“A Kind of Eloquence of the Body”: Quintilian’s Advice on Delivery for the Twenty-First-CenturyRhetor

Abstract

This essay makes the case that the account of delivery featured in the Institutio Oratoria remains germane to contemporary speech pedagogy. Quintilian emphasizes that (1) powerful delivery is central to eloquent public speaking; (2) delivery functions in concert with the other canons of rhetoric; and (3) delivery is governed by general rhetorical concepts such as decorum and ethos. Furthermore, scrutiny of Quintilian’s perspectives on gender and power can lead to fruitful rethinking of current pedagogy’s traditionalist tendencies.

Revisiting delivery in the basic course

“…McGarrity and Crosby (2013), I argue that the current paradigm to which current textbooks respond results in constraints on the teaching of delivery.This paradigmatic shift allowed the Aristotelian framework to reemerge and resurface outdated attitudes towards speech performance; thus restraining both the discipline and the public speaking textbook. McClish (2016) argues a similar notion.In his piece, McClish (2016) examines the canon of delivery within three popular public speaking textbooks McClish (2016). argues that public speaking textbooks fail to consider the canon of delivery adequately.…”