Abstract

SVERDLOFF, Mariano. Rhetoric of Decadence: Speeches Topics on Decline since Antiquity to Modernity. Nova tellus [online]. 2015, vol.32, n.2, pp.9-55. ISSN 0185-3058.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the topics of the discourse about decadence, a discourse which, as it is known, can be traced in many ancient and modern historical, philosophical and literary sources. Our investigation, which takes as its starting point the works of Edwards 2002, Freund 1984, Le Goff 1991, Lovejoy-Boas 1997, Momigliano 1984 and Starn 1975, contends that ‘decadence’ is not a process that actually operates in human reality, but a metaphor used to interpret historical change. We will thus not attempt to describe a supposedly existing ‘decadence’, but the various ways in which discourses about decadence have been used to interpret historical, social or literary phenomena.

Keywords : Decadence; Fall of Rome; Topics; History.

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