Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.

Declamation therefore should resemble the truth, since it is modelled on forensic and deliberative oratory. On the other hand it also involves an element of display, and should in consequence assume a certain air of elegance.

In this connexion I may cite the practice of comic actors, whose delivery is not exactly that of common speech, since that would be inartistic, but is on the other hand not

v1-3 p.279

far removed from the accents of nature, for, if it were, their mimicry would be a failure: what they do therefore is to exalt the simplicity of ordinary speech by a touch of stage decoration.