Declamation

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A declamation or declamatio (Latin for "declaration") is the rhetorical device of adopting the persona of an ancient figure to express a particular viewpoint or perspective. A typical example is Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, a 5th-century author who was long thought to be a figure named in the Book of Acts.

Some early Christians, later classified as Gnostics, used this technique in the construction of various gospels attributed to them.

See also

• Seneca the Elder

Further reading

• Jhovenel Paran: The elder Seneca and declamation, ANRW II 32.1 (1984) 514–556 (further literature p. 543 n. 124)
• Lewis A. Sussman: The elder Seneca and declamation since 1900: a bibliography, ANRW II 32.1 (1984) 557–577
• Michael Winterbottom: Schoolroom and courtroom, in: B. Vickers (ed.): Rhetoric revalued, New York 1982, 59–70
• Konrad Heldmann: Antike Theorien über Entwicklung und Verfall der Redekunst, München 1982
• D.A. Russell: Greek declamation, Cambridge 1983
• George A. Kennedy: A new history of classical rhetoric, Princeton, N.J. 1994
• D.H. Berry / Malcolm Heath: „Oratory and declamation“, in: Stanley E. Porter (ed.): Handbook of classical rhetoric in the Hellenistic period 330 B.C. – A.D. 400, Leiden et al. 1997, 393–420, esp. 406 ff.
• Robert A. Kaster: Controlling reason: Declamation in rhetorical education, in: Yun Lee Too (ed.): Education in Greek and Roman antiquity, Leiden u.a. 2001, 317–337
• M. Winterbottom: declamation, in: Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3. ed. 1996, 436–437
• Manfred Kraus: Exercitatio, in: Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik, v. 3, 1996, 71–123