Definition:
The art of public speaking. See also:
- Definitions of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece and Rome
- The Parts of a Speech
- Epideictic Oratory
- Deliberative Oratory
- Judicial Oratory
- The Gettysburg Address, by Abraham Lincoln
- The Second Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln
- On Women's Right to Vote, by Susan B. Anthony
- The Atlanta Compromise Address, by Booker T. Washington
- The Inaugural Address of John F. Kennedy
- I Have a Dream, by Martin Luther King, Jr.
- The Inaugural Address of Barack Obama
Etymology:
From the Latin, "speak"Observations:
- "There is to my mind no more excellent thing than the power, by means of oratory, to get a hold on assemblies of men, win their good will, direct their inclinations wherever the speaker wishes, or divert them from whatever he wishes. In every free nation, and most of all in communities which have attained the enjoyment of peace and tranquility, this one art has always flourished above the rest and ever reigned supreme."
(Crassus in De Oratore, by Cicero, 55 BC) - "[The] feeling that oratory is in a steep (and perhaps irreversible) decline is a recurrent theme in western rhetoric. Leading historian and rhetoricians of the first century AD--the elder Seneca, Tacitus, Quintilian, 'Longinus'--were united in the belief that oratory had lost its former glories, though they gave different reasons to account for that decline."
(Michael Edwards and Christopher Reid, Introduction to Oratory in Action, Manchester University Press, 2004) - "There is no power like that of true oratory. Caesar controlled men by exciting their fears; Cicero, by captivating their affections and swaying their passions. The influence of the one perished with its author; that of the other continues to this day."
(Senator Henry Clay)
Pronunciation: OR-eh-tor-ee
