Demosthenes and the Greek Oral Culture in the Framework of Semiotic Textology. An Application of János Sándor Petőfi’s Theory to Classical Greek Literature

Abstract

The intention of this paper is to show how Semiotic Textology, the theory elaborated by the Hungarian linguist János Sándor Petőfi, can be applied to a determinate case study. In order to perform this task, firstly the main aspects of the theoretical framework are presented and some specific aspects concerning the application to verbal texts are noted. Secondly an ancient text of Classical Greek Literature is analyzed within the above-mentioned framework. The text is the "On the Peace" speech (Περὶ τῆς Εἰρήνης) composed by the Attic orator Demosthenes. Of the 25 paragraphs of the speech (divided in 3 different sections) only paragraphs 1-12 are considered, in order to evidence some interesting mechanisms of suasion technique employed by the Classical Greek politician. Furthermore the Canonical Represen-tation of paragraphs 1-4 is shown, in order to deal with the so-called Vertical Compo-sitional Organization and to discuss the stringency relation of the text. Due to this, it appears clear that Semiotic Textology tries to investigate texts by means of an ap-propriate and intersubjectively verifiable methodology which makes use of fixed steps. It is shown that theoretical text processing according to Petőfi’s view is an at-tempt to put at the centre of the interpretation process the "text": it is an activity that is not an exclusively grammatical task, because an Interpreter needs many contextual interpretation hypotheses dependent on the communicative situations and the culture of the historical period of the textual author.