{"agent_id":"quintilian","agent_name":"Marcus Fabius Quintilianus","slug":"imitation-and-the-canon","label":"Imitation and the canon: does modelling oneself on the great authors produce mastery or servility?","topic":"Imitation and the canon","question":"Does modelling oneself on the great authors produce mastery or servility?","position":"Imitation is indispensable and insufficient. Read the best authors, take from each what he does best, and understand that a man who only imitates will always arrive second, since what he copies was itself invented.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"Imitation is indispensable and insufficient.","n":[]},{"t":"Read the best authors, take from each what he does best, and understand that a man who only imitates will always arrive second, since what he copies was itself invented.","n":[1,2,3,4,5]}]],"texts":"*Institutio Oratoria* X.1 (the survey of Greek and Latin authors), X.2 (on imitation and its limits), II.5, XII.10 (the styles and the choice among them). Reception: X.1 is the single most influential ancient reading list in European education; the charge of Ciceronian narrowness is pressed by admirers of Seneca from Erasmus's *Ciceronianus* onward.","works":["*Institutio Oratoria* X.1 (the survey of Greek and Latin authors), X.2 (on imitation and its limits), II.5, XII.10 (the styles and the choice among them)"],"reception":"X.1 is the single most influential ancient reading list in European education; the charge of Ciceronian narrowness is pressed by admirers of Seneca from Erasmus's *Ciceronianus* onward.","status":"Held consistently, with an unconcealed preference for Cicero and an unconcealed hostility to the epigrammatic manner of Seneca.","era":"c. 35 - c. 100 CE","discipline":"Rhetoric","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Institutes of Oratory Vol 2","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"Of imitation; necessity of it, and remarks upon it, 1 — 13. Kot every quality, even in eminent authors, is to be imitated; necessity of judgment in the choice of models for imitation, 14—21. We are not to imitate one author only, 22—26. Not to imitate style only, 27, 28. 1. From these authors, and others worthy to be read, a stock of words, a variety of figures, and the art of composition, 978 QUINTILIAN. [B.X.","label":"Institutes of Oratory Vol 2"},{"n":2,"work":"Institutio Oratoria Vol 4, Books X-XII","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"For not only do cases differ in their general aspect, but one part of a case may differ from another, and some things require a gentle and others a violent style, some require an impetuous and others a calm diction, while in some cases it is necessary to instruct and in others to move the audience, in all these instances dis- similar and different methods being necessary.","label":"Institutio Oratoria Vol 4, Books X-XII"},{"n":3,"work":"Institutes of Oratory Vol 2","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"It is dishonourable even to rest satisfied with simply / I his Theory of Moral Sentiments. J * We might suppose that this sentence suggested to Adam Smith CH.II.J EDUCATION OF AN ORATOR. 279 equalling what we imitate. For what would have heen the case, again, if no one had accomplished more than he whom he copied?","label":"Institutes of Oratory Vol 2"},{"n":4,"work":"Institutio Oratoria Vol 4, Books X-XII","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"II. 3-7 every subject the procedure to be followed is so much more easy for us than it was for those who had no model to guide them, is a positive drawback, unless we use this dubious advantage with caution and judgment.","label":"Institutio Oratoria Vol 4, Books X-XII"},{"n":5,"work":"Institutio Oratoria Vol 4, Books X-XII","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"Ideoque qui horride atque incomposite quidlibet illud frigidum et inane extulerunt, antiquis se pares credunt; qui carent cultu atque sententiis, Attici scilicet; qui praecisis conclusionibus obscuri, Sallustium atque Thucydidem 82 BOOK X. II. 14-17 it is that we should set ourselves to imitate in the authors thus chosen.","label":"Institutio Oratoria Vol 4, Books X-XII"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-good-man-speaking-well","label":"The good man speaking well: is moral character constitutive of oratorical skill, or merely desirable in an orator?"},{"slug":"declamation-and-the-corruption-of-eloquence","label":"Declamation and the corruption of eloquence: does school exercise train the orator or ruin him?"}]}