Dances of Style and Cultures of Movement in the Literary Criticism of Longinus and Dionysius of Halicarnassus

Abstract

summary: One task of the Greek literary critic was to help his reader understand how style moves audiences. This paper explores the implications of such a task and thereby reveals how Greco-Roman dance traditions were reflected by and embedded in conceptualizations of verbal art in antiquity. Kinaesthetics—a system of physiological and psychological responses to movement—is offered as the key to unlocking style’s kinetic essence and the far-reaching influences of performance over theories of verbal art. As the criticism of Longinus and Dionysius of Halicarnassus demonstrates, dance offered aesthetic lessons that could be translated into a variety of contexts.