Rohde’s Theory of Relationship between the Novel and Rhetoric and the Problem of Evaluating the Entire Corpus of Post-Classical Greek Literature

Abstract

The one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the first publication of Rohde’s monograph on the Greek novel is drawing near, affording a welcome occasion to raise the big question as to what remains of it today, all the more so since the ancient novel, due to his classical work, has become a major area of research. The aforesaid monograph, considered to be one of the greatest scientific achievements of the nineteenth century, can be justifiably used as a litmus test for ascertaining how efficient the methods hitherto employed were or, in other words, whether we are entitled to speak of continuous progress in research or the opposite is true. Finally, the questions raised in the monograph will turn out to be more important than the results obtained by the author, in so far as the latter, based on his unfinished theses, proved to be very harmful to evaluating both the Greek novel and the entire corpus of post-classical Greek literature. In this paper we focus our attention on two major questions raised by the author such as division of the third type of narration in the rhetorical manuals of classical antiquity and the nature of rhetoric, as expressed in the writings of the major exponents of the Second Sophistic so as to be in a position to point to the way out of aporia, with the preliminary remark that we shall not be able to get a full picture of the Greek novel until the two remaining big questions posed by the author, namely the role played by both Tyche and women in the mentioned genre, are fully answered.