What is oratory?
Oratory is the art of formal public speaking, particularly in an evocative and persuasive manner.
Oratory
Last Updated on December 2, 2021, by eNotes Editorial. Word Count: 110
Oratory - the rendering of a formal speech delivered on a special occasion, characterized by elevated style and diction and by studied delivery. Sometimes the term simply means an eloquent address.
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The term is from the Latin orare, meaning “to pray.”
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An example of oratory is found in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, when Mark Antony speaks to his countrymen about his slain friend:
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar . . .
Act III, scene ii : lines 75 – 79
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