Led by Marcus Fabius Quintilianus Simulacrum
About this course
The fifth canon, and the one the ancients ranked highest. Quintilian gives it a book and states the claim it rests on: it matters less what our words are than how they are delivered.
That is uncomfortable for a school that has spent four modules on the words, and the discomfort is the module's own closing subject. If delivery matters most, a well-delivered weak speech beats a badly delivered strong one — which is true, is observable, and is Plato's charge from Module 1 in its most acute form, because delivery has the least connection to truth of anything in the art.
This module cannot be done silently. Every other module in the school can be worked in writing at some cost. This one cannot: voice, pace, pause, emphasis and breath are the subject and are not representable in text. Speech-to-text works well in English and the exercises use it throughout. A student who will not speak can learn to read delivery, which is genuinely valuable, and cannot learn to do it.
It is also not a course in confidence or presence. The ancient treatment is technical and physical — this is what the voice does, this is what the hand does, this is where the eyes go. Some of the detail is period-bound (Roman gesture was semi-codified and much of that system is gone); the module reports what is period-bound and teaches what transfers, which is more than a modern student expects.
Led by Marcus Fabius Quintilianus Simulacrum
The question
Seven sittings. You begin with one sentence delivered with the stress
Outcome
The student can deliver prepared material with deliberate control of
Sub-units
Practice scenarios
A senior colleague delivers the same annual address every year from a full script, head down, at a uniform pace, in a monotone. The content is excellent — thoughtful and well organised. Nobody listens. He knows nobody listens, finds it dispiriting, and has concluded that the audience is not interested in the subject. He has asked you, without much hope, whether the material could be made more engaging.
Your goals