Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

• Ethopoeia is the ancient Greek term for the creation of a character.
  
  Definition
  Ethopoeia, derived from the Greek ethos (character) and poeia (representation), is the ability to capture the ideas, words, and style of delivery suited to the person for whom an address is written. It also involves adapting a speech to the exact conditions under which it is to be spoken. In fact, while the argument can be made that the act of impersonating words, ideas and style to an audience is the most important factor of ethopoeia, the audience and situational context have a huge impact on if the technique will actually work. A rhetor has to make sure they are impersonating a character the audience will find appealing. The rhetor also has to make sure the character they are playing is the right one for the situation they find themselves in.[4] Finally, ethopoeia is the art of discovering the exact lines of argument that will turn the case against the opponent.[5] Ethopoeia is largely related to impersonation, a progymnasmata exercise in which early students of rhetoric would compose a dialogue in the style of a person they chose to portray.

In ancient rhetorical theory, ethopoeia has been included from Aristotle as a reproducible quality among technical means of persuasion with which the speaker may introduce himself as an insightful, virtuous and benevolent person. Roman rhetoric introduced further refinement…

http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/e ... -e12221700

"Ethopoeia, literally, “character making” (ethos, “character” + poiein, “to make”), is commonly described as dramatic characterization, which involves the fitting or plausible representation of a speaker’s (or other character’s) distinctive traits.7"

Bruss, Kristine S. (2013) 'Persuasive Ethopoeia in Dionysius’s [of Halicarnassus’] Lysias' Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric, Vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 34-57. (published by: University of California Press on behalf of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric

7 Jakob Wisse calls this the “modern sense” of ethopoeia. See Ethos and Pathos from Aristotle to Cicero (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1989), 58, n. 233

• Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric whose history of Rome is, with Livy’s, the most valuable source from early Roman history. This work, called Rhōmaïke archaiologia ('Roman Antiquities'), treats Rome from its origins to the First Punic War. Though clearly written from a pro-Roman standpoint, it was carefully researched.
  
  http://www.britannica.com/biography/Dio ... icarnassus
  
  Rhōmaïke archaiologia ('Roman Antiquities') -- http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/R ... /home.html

"Ethopoeia, literally, “character making” (ethos, “character” + poiein, “to make”), is commonly described as dramatic characterization, which involves the fitting or plausible representation of a speaker’s (or other characters') distinctive traits."

Bruss, Kristine S. (2013) 'Persuasive Ethopoeia in Dionysius’s [of Halicarnassus’] Lysias' Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric, Vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 34-57. (published by: University of California Press on behalf of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric

• that "Ethopoeia deals with a real person and only invents the character of the person" (top p.143). In the previous sentence (bottom p.142) he had said ethopoeia refers to imitation (μίμησις; mimesis) of the character of the person speaking (citing Hermogenes, Progymnasmasta 20, Aphthonius Progymnasmasta 44). Small notes that "ethopoeia can contain either definite or 'indefinite persons'." and "they can also be single, when one 'person' speaks alone, or double, when one 'person' speaks to another".

• Prosopopoeia "personifies things or non-existent persons." Hence it is "person-making" since both the person and the character are created simultaneously (also citing Hermogenes, Progymnasmasta 20, Aphthonius Progymnasmasta 44)". [This seems to be anthropomprhism].