Declamation and the corruption of eloquence: does school exercise train the orator or ruin him?

Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

The position in brief

Declamation is the most useful of exercises when it imitates the cases an orator will actually plead, and the most corrupting when it becomes a display of ingenuity on subjects no court has ever heard.12

Sources

  1. Remnrks on dorlamatious, 1, 2. InjudiciouEiDeBS iu the choice oi subjects has beea an obstiuctiou to improvement in eloquence, S — 5. On what sort of subjects pupils may be permitted to dficlaim, 6 — 8. What alterations should be made in the common practice, 9 — 15. 1.
    Institutes of Oratory Vol 1, p. 126
  2. But of that which is good by nature we may surely make a good use. 4. Let therefore the subjects themselves, which shall be imagined, be as like as possible to truth; and let declamations to the utmost extent that is practicable, imitate thoso pleitdings for which Ihuy wore introduced uti a ]ir<;[iuraliun.
    Institutes of Oratory Vol 1, pp. 127–128

Where the argument is made

  • Institutio Oratoria II.10 (on declamation and its abuses), II.4, V.12.17-23, VIII pr., X.5

How the argument was received

A critique I press hard while remaining the fullest theorist of the practice I am criticizing. The tension is in the texts and I do not resolve it.