Apology and Apologies: a Matter of Literary Genre

apology; Greek Literature; Rhetoric; Plato; Gorgias; Lysias; Attic Tragedy; Greek Poetry; Literary Genre

Research Mentor: Ms. Eleonora Falini, She/her/hers
Department, College, Affiliation: Classics, Arts and Sciences
Contact Email: ef22m@fsu.edu
Research Assistant Supervisor (if different from mentor):
Research Assistant Supervisor Email:
Faculty Collaborators:
Faculty Collaborators Email:

Looking for Research Assistants: Yes
Number of Research Assistants: 1
Relevant Majors: Classics
Project Location: On FSU Main Campus
Research Assistant Transportation Required:
Remote or In-person: Partially Remote
Approximate Weekly Hours: 5-10, Flexible schedule (Combination of business and outside of business. TBD between student and research mentor.)
Roundtable Times and Zoom Link: Not participating in the Roundtable

Project Description

The aim of the project is to lay foundations for future research around the Apology as a genre, from its development to the canonization fixed by the II Century A.D. Apologist Fathers. Whomever attempted to find a Περὶ ἀπολογίας or a De apologia across the immenseness of Greek classical studies would hardly find anything. The ancient definition of Apology is traced back to Aristotles' Rhetoric (1358a 35‒1358b 29), where the defense‒speech is quickly dismissed and confined in a dimension of eternal sub‒genre of judiciary oratory. The examination of specific features is never explicitly elaborated. Moreover, between the V and IV Century A.D., with the birth of democratic regimes and the development of forensic rhetoric, the judiciary defense speech represents both a literary object, both a political instrument and, in fact, the term ἀπολογία (among the available texts) appears for the first time during this centuries, in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War and in Antiphon’s Tetralogies . It also occurs in other literary works by Lysias, Isocrates, Xenophon and in the very title of Gorgia’s Defense of Palamedes, but the text which drastically marked the fame of the 'genre' is Plato’s Apology of Socrates . The term ἀπολογία always represents the defense speech. However,we can see how, from a comparative perspective, the boundaries of genre tend to progressively blur, both synchronically and diachronically. The same label of genre (or subgenre) is attached to notably different literary texts: all of them being named as apologies.
Is it possible to really talk about apology as a genre in Greek literature ? To answer this question, it is necessary to tackle a preliminary problem: what did ‘genre’ mean for the ancient audience? And what kind of awareness about Greek literary genres could derive from the study of ancient apologies?

Research Tasks: The primary goal of the project is to metaphorically ‘take the Apology to trial’: literature review, data collection, analysis and linguistic comparison. Which are the common traits of Apology as a literary genre and subgenre? What are the most famous apologies of Greek literature? Two phases of contextual work will be needed: first, collecting a bibliography about the theory of literary genre; second, the selection and reading of the ancient texts, in order to practically apply the theoretical notions. Questions will be asked about the text, from a content, stylistic, linguistic and philological point of view.
The final objective is to develop a research model and a definition of 'Apology' that can be applied to various texts and authors.

Skills that research assistant(s) may need: Required: knowledge of Greek language and grammar (basic-intermediate); general knowledge of Greek literature and history

Recommended: knowledge of the historical-literary issues of 5th and 4th centuries B.C.