Attic Oratory Style

The forensic and the grand styles.

Attic oratory style.

Following scholarly convention i call this type of oratory forensic using the latin termfor activity connected with courts of law. The national endowment for the humanities provided support for entering this text. The work of the attic orators inspired the later rhetorical movement of atticism an approach to speech composition in a simple rather than ornate style. This text was converted to electronic form by professional data entry and has been proofread to a medium level of accuracy.

Attic style or atticism the style of oratory or prose writing associated with the speeches of the great attic i. Genus orationis asiaticum cicero brutus 325 refers to an ancient greek rhetorical tendency though not an organized school that arose in the third century bc which although of minimal relevance at the time briefly became an important point of reference in later debates about roman oratory. Ad there was a list of ten athenian orators lysias isaeus hyperīdēs isocratēs dīnarchus aeschinēs 1 antiphōn lycurgus andocidēs dēmosthenēs 2 whose classic status was recognized. Argument was continued by isocrates a 4th century bce educator and rhetorician.

The attic orators from antiphon to isaeos. Writers like matthew arnold made use of an attic prose style while the more florid asiatic style had its proponents as well. Paradoxically lysias isaeus and dinarchus being metics could not deliver speeches to athenian juries or to the assembly and isocrates never addressed a large audience. The asiatic style or asianism latin.

Attic would resurface again as the ideal suggesting a more ascetic brief and witty concise style. Oratory eventually became a central subject of study in the formalized greek education system. Although the quote from quintilian above gives us three distinct styles most commentators have rolled them into two. The work of the attic orators inspired the later rhetorical movement of atticism an approach to speech composition emphasizing a simple rather than ornate style.

It consists of an analysis of the first seventeen sections of the de corona and the whole of the first olynthiac and third philippic speeches and conveys the impression that this demosthenic prose may be scanned with almost as much certainty as a comparatively simple form of composition like a pindaric ode. So this entry would be better entitled speech writers active in athens which is what all ten. The appendix to the third volume of blass attic oratory is a monumental piece of work. The orator should use the plain style to instruct the grand style to move the intermediate style to charm.

By the 2nd cent.