J.K. Rowling, one of the world's most inspiring writers, shares her wisdom and advice. In 2008, J.K. Rowling delivered a deeply affecting commencement speech at Harvard University. Now published for the first time in book form, VERY GOOD LIVES presents J.K. Rowling's words of wisdom for anyone at a turning point in life. How can we embrace failure? And how can we use our imagination to better both ourselves and others? Drawing from stories of her own post-graduate years, the world famous author addresses some of life's most important questions with acuity and emotional force.

This is a study of ekphrasis, the art of making listeners and readers 'see' in their imagination through words alone, as taught in ancient rhetorical schools and as used by Greek writers of the Imperial period (2nd-6th centuries CE). The author places the practice of ekphrasis within its cultural context, emphasizing the importance of the visual imagination in ancient responses to rhetoric, poetry and historiography. By linking the theoretical writings on ekphrasis with ancient theories of imagination, emotion and language, she brings out the persuasive and emotive function of vivid language in the literature of the period. This study also addresses the contrast between the ancient and the modern definitions of the term ekphrasis, underlining the different concepts of language, literature and reader response that distinguish the ancient from the modern approach. In order to explain the ancient understanding of ekphrasis and its place within the larger system of rhetorical training, the study includes a full analysis of the ancient technical sources (rhetorical handbooks, commentaries) which aims to make these accessible to non-specialists. The concluding chapter moves away from rhetorical theory to consider the problems and challenges involved in 'turning listeners into spectators' with a particular focus on the role of ekphrasis within ancient fiction. Attention is also paid to texts that lie at the intersection of the modern and ancient definitions of ekphrasis, such as Philostratos' Imagines and the many ekphraseis of buildings and monuments to be found in Late Antique literature.

In Speech-in-Character, Diatribe, and Romans 3:1-9, Justin King argues that the rhetorical skill of speech-in-character (prosopopoiia, sermocinatio, conformatio) offers a methodologically sound foundation for understanding the script of Paul’s imaginary dialogue with an interlocutor in Romans 3:1-9. King focuses on speech-in-character’s stable criterion that attributed speech should be appropriate to the characterization of the speaker. Here, speech-in-character helps to inform which voice in the dialogue speaks which lines, and the general goals of diatribe help shape how an “appropriate” understanding of the script is best interpreted. King’s analyses of speech-in-character, diatribe, and Romans, therefore, make independent contributions while simultaneously working together to advance scholarship on a much debated passage in one of history’s most important texts.

One of the greatest aesthetic attractions in the ancient world was pantomime dancing, a ballet-style entertainment in which a silent, solo dancer incarnated a series of mythological characters to the accompaniment of music and sung narrative. Looking at a multitude of texts and particularly Lucian's "On the Dance", a dialogue written at the height of pantomime's popularity, this innovative cultural study of the genre offers a radical reassessment of its importance in the symbolic economy of imperial and later antiquity. Rather than being trivial or lowbrow, pantomime was thoroughly enmeshed in wider social discourses on morality and sexuality, gender and desire and a key player in the fierce battles about education and culture that raged in the ancient world. A close reading of primary sources, judiciously interlaced with a wealth of interdisciplinary perspectives, makes this challenging book essential for anyone interested in the performance culture of the Greek and Roman world.

Declamations were composed and orally delivered in the Roman Empire by sophists, or teachers of rhetoric, of whom the Greek-speaking Libanius was one of the most distinguished. Stock Characters Speaking may be thought of as emerging from three developments of recent decades: an explosive interest in late antiquity, a newly sympathetic interest in rhetoric (including ancient declamation), and a desire to bring Libanius’s massive corpus into English and other modern languages. In this book, author Robert J. Penella translates eight of Libanius’s declamations: 29, 30, 34, 35, 37, 45, 46, 47, and, in an appendix, the thirteenth-century Gregory of Cyprus’s response to Declamation 34. Each translation is accompanied by an introduction, in which Penella examines the themes, structure, and the stasis, or key issue, of the declamations. Figures who appear in the translated declamations include a parasite who has lost his patron, a man envious of his rich neighbor, a miser’s son, a poor man willing to die for his city, a rich war-hero accused of aiming at tyranny, and a convict asking for exile. Three of these declamations have appeared in German; otherwise, these translations are the first into a modern language.

This monograph on the Homilies of the Byzantine emperor Leo VI (886-912) provides the first extensive analysis of a neglected corpus of secular and ecclesiastical speeches, and sheds new light on both the fascinating figure of the author and the development of Byzantine homiletics.