Oratory
I have a dream... Four score and seven years ago... It's not a fluke that these phrases came to be so widely known and remembered. Truly great and persuasive speeches elicit strong emotional reactions in their audiences and may have broad historical repercussions. Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech and Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, quoted above, are two iconic examples of successful oratory, as are Elizabeth I's speech to the troops at Tilbury and Winston Churchill's first speech as prime minister to the House of Commons.
Oratory Encyclopedia Articles
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St. Augustine
St. Augustine, ; feast day August 28), bishop of Hippo from 396 to 430, one of the Latin Fathers of the Church and perhaps the most significant Christian thinker after St. Paul. Augustine’s adaptation...
St. Ambrose
St. Ambrose, ; feast day December 7), bishop of Milan, biblical critic, doctor of the church, and initiator of ideas that provided a model for medieval conceptions of church–state relations. His literary...
Isocrates
Isocrates, ancient Athenian orator, rhetorician, and teacher whose writings are an important historical source on the intellectual and political life of the Athens of his day. The school he founded differed...
oratory
Oratory, the rationale and practice of persuasive public speaking. It is immediate in its audience relationships and reactions, but it may also have broad historical repercussions. The orator may become...
Tecumseh
Tecumseh, Shawnee Indian chief, orator, military leader, and advocate of intertribal Indian alliance who directed Indian resistance to white rule in the Ohio River valley. In the War of 1812 he joined...
Quintilian
Quintilian, Latin teacher and writer whose work on rhetoric, Institutio oratoria, is a major contribution to educational theory and literary criticism. Quintilian was born in northern Spain, but he was...
John Donne
John Donne, leading English poet of the Metaphysical school and dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London (1621–31). Donne is often considered the greatest love poet in the English language. He is also noted...
Tacitus
Tacitus, Roman orator and public official, probably the greatest historian and one of the greatest prose stylists who wrote in the Latin language. Among his works are the Germania, describing the Germanic...
Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet
Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, bishop who was the most eloquent and influential spokesman for the rights of the French church against papal authority. He is now chiefly remembered for his literary works, including...
Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau
Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, French politician and orator, one of the greatest figures in the National Assembly that governed France during the early phases of the French Revolution. A moderate...
Daniel Webster
Daniel Webster, American orator and politician who practiced prominently as a lawyer before the U.S. Supreme Court and served as a U.S. congressman (1813–17, 1823–27), a U.S. senator (1827–41, 1845–50),...
Cicero
Cicero, Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, and writer who vainly tried to uphold republican principles in the final civil wars that destroyed the Roman Republic. His writings include books of rhetoric,...
Patrick Henry
Patrick Henry, brilliant orator and a major figure of the American Revolution, perhaps best known for his words “Give me liberty or give me death!” which he delivered in 1775. He was independent Virginia’s...
Meister Eckhart
Meister Eckhart, Dominican theologian and writer who was the greatest German speculative mystic. In the transcripts of his sermons in German and Latin, he charts the course of union between the individual...
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill, British statesman, orator, and author who as prime minister (1940–45, 1951–55) rallied the British people during World War II and led his country from the brink of defeat to victory....
Demosthenes
Demosthenes, Athenian statesman, recognized as the greatest of ancient Greek orators, who roused Athens to oppose Philip of Macedon and, later, his son Alexander the Great. His speeches provide valuable...
St. Basil the Great
St. Basil the Great, ; Western feast day January 2; Eastern feast day January 1), early Church Father who defended the orthodox faith against the Arian heresy. As bishop of Caesarea, he wrote several works...
John Bright
John Bright, British reform politician and orator active in the early Victorian campaigns for free trade and lower grain prices (he was a co-founder of the Anti-Corn Law League), as well as campaigns for...