‘Classical Greece’ was initially a product of the fourth century, but a sense of uniqueness and difference (newness) can easily be traced even earlier, in the literature of post-Persian-war Athens. This WP is interested in the cognitive aspects of the construction of ‘Classical Greece’, and in the ways in which it was distinguished as a historical period through ‘lumping and splitting’. One area of interest is the shaping of Classical Greece in rhetorical prose of the fourth century. But this WP also studies the self-perception of uniqueness and difference in the ‘Classical Period’ itself. Areas of interest include cognitive aspects of ancient drama (for example, related to different forms in which characters deal with newness and crises as positive or negative models for the audience); the literary imagination of inventors and inventions; the anchors of the ‘new lyric’ of the fifth century; and religious innovations and their anchors.
In its interest in cognition and linguistics/rhetoric, it is related to WP 10; for religious innovation it is related to WP 11.
Research question(s):
- How was classical Athens constructed (cognitively, linguistically, rhetorically) between 479 and 323, and how can ‘anchoring’ provide a new lens on this process?
- Is it possible to expand and strengthen the linguistic agenda of Anchoring Innovation on the basis of, and beyond, the concept of common ground?
