Crossword clues for declamation
declamation
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Declamation \Dec`la*ma"tion\, n. [L. declamatio, from declamare: cf. F. d['e]clamation. See Declaim.]
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The act or art of declaiming; rhetorical delivery; haranguing; loud speaking in public; especially, the public recitation of speeches as an exercise in schools and colleges; as, the practice declamation by students.
The public listened with little emotion, but with much civility, to five acts of monotonous declamation.
--Macaulay. A set or harangue; declamatory discourse.
Pretentious rhetorical display, with more sound than sense; as, mere declamation.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
late 14c., from Latin declamationem (nominative declamatio), noun of action from past participle stem of declamare (see declaim).
Wiktionary
n. 1 The act or art of declaiming; rhetorical delivery; haranguing; loud speaking in public; especially, the public recitation of speeches as an exercise in schools and colleges; as, the practice declamation by students. 2 A set or harangue; declamatory discourse. 3 Pretentious rhetorical display, with more sound than sense; as, mere declamation.
WordNet
n. vehement oratory
recitation of a speech from memory with studied gestures and intonation as an exercise in elocution or rhetoric
Wikipedia
Declamation or declamatio ( Latin for "declaration") was a genre of ancient rhetoric and a mainstay of the Roman higher education system. It was separated into two component subgenres, the controversia, speeches of defense or prosecution in fictitious court cases, and the suasoria, in which the speaker advised a historical or legendary figure as to a course of action. Roman declamations survive in four corpora: the compilations of Seneca the Elder and Calpurnius Flaccus, as well as two sets of controversiae, the Major Declamations and Minor Declamations spuriously attributed to Quintilian.
Declamation had its origin in the form of preliminary exercises for Greek students of rhetoric: works from the Greek declamatory tradition survive in works such as the collections of Sopater and Choricius of Gaza. Of the remaining Roman declamations the vast majority are controversiae; only one book of suasoriae survive, that being in Seneca the Elder's collection. The controversia as they currently exist normally consist of several elements: an imaginary law, a theme which introduced a tricky legal situation, and an argument which records a successful or model speech on the topic. It was normal for students to employ illustrative exempla from Roman history and legend (such as were collected in the work of Valerius Maximus) to support their case. Important points were often summed up via pithy epigrammatic statements (sententiae). Common themes include ties of fidelity between fathers and sons, heroes and tyrants in the archaic city, and conflicts between rich and poor men.
As a critical part of rhetorical education, declamation's influence was widespread in Roman elite culture. In addition to its didactic role, it is also attested as a performative genre: public declamations were visited by such figures as Pliny the Elder, Asinius Pollio, Maecenas, and the emperor Augustus. The poet Ovid is recorded by Seneca the Elder as being a star declaimer, and the works of the satirists Martial and Juvenal, as well as the historian Tacitus, reveal a substantial declamatory influence.
Later examples of declamation can be seen in the work of the sixth century AD bishop and author Ennodius.
Usage examples of "declamation".
No scholar and a sparing attendant at lectures, he had nevertheless revealed a certain predilection for the subjects which Mr Lammas professed, had won a prize for debate in the Logic class, and in Rhetoric had shown a gift for declamation and a high-coloured taste in English style.
The best features of the institution were its unbounded freedom, the close democratic companionship of the students, the affectionate attachments formed, and the tremendous interest we took in the meetings of the Philomathean society for debates, and the reading of essays and poetry, exhibited also in a lesser degree in the Saturday declamations and compositions.
The extreme conclusions, peppery rhetoric, and passionate declamation of the leaders on both sides, who aim at sensation and victory, are surest to awaken the enthusiasm of the extremists, who always direct the admiring gaze of heir parasites to the favorite representatives of their own party, their scorn to the favorite representatives of the other party.
The state can add nothing more to her power or her security in her moral and spiritual warfare with sectarianism, and any attempt to give her more would only weaken her as against the sects, place her in a false light, partially justify their hostility to her, render effective their declamations against her, mix her up unnecessarily with political changes, interests, and passions, and distract the attention of her ministers from their proper work as churchmen, and impose on them the duties of politicians and statesmen.
The assurance it gives us of another life is a much stronger support to a good mind, than all the consolations that are drawn from the necessity of nature, the emptiness or satiety of our enjoyments here, or any other topic of those declamations which are sometimes capable of arming our minds with a stubborn patience in bearing the thoughts of death, but never of raising them to a real contempt of it, and much less of making us think it is a real good.
But anon, when the voices of his colleagues have become habitual in his ears--when the strangeness of the room is gone, and the table before him is known and trusted--he throws off his awe and dismay, and electrifies his brotherhood by the vehemence of his declamation and the violence of his thumping.
And, Sir, it must be allowed that Sheridan excels in plain declamation, though he can exhibit no character.
He allowed them no sway, and they passed leaving only a dull ache behind, but, without fanfare or declamation, his long-formed resolution to destroy the cause of this pointless and painful destruction reforged itself even as he laid the distress aside.
His mouth was now as effectually stopt, as that of quack must be, if, in the midst of a declamation on the great virtues of his pills and powders, the corpse of one of his martyrs should be brought forth, and deposited before the stage, as a testimony of his skill.
Some young men, amid the declamations of the throng, harnessed themselves and began to drag Lamarque in the hearse across the bridge of Austerlitz and Lafayette in a hackney-coach along the Quai Morland.
Come and confound the declamations of a false wisdom or hypocritical piety, and avenge the heavens and the earth of man who calumniates them both!
His language is of the declamatory kind: but declamation could scarcely exaggerate the avarice and luxury of the Romans.
Amateur acting--they get it up at church sociables nowadays--is apt to be as near nature as a school-boy's declamation.
The two factions competed in the hippodromes with their chariots, in the theatres of the Empire, with their poets' declamations and group chants, and-not at all infrequently-in the streets and alleyways with cudgels and blades.
Their understandings were bewildered in metaphysical controversy: in the belief of visions and miracles, they had lost all principles of moral evidence, and their taste was vitiates by the homilies of the monks, an absurd medley of declamation and Scripture.