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- Title
Pliny and the Dolphin—Or a Story about Storytelling.
- Authors
Stevens, Benjamin
- Abstract
This article compares the two parallel versions of the amazing dolphin story as narrated by Pliny the younger and Pliny the elder. It notes that Pliny the younger and his uncle Pliny the elder formulated the story during a dinner to serve as raw material (materiam) for the poem composition of his addressee Caninius. It focuses on the four close verbal parallels between the version of the story by Pliny the younger and Pliny the elder including amazing behavior, playing with swimmers, offering itself to be touched, and the anointed by oil and by the novelty of the author. It says that Pliny the younger describes the death of the dolphin in an artistic and dramatic way while Pliny the elder depicts its death in a realistic manner.
- Subjects
PLINY, the Elder, ca. 23-79; PLINY, the Younger, ca. 61-ca. 112; DOLPHINS in literature; PARALLELISM (Linguistics); STORYTELLERS; STUDY &; teaching of storytelling; COMPOSITION (Language arts); LITERARY style
- Publication
Arethusa, 2009, Vol 42, Issue 2, p161
- ISSN
0004-0975
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1353/are.0.0021