Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism by Donald Lemen Clark
page 40 of 193 (20%)
page 40 of 193 (20%)
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law which never existed or could exist in actual society. The favorite
cases concerned the tyranny of fathers, the debauchery of sons, the adultery of wives, and the rape of daughters. In the procedure of the declamation schools the boys arose and delivered their speeches with frequent applause from the other students and from their parents. The master would criticise the speeches and, when the students had finished, would himself deliver a speech which was supposed to outshine those of his pupils and give promise of what he could teach them.[99] The utter unreality and hollowness of such rhetoric could show itself no better than in contrast with the practical oratory of the law courts. Albucius, a famous professor of the schools, once pleaded a case in court. Intending to amplify his peroration by a figure he said, "Swear, but I will prescribe the oath. Swear by the ashes of your father, which lie unburied. Swear by the memory of your father!" The attorney for the other side, a practical man, rose--"My client is going to swear," he said. "But I made no proposal," shouted Albucius, "I only employed a figure." The court sustained his opponent, whose client swore, and Albucius retired in shame to the more comfortable shades of the declamation schools, where figures were appreciated.[100] But in spite of the ridiculous performance of the professors of the schools when they did come out into the sunlight, in spite of the protests of Tacitus who complained justly that debased popular taste demanded poetical adornment of the orator,[101] style continued to be loved for its own sake, extravagant figures of speech were applauded, and verbal cleverness and point were strained for. As Bornecque has shown, the fact that the rhetoric of the declamation schools was so unreal, so preoccupied with imaginary cases, and so given over to attainment of stylistic brilliancy, in no small measure explains the loss in late Latin literature of the sense of structure. "It is not surprising," says Bornecque, "that during the first three centuries of the |
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