ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the habit of responding imaginatively to the written or spoken word forms a vital part of the background to the teaching and use of ekphrasis in rhetorical contexts. Interest in ancient art and aesthetics was a vital impetus to the creation of the modern definition of ekphrasis. The ancient discussions of ekphrasis define it as a type of speech that creates immaterial images in the mind. The precise language used by the scholars suggests that their interest in ekphraseis of works of art was stimulated as much by contemporary aesthetic concerns as by the popularity of works of art and architecture as subjects for ekphrasis among Lucian and his contemporaries. The chapter explains the ancient category of ekphrasis and the assumptions that underlay it by appealing to a wider range of rhetorical texts and discovering what could be called the poetics of ancient rhetorical theory.
