Discurso e Imagem, Ekphrasis e Retrato: Algumas Fontes Teóricas Antigas

Abstract

The article discuss the relation between the ancient rhetorical preceptistics – particularly those related to the imagines – and the ancient literary composition; by way of examples of Progymnasmata by several Greek rhetoricians (Aphtonius, Hermogenes and Aelius Theon) discusses the composition of verbal images and the importance of these school lessons for the education of orators and poets; and also lists other examples taken from the Rhetoric ad Herennium, the On Invention by Cicero, the On Imitation by Dionysius of Halicarnassus and The Institutes of Oratory by Quintilian. The main goal of this article is to demonstrate three points of fundamental importance: a) that the image, as exemplum, shows the proximity of the arts in regard to the composition, which in turn is associated with the binomial imitatio/aemulatio; b) that, since the verbal images were not simple ornato, they could contribute positively to the eficacy of the discourse, because generating pathos they convert into a important elocutive rhetorical resource, essential for the cause; and c) the recurrent use of the Ekphrasis and the Portrayal in some Hellenistic and Romans prose writers and poets.