Declamation

Declamation (from the Latin: declamatio) is an artistic form of public speaking. It is a dramatic oration designed to express through articulation, emphasis and gesture the full sense of the text being conveyed.

Declamation (from the Latin: declamatio) is an artistic form of public speaking. It is a dramatic oration designed to express through articulation, emphasis and gesture the full sense of the text being conveyed. ==History== ===Classic revival=== In the eighteenth century, a classical revival of the art of public speaking, often referred to as The Elocution Movement occurred in Britain. While elocution focused on the voice—articulation, diction, and pronunciation—declamation focused on delivery. Rather than a narrow focus on rhetoric, or persuasion, practitioners involved in the movement focused on improving speech and gesture to convey the full sentiment of the message. Traditionally, practitioners of declamation served in the clergy, legislature or law, but by the nineteenth century, the practice had extended to theatrical and reformist venues. Initially, the aim was to improve the standard of oral communication, as high rates of illiteracy made it imperative for churches, courts and parliaments, to rely on the spoken word. Through modification of inflection and phrasing, along with appropriate gestures, speakers were taught to convey the meaning and persuade the audience, rather than deliver monotonous litanies. In 1841, Italian scientist Luca de Samuele Cagnazzi introduced the tonograph, a device invented by him and capable of measuring the inflections and tones of human voice. It was meant to be employed inside declamation schools and it provided a way to record some characteristics of human voice, in order to provide the posterity with enough information on how declamation was carried out at that time. In the eighteenth century, the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres of Paris had unsuccessfully tried to distinguish between smaller fractions of the diatonic and harmonic scales. His perpetual secretary Charles Pinot Duclos wrote that Jean-Baptiste Dubos had proposed to hire a team of experts in the field of music, in order to carry out that task, but they didn't succeed (since no device was used and humans cannot distinguish between smaller fractions of scales without a proper device). By the mid-nineteenth century, reformers were using the "art of declamation" to publicly address vice and provide moral guidance. In the Americas, missionary-run schools focused on teaching former slaves the art of public speaking to enable them to elevate others of their race as teachers and ministers. Using drama as a tool to teach, reformers hoped to standardize the spoken word, while creating a sense of national pride. Studies and presentation of declamation flourished in Latin America and particularly in the African-American and Afro-Caribbean communities through the first third of the twentieth century. Practitioners attempted to interpret their orations to convey the emotions and feeling behind the writer's words to the audience, rather than simply recite them. In the twentieth century, among black practitioners, topical focus often was on the irony of their lives in a post-slavery world, recognizing that they had gained freedom but were limited by racial discrimination. Presentation involved use of African rhythms from dance and music, and local dialect, as a form of social protest. ==See also== Eloquence Persuasion Spoken word ==References== ==Further reading== Amato, Eugenio, Francesco Citti, and Bart Huelsenbeck, eds. 2015. Law and Ethics in Greek and Roman Declamation. Berlin: DeGruyter. Bernstein, N. 2009. "Adoptees and Exposed Children in Roman Declamation: Commodification, Luxury, and the Threat of Violence." Classical Philology 104.3: 331–353. Bernstein, Neil W. 2013. Ethics, Identity, and Community in Later Roman Declamation. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. Bloomer, W. Martin. 2011. The School of Rome: Latin Studies and the Origins of Liberal Education. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press. Braund, Susanna Morton. 1997. "Declamation and Contestation in Satire." In Roman Eloquence: Rhetoric in Society and Literature. Edited by W. J. Dominik, 147–165. New York: Routledge. Dominik, William J., and Jon Hall. 2010. A Companion to Roman Rhetoric. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Frier, Bruce W. 1994. "Why did the Jurists Change Roman Law? Bees and Lawyers Revisited." Index 22: 135–149. Gunderson, Erik. 2003. Declamation, Paternity, and Roman Identity: Authority and the Rhetorical Self. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press. Imber, Margaret A. 2001. "Practised Speech: Oral and Written Conventions in Roman Declamation." In Speaking Volumes: Morality and Literacy in the Greek and Roman World. Edited by Janet Watson, 199–216. Leiden: Brill. Kaster, Robert A. 2001. "Controlling Reason: Declamation in Rhetorical Education." In Education in Greek and Roman Antiquity. Edited by Yun Lee Too, 317–337. Leiden: Brill. Kennedy, George A. 1994. A New History of Classical Rhetoric. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press. Knoch, Stefan. 2021. Die lateinische Deklamation [Latin Declamation]. Studienbücher Antike, vol. 17. Hildesheim: Olms, . Porter, Stanley E. 1997. Handbook of Classical Rhetoric In the Hellenistic Period, 330 B.C.- A.D. 400. Leiden: Brill. Russell, D. A. 1983. Greek Declamation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Walker, Jeffrey. 2011. The Genuine Teachers of this Art: Rhetorical Education in Antiquity. Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina Press. Winterbottom, Michael. 1983. "Schoolroom and Courtroom." In Rhetoric Revalued: Papers from the International Society for the History of Rhetoric. Edited by Brian Vickers, 59–70. Binghamton, N.Y.: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies.

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