Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
It will suffice for our purpose that there are a number of problems which it is difficult to solve in any other way, which are as a rule solved by these linear demonstrations, such as the method of division, section to infinity, [*]( Quintilian is perhaps referring to the measurement of the area of an irregular figure by dividing it into a number of small equal and regular figures the size of which was calculable. ) and the ratio of increase in velocity. From this we may conclude that, if as we shall show in the next book an orator has to speak on every kind of subject, he can under no circumstances dispense with a knowledge of geometry.
XI. The comic actor will also claim a certain amount of our attention, but only in so far as our future orator must be a master of the art of delivery. For I do not of course wish the boy, whom we are training to this end, to talk with the shrillness of a woman or in the tremulous accents of old age.
Nor for that matter must he ape the vices of the
Nor yet again must we adopt all the gestures and movements of the actor. Within certain limits the orator must be a master of both, but he must rigorously avoid staginess and all extravagance of facial expression, gesture and gait. For if an orator does command a certain art in such matters, its highest expression will be in the concealment of its existence. What then is the duty of the teacher whom we have borrowed from the stage?
In the first place he must correct all faults of pronunciation, and see that the utterance is distinct, and that each letter has its proper sound. There is an unfortunate tendency in the case of some letters to pronounce them either too thinly or too fully, while some we find too harsh and fail to pronounce sufficiently, substituting others whose sound is similar but somewhat duller.
For instance, lambda is substituted for rho, a letter which was always a stumbling-block to Demosthenes; our l and r have of course the same value. [*]( The mis-spelling of flagro as fraglo exemplifies the confusion to which Quintilian refers. A similar, though correct, substitution is found in lavacrum for lavaclum, etc. See Lindsay, Lat. Langu., pp. 92 ff. ) Similarly when c and g are not given their full value, they are softened into t and d.
Again our teacher must not tolerate the affected pronunciation of s [*]( Quintilian perhaps alludes to the habit of prefixing i to initial st, sp, sc found in inscriptions of the later Empire. See Lindsay, op. cit. p. 102. ) with which we are painfully familiar, nor suffer words to be uttered from the depths of the throat or
when the stops which produce the treble notes are closed, and a bass note is produced through the main aperture only.
He will also see that final syllables are not clipped, that the quality of speech is continuously maintained, that when the voice is raised, the strain falls upon the lungs and not the mouth, and that gesture and voice are mutually appropriate.
He will also insist that the speaker faces his audience, that the lips are not distorted nor the jaws parted to a grin, that the face is not thrown back, nor the eyes fixed on the ground, nor the neck slanted to left or right. For there are a variety of faults of facial expression. I have seen many, who raised their brows whenever the voice was called upon for an effort,
others who wore a perpetual frown, and yet others who could not keep their eyebrows level, but raised one towards the top of the head and depressed the other till it almost closed the eye.
These are details, but as I shall shortly show, they are of enormous importance, for nothing that is unbecoming can have a pleasing effect.
Our actor will also be required to show how a narrative should be delivered, and to indicate the authoritative tone that should be given to advice, the excitement which should mark the rise of anger, and the change of tone that is characteristic of pathos. The best method of so doing is to select special passages from comedy appropriate for the