Description:

Further to the publication of Aristotle's Way (2019), which aimed to make Aristotle's secular ethics accessible to a wide audience beyond scholarly circles, Professor Edith Hall has won substantial grants to support two innovative research projects looking at the great philosopher from unconventional angles. The first assesses Aristotle, for the first time, as a literary author, asking how and why he alluded to other literary works, used imagery, and implemented the principles for writing persuasive prose laid out in his Rhetoric. The second project is an exercise in Classical Reception, investigating how, when and why Aristotle has been invoked in social and political arenas beyond the Academy since the English Restoration in 1660. The focus is on ethics, law, politics, rhetoric and natural science, and the documentation ranges from parliamentary debates to satirical cartoons, theatre and advertising.