Demosthenic Scholarship

Abstract

Chapter 1 discusses the range of scholarship dealing with Demosthenes’ life and work, published in three distinct periods: from the eighteenth century to 1945, from 1945 to the late 1990s, and during the last twenty years. Before World War II, work on Demosthenes focused on the constitution and translation of the text on the one hand, and on the political judgement—often one-sided and heavily influenced by the contemporary outlook—of Demosthenes the politician on the other hand. After the war political interpretation, and interest in oratory in general, waned, whereas the last two decades have seen a new surge of research on Demosthenes, with particular prominence of high-standard commentaries.