Menander orator

Menander Rhetor (Greek Μένανδρος Ménandros , called "the speaker" to distinguish it from the comedy writer of the same name , also Menander von Laodikeia , Latin Menander Laodicensis ) was a late antique speaker and rhetoric theorist. He came from Laodikeia on Lykos and lived in Asia Minor in the late 3rd century . His works can be assigned to the Second Sophistic .

Little is known about Menander's life. There is a corresponding keyword in the Suda encyclopedia. Two theoretical writings on epideictics have survived under his name . However, the actual authorship is still controversial in research today. Other works are no longer known, but are increasingly being reconstructed (especially works on rhetorical status theory ).

The first theoretical writing on epideictics (breakdown of epideictics) offers a precise research tool for writing epideictic speeches. It deals with the first rhetorical production stages, the inventio and the preceding intellectio . The second epideictic writing (on epideictic speeches), on the other hand, is a practical handbook in the modern sense, which gives detailed instructions on inventio, dispositio and elocutio sorted according to the occasion of the speech. Both rhetoric scripts offer little innovation and their content falls within the framework of classic-ancient rhetoric. At the same time, however, they reflect the rhetorical practice of the time. Menander introduces the so-called Lalia as a rhetorical designation into rhetoric theory.

Text edition

• Donald Andrew Russell , Nigel Guy Wilson : Menander Rhetor. Edited with translation and commentary . Oxford 1981. ISBN 0-19-814013-4
• Kai Brodersen : Menandros Rhetor: Treatises on rhetoric. Greek and German . Library of Greek Literature 88. Stuttgart 2019. ISBN 978-3-7772-1934-9

literature

• Malcolm Heath : Menander. A rhetor in context . Oxford 2004. ISBN 0-19-925920-8
• Paweł Janiszewski: Menandros Rhetor. In: Paweł Janiszewski, Krystyna Stebnicka, Elżbieta Szabat: Prosopography of Greek Rhetors and Sophists of the Roman Empire. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-871340-1 , pp. 242 f.
• Laurent Pernot: Ménandre le Rhéteur. In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques . Volume 4, CNRS Éditions, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-271-06386-8 , pp. 433-438