Nineteenth-century classical scholar Friedrich Wilhelm Blass wrote over 300 densely annotated pages on Isocrates, an ancient Athenian schoolmaster and political essayist. A lengthy section of Blass' Die attische Beredsamkeit (1898) has been excerpted here and translated into English for the first time. The excerpt involves Blass' inventory of the Isocratic canon, an argument for the existence of a lost Isocratic rhetoric (techne), and an illustration of what that lost rhetoric likely contained. A translator's prologue discusses the value of both Isocrates and Blass to the study of classical rhetoric. Blass' work is also contrasted with the work of his British contemporary, R. C. Jebb.Blass' commentary on Isocrates requires of its readers a fluency in the technical terminology of classical rhetoric and a patience, perhaps a passion, for difficult rhetorical style. Blass frequently exercises in his writing the Isocratic principles and schemata he discusses. The English translation here, in order to preserve that trait in Blass' personal style, often approaches rhetorical replication of the original German text. Hence it becomes, to a certain extent, as much a simulacrum rhetoricum as a translation.In his text, Blass exposes a traditional misunderstanding of Isocrates that has resulted in a lack of appreciation for his overall contribution. We too often judge the Isocratic canon's value based either upon orations Isocrates constructed early in his career, before he matured in his art, or upon ones he composed late in his life, when he was in his eighties and nineties and becoming a bit senile. As a result, the merit of Isocrates' work during his most influential period, his middle age, is often ignored.The quality of the entire Isocratic canon must be carefully examined, Blass maintains, before its author or his work can be accurately judged. Accordingly, Isocrates' rhetoric is illustrated here as it evolved throughout his career. Blass' examination includes more detailed rhetorical explications than any other treatise currently available in English. / Department of English

In seventeenth-century France a new type of theatre was established to correspond to the ideals and taste of the dominant social group. As part of the process a particular ideal was forged for the new-style actor. Moulded by classical writings on acting and actors which suggested that the; style of serious, cultured acting operated within the same aesthetic as that of oratorical delivery, this ideal similarly identified refined acting with principles of pronuntiatio and the bienséance acceptable in contemporary formal discourse As a result of this identification no separate art of acting was considered necessary in seventeenth-century France, the rules and principles of expression of emotion in oratorical delivery being accepted as valid for serious acting. It is to these rules and. principles therefore that recourse must be made if the style of seventeenth-century acting and the approach of the actor at this period are to be appreciated. Study of seventeenth-century French treatises on oratorical delivery indicates the extent to which expression of emotion was considered to require study and practise of basic principal which would enable the speaker to evoke a particular passion by appropriately moving tones and accompanying gesture, and yet at the same time remain within a socially-acceptable range. Interpretation of seventeenth-century writings Oil actors and acting in light of these principles highlights the declamatory nature of serious acting of this period. The actor was understood to approach his role with a view to representing and thus exciting passions through effective vocal variation and suitably decorous accompanying gesture (body-language). Attention was focused upon the actor's voice, upon his moving tones and cadences, and upon the grace with which he used his body to reinforce such emotional portrayal. During the eighteenth century this conception-of acting and the style it had produced were called into question. Acting began to evolve its own aesthetic, an aesthetic based upon impersonation of character through personal identification and experience of the effects of emotion in real life. Study of rules to regulate emotional expression and imitation of the best models were abandoned in favour of cultivation of artistic sensibility: recourse to the imagination and personal sensitivity. In the process emphasis shifted from the voice to non-linguistic ways of showing feeling on the stage, and gestural expression released itself from subjection to social bienséance and enriched its range and potential. Evidence of these trends as well as fidelity to or reaction against principles of bienséance may be traced in writings on acting and delivery of the first half of the eighteenth century. At the beginning of the century acting theory was still rooted in and patterned on the model of pronuntiatio. By 1750 it had established its worth as an independent art with principles more directly based upon the dramatic experience.

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Mon étude a pour objet la dimension persuasive qui est présente au sein de l’historiographie ancienne et qui est au cœur de nombreuses discussions sur la nature de l’histoire dans l’Antiquité. Au travers de lectures comparées d’une série d’extraits parallèles tirés des œuvres de l’historien grec Polybe (± 208 - ± 126 avant J.-C.) et de l’historien latin Tite-Live (64 ou 59 avant J.-C. - 17 après J.-C.), en s’appuyant sur les théories anciennes et contemporaines de la rhétorique, ma recherche permet de mieux comprendre comment l’historien ancien exploite les ressources de l’argumentation pour rendre son propos crédible et vraisemblable, mais aussi pour orienter la vision du lecteur et le faire adhérer à certaines conclusions. <p> / Doctorat en Langues et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Although it is generally acknowledged that an Elizabethan grammar school education was intensely oral and aural, few studies have approached the literature of its pupils principally in light of such an understanding. There may be good reason for this paucity, since the reading of textual remains in the hopes of reconstituting sound and movement—particularly in non-dramatic literature—will always, in the end, be confronted by an inaudible and static text. Yet for the Elizabethan schoolboy, composition and performance were inseparable, whether of an epistle, a theme, or a translation of Latin poetry. The purpose of this project is firstly to describe the conditions which led to and ingrained that inseparability, and then offer some readings of the poetry, oratory, and drama of those whose voices and pens were trained in the grammar school, here Merchant Taylors’ School in 1560s London. Edmund Spenser, Lancelot Andrewes, and Thomas Kyd all attended Merchant Taylors’ in this period, and their poetry, sermons, and drama, respectively, are treated in the following discussion. It is argued that their texts reflect the same preoccupation with pronuntiatio et actio, or rhetorical delivery, held by their boyhood schoolmaster, Richard Mulcaster. I suggest that delivery provides a unique way of assessing literature in the context of an oral/aural education, largely because its classical and Renaissance rules invariably stipulate that vocal and gestural modulations must follow the emotional and intentional sense of words rather than their literal meanings. Delivery is thus shown to exist at the nexus of orality and literacy, performance and text, wholly absorbed with the concerns of speech, but distinct from language as well. In imagining the physicality of this middle ground within their narratives, it is proposed that Mulcaster’s students recalled an education very often spent stirring the emotions with and for their bodily expression.