Attic Oratory Style

Both styles influenced writers and speakers in rome and much later in britain.

Attic oratory style.

Oratory eventually became a central subject of study in the formalized greek education system. Attic style or atticism the style of oratory or prose writing associated with the speeches of the great attic i. Although the quote from quintilian above gives us three distinct styles most commentators have rolled them into two. The forensic and the grand styles.

The asiatic style or asianism latin. This text was converted to electronic form by professional data entry and has been proofread to a medium level of accuracy. By the 2nd cent. The rhetoric of seeing in attic forensic oratory recognizes that the oratory of the courts is one ofthe premier performance genres of classical athens.

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. 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. Attic would resurface again as the ideal suggesting a more ascetic brief and witty concise style. The orator should use the plain style to instruct the grand style to move the intermediate style to charm.

Writers like matthew arnold made use of an attic prose style while the more florid asiatic style had its proponents as well. The attic orators from antiphon to isaeos. 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. So this entry would be better entitled speech writers active in athens which is what all ten.

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. Oratory eventually became a central subject of study in the formalized greek education system. The appendix to the third volume of blass attic oratory is a monumental piece of work. Argument was continued by isocrates a 4th century bce educator and rhetorician.

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.