before the eyes." The ellipses of Joyce's "The Sisters" shape the reading of the text by placing readers in the position of the narrator as he gathers knowledge.