Breathing Pauses in Ancient Rhetoric, Virginia Woolf and Robert Musil

Join Dr Stefanie Heine (University of Toronto) in Durham to explore how breathing pauses convey rhythm in both the spoken and written word by comparing and contrasting ancient rhetoric with the work of early 20th Century modernist writers Robert Musil and Virginia Woolf.  The prose rhythm demanded by the ancient rhetoricians is structured by intervals, where the most crucial interval, the full stop, should be marked by a breathing pause. While the rhetoricians discuss breathing in the context of verbal delivery, Woolf and Musil use especially careful composition to highlight intervals for breath in the body of their texts.

This symposium is free to attend and refreshments will be provided. All welcome, no need to register.