Byzantine Enargeia and Theories of Representation
Byzantine Enargeia and Theories of Representation

Summary/Abstract: The present contribution aims to decipher some of the theory that underlay the rhetoric of Byzantine ekphraseis. Leaving aside Byzantine descriptive practice itself, this paper focuses on ways in which rhetoricians defined the intersection of reality and discursive imagination or, to put it differently, how they approached the question of representation. Guiding this investigation will be the term enargeia, a key concept for Byzantine rhetorical theory and, indeed, for the premodern Greek understanding of representation more generally. Following the footsteps of Ruth Webb’s excellent treatment of the theory of ekphrasis in ancient and late antique writing, my primary subject here will be the middle Byzantine tradition, from the ninth to the twelfth century.

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