| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

atticism : literally means favouring the Athenians. It was also a rhetorical movement which began in the first quarter of the first century BC.

It was portrayed as a return to Classical methods after what was perceived at the pretentious style of the Hellenistic, Sophist rhetoric and called for a return to the approaches of the Attic orators.

Although the plainer language of Atticism eventually became as over-elaborate as the perorations it sought to replace, its original simplicity meant that it remained universally comprehensible throughout the Greek world. This helped maintain vital cultural links across the Mediterranean and beyond. Writers such as Lucian also adopted Atticism meaning that the style survived until the Renaissance.

Represented at its height by rhetoricians like Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and grammarians like Herodian and Phrynicus at Alexandria, this tendency prevailed from the second century B.C. onward, and with the force of an ecclesiastical dogma controlled all subsequent Greek culture, even so that the living form of the Greek language, even then being transformed into modern Greek, was quite obscured and only occasionally found expression, chiefly in private documents, though also in popular literature. This article incorporates text from the Catholic Encyclopedia, which is in the public domain.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atticism"

Related isms

No related isms found

External Links

No external links found.

Recommended Readings

Click here to get book recommendations from Amazon.com on atticism