Daniele Guastini

Abstract

Since the end of the 1^st and up to the beginning of the 3^rd century AD, ekphrasis and typology – literary genres whose most ancient premonitory signs date back the first to the archaic Greek era and the second to the tradition of the Jewish world – met a concomitant phase of systematization. Such a process led these literary genres to be qualified among the most typical expressions of the Hellenistic-Roman as well as the Christian culture, while those cultures were coming into an open conflict in that very period. By analyzing the temporal logic behind those two symbolic practices, the article aims at identifying the deep differences inspiring the rhetorical system of ekphrasis as well as of typology, so to bring their categories back to the horizon of thought and the semantic structure that divides the Pagan from the Christian culture.

Daniele Guastini teaches history of Aesthetics at Università «La Sapienza» of Rome. He is emeritus fellow of Fondazione Valla. Among his books: Prima dell’estetica. Poetica e filosofia nell’antichità (Laterza, Rome 2004²); Philia e amicizia. Il concetto classico di philia e le sue trasformazioni (NEU, 2008) and a new italian translation and commentary of Aristotle Poetics (Carocci, Rome 2010).