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Rhetoric
oratory
oratory, the art of swaying an audience by eloquent speech. In ancient Greece and Rome oratory was included under the term rhetoric, which meant the art of composing as well as delivering a speech. Oratory first appeared in the law courts of Athens and soon became important in all areas of life. It was taught by the Sophists. The Ten Attic Orators (listed by Alexandrine critics) were Antiphon, Andocides, Lysias, Isocrates, Isaeus, Aeschines, Demosthenes, Lycurgus, Hyperides, and Dinarchus. Classic Rome's great orators were Cato the Elder, Mark Antony, and Cicero.
The theory of rhetoric was discussed by Aristotle and Quintilian; and three main classes of oratory were later designated by classical rhetoricians: (a) deliberative—to persuade an audience (such as a legislature) to approve or disapprove a matter of public policy; (b) forensic—to achieve (as in a trial) condemnation or approval for a person's actions; (c) epideictic—
"display rhetoric"
used on ceremonial occasions. Rhetoric was included in the medieval liberal arts curriculum. In subsequent centuries oratory was utilized in three main areas of public life—politics, religion, and law. During the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Reformation, oratory was generally confined to the church, which produced such soul-searing orators as Savanorola, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Knox.
With the development of parliaments in the 18th cent., great political orators appeared—Charles James Fox, Edmund Burke, Henry Gratten, and Daniel O'Connell in England and Ireland; Patrick Henry and James Otis in the United States; and Danton and Mirabeau in France. Because these politicians usually spoke to men of their own class and education, their orations were often complex and erudite, abounding in classical allusions. In the 19th cent., the rise of Methodism and evangelical religions produced great preachers like John Wesley and George Whitefield who addressed a wide audience of diverse classes of people. Their sermons, replete with biblical allusions and appeals to the emotions, profoundly influenced the oratorical style of many politicians. Famous 19th cent. orators included Disraeli and John Bright in England, Charles Stewart Parnell in Ireland, Lamartine in France, Ferdinand Lasalle in Germany, Louis Kossuth in Hungary, and Joseph Mazzini in Italy. Great American orators included Abraham Lincoln, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, Stephen Douglas, and Henry Ward Beecher.
In the 20th cent., orators made frequent use of the
"catch phrase"
(e.g., William Jennings Bryan's
"cross of gold"
speech). Noted orators in the first half of the 20th cent. were Bryan, Eugene Debs, Susan B. Anthony, and Woodrow Wilson in the United States, Lenin and Trotsky in Russia, and David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill in England. The bombastic oratorical style of Hitler and Mussolini, inevitably associated with their discredited political ideologies, brought grandiloquent oratory into disrepute. The advent of radio forced oratory to become more intimate and conversational, as in the
"fireside chats"
of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Television forced additional demands on the orator (usually now called the public speaker), who not only had to sound good but also had to look good. Still, most politicians, notably Adlai E. Stevenson and John F. Kennedy, succeeded in utilizing the ubiquitous television camera to heighten the impact of their speeches. The particular effectiveness of great oratory was movingly demonstrated in 1963 when the civil-rights leader Martin Luther King delivered his
"I have a dream"
speech to an audience of 200,000 people in Washington, D.C., and to millions more listening to him on radio and watching him on television.
Selected full-text books and articles on this topic at Questia
Philosophy, Rhetoric and Argumentation
Maurice Natanson; Henry W. Johnstone Jr. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1965
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Maurice Natanson; Henry W. Johnstone Jr. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1965
The Classical Theory of Composition: From Its Origins to the Present: A Historical Survey
Aldo Scaglione. University of North Carolina Press, 1972
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Aldo Scaglione. University of North Carolina Press, 1972
The Rise of Rhetoric and Its Intersections with Contemporary Critical Thought
Omar Swartz. Westview Press, 1998
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Omar Swartz. Westview Press, 1998
Comparative Rhetoric: An Historical and Cross-Cultural Introduction
George A. Kennedy. Oxford University Press, 1998
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George A. Kennedy. Oxford University Press, 1998
The Contemporary Reception of Classical Rhetoric: Appropriations of Ancient Discourse
Kathleen E. Welch. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1990
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Kathleen E. Welch. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1990
Rhetoric Retold: Regendering the Tradition from Antiquity through the Renaissance
Cheryl Glenn. Southern Illinois University Press, 1997
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Cheryl Glenn. Southern Illinois University Press, 1997
Descartes and the Resilience of Rhetoric: Varieties of Cartesian Rhetorical Theory
Thomas M. Carr Jr. Southern Illinois University Press, 1990
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Thomas M. Carr Jr. Southern Illinois University Press, 1990
The Rhetoric of Blair, Campbell, and Whately
James L. Golden; Edward P. J. Corbett. Southern Illinois University (System), 1990
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James L. Golden; Edward P. J. Corbett. Southern Illinois University (System), 1990
Oratorical Culture in Nineteenth-Century America: Transformations in the Theory and Practice of Rhetoric
Gregory Clark; S. Michael Halloran. Southern Illinois University Press, 1993
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Gregory Clark; S. Michael Halloran. Southern Illinois University Press, 1993
Twentieth-Century Rhetorics and Rhetoricians: Critical Studies and Sources
Michael G. Moran; Michelle Ballif. Greenwood Press, 2000
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Michael G. Moran; Michelle Ballif. Greenwood Press, 2000
The Difference Satire Makes: Rhetoric and Reading from Jonson to Byron
Fredric V. Bogel. Cornell University Press, 2001
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Fredric V. Bogel. Cornell University Press, 2001