Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory: Delivered to the Classes of Senior and Junior Sophisters in Harvard University, Volume 1Before becoming President of the United States, John Quincy Adams was a Harvard professor of language, rhetoric and oratory, with this book comprising his lectures. Published in 1810 when Quincy Adams was in his forties, this work is a collection which demonstrates the breadth of knowledge which he passed to students eager to learn about the arts of speaking. The early lectures cover the basic principles of oratory and eloquence in the context of public speaking, and the origins of rhetoric as a celebrated art form in ancient Greece and Rome. It is clear that the author possesses an intense knowledge of the subject and its professional application. Later on in the text are more specific lectures, such as the importance of perfecting oratory for the courtroom, and the personal qualities a good speaker should cultivate. Keeping tight control of one's emotions when speaking or debating with others, and delivering compelling lectures from the church pulpit, are also discussed at length. Although this material is well over 200 years old with much of the language archaic by modern standards, the ideas and principles espoused by Quincy Adams remain both relevant and important to students and those working in fields where speech is vital. |
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... Deliberative oratory 253 LECT . XII . Judicial oratory 277 LECT . XIII . Judicial oratory 297 LECT . XIV . Eloquence of the pulpit 321 LECT . XV . Intellectual and moral qualities of an orator 343 · LECT . XVI . Excitation and ...
... of the de- liberation . In the only countries of modern Eu- rope , where the semblance of deliberative assem- blies has been preserved , corruption , here in the form of executive influence , there in the guise of 22 INAUGURAL ORATION .
... deliberative oratory , that can bear a comparison with those , transmitted down to us from antiquity . Religion indeed has opened one new avenue to the career of eloquence . Amidst the sacrific- es of paganism to her three hundred ...
... deliberative and judicial eloquence , all the arts of rhetoric have often been employed without producing per- suasion . This difficulty stands yet more conspicuously in the way of Cicero's definition , the art of per- suasion ; a ...
... deliberative discourses . That those , which referred to time past , consisted of controversies in the courts of law , respecting rights previously existing , or wrongs previously committed . This kind of public speaking he therefore ...