Orator
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Orator is an originally Latin word for (public) speaker.
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[edit] Word history
It is recorded in English since c.1374, meaning "one who pleads or argues for a cause," from Anglo-French oratour, from Old French orateur (14c.), from Latin orator "speaker," from orare "speak before a court or assembly, plead," from a Proto-IndoEuropean base *or- "to pronounce a ritual formula". The modern meaning "public speaker" is attested from c.1430.
The derived word oration, originally used for prayer since c.1375, now means (recorded since 1502) any formal speech, as on a ceremonial occasion or delivered in similar high-flown or pompous manner. Also another word for oratist.
Its etymological doublet orison is recorded since c.1175, from Anglo-French oreison, Old French oraison "oration" (12c.), from Latin oratio "speech, oration," notably in Church Latin "prayer, appeal to God," from orare as above, but retained its devotional specialisation.
One meaning of the word oratory is abstract: the art of public speaking.
There is also the equivalent word "Rhetor" of Greek origin, hence the abstract noun rhetoric.
[edit] History
In ancient Rome, the art of speaking in public (Ars Oratoria) was a professional competence especially cultivated by politicians and lawyers. As the Greeks were still seen as the masters in this field, as in philosophy and most sciences, the leading Roman families often either sent their sons to study these things under a famous master in Greece (as was the case with the young Julius Caesar) or engaged a Greek teacher (under pay or as a slave).
It later was developed into rhetoric.
In the 18th century, 'Orator' John Henley was famous for his eccentric sermons.
In the 19th century, orators and lecturers, such as Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and Col. Robert G. Ingersoll were major providers of popular entertainment.
Adolf Hitler is widely regarded by historians as a master orator; his speeches would begin very slowly and gradually build up to an almost ecstatic and frenzied climax that would drive the massive audiences absolutely berserk. One can witness first hand the hypnotic and mesmerizing power of Hitler's speeches by watching the famous Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will which was released in 1934, one year after Hitler ascended to power and established Nazi Germany.
[edit] Formal titles
In the young revolutionary French republic, Orateur (French for Orator, but compare the Anglosaxon parliamentary speaker) was the term for the delegated members of the Tribunat to the Corps législatif to motivate their ruling on a presented bill.
In some universities the title 'Orator' is given to the official whose task it is to give speeches on ceremonial occasions, such as the presentation of honorary degrees.
Grand Orator is a high rank in the Grand Lodges of Freemasonry in certain US states (including Alabama, Arizona, ,California (where 'The Grand Orator shall deliver an address at each Annual Communication of the Grand Lodge upon matters appertaining to the Craft and deliver such other addresses as the Grand Master may request.' - California Masonic Code #3050), Missouri, North Carolina)
[edit] Pulpit orator
This term denotes Christian authors, often clergymen, who are renowned for their ability to write and/or deliver (from the pulpit in church, hence the word) rhetorically skilled religious sermons.
Examples are:
- William Lindsay Alexander
- Jean-Nicolas Beauregard
- Jean-Baptiste-Charles-Marie de Beauvais
- Henry Ward Beecher
- Henry Whitney Bellows
- Jaques Bossuet
- Louis Bourdaloue
- Charles de Bouvens
- Athanase Laurent Charles Coquerel
- Thomas Guthrie
- Robert Hall
- Vincent Houdry
- Joseph de Jouvancy
- Thomas Ken
- Jean-Baptiste-Henri-Dominique Lacordaire
- Jean de La Haye
- William Jay
- Jean-François-Anne Landriot
- Hugh Latimer
- William Laud
- Camille Lefebvre
- Jose Agostinho De Macedo
- James Martineau
- Jacques-Marie-Louis Monsabré
- Timoléon Cheminais de Montaigu
- David Moriarty
- Gian Paolo Oliva
- Péter Pázmány
- Berthold of Ratisbon
- Father Abram J. Ryan
- Girolamo Savonarola
- Georg Scherer
- Robert South
- Valentin Thalhofer
- Gioacchino Ventura di Raulica
- Antonio Vieira
- Nikolaus von Dinkelsbühl
- Johann Geiler von Kayserberg
- Friedrich Ludwig Zacharias Werner
- Minister Louis Farrakhan
- Minister Jesse Jackson
[edit] Other famous orators
[edit] Ancient and medieval orators
- Perikles, Athenian statesman
- the ten Attic orators (Greece)
- Demosthenes (champion of the philippica), best-known
- Aeschines
- Andocides
- Antiphon (person)
- Dinarchus
- Hypereides
- Lysias
- Isaeus
- Isocrates
- Lycurgus of Athens
- Aristogeiton (two orators)
- Claudius Aelianus meliglossos 'honey-tongued'
- Decimus Magnus Ausonius
- Cicero (last great defender of the 'true' Roman Republic)
- Domitius Afer
- Eumenius
- Gaius Scribonius Curio
- Hegesippus (orator), Athenian
- Hermagoras of Temnos, Rhodian school
- Cato the Elder (Roman Republic- calling for the final Punic war)
- Licinius Macer Calvus Roman republican poet and orator
- Marcus Licinius Crassus (Roman)
- Nazarius
- Paul of Tarsos, thirteenth Apostle
- Peter the Hermit, calling for the First Crusade
- Quintus Hortensius
- Marcus Fabius Quintilianus
- Seneca the Rhetorician, father of Nero's better-known teacher
[edit] Modern orators
- Lenin (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov)
- Abd-el-Kader (Algerian Kabylian leader against French colonial conquest)
- Samuel Akintola A Nigerian statesman assassinated in 1966
- William Jennings Bryan
- Fidel Castro (Cuban Marxist revolutionary leader > President)
- Winston Churchill (WWII British PM)
- Henry Clay
- John C. Calhoun
- Bill Clinton (US President)
- Charles De Gaulle ('Free French' general; President)
- Frederick Douglass
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Edward Everett
- George Galloway
- Joseph Goebbels
- John Henley
- Patrick Henry
- Adolf Hitler (Austrian Führer of Nazi Third Reich)
- Robert G. Ingersoll
- John F.Kennedy (US President)
- Robert F. Kennedy
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Abraham Lincoln (US President)
- Douglas MacArthur
- Benito Mussolini (Duce of Fascist Italy)
- Nasser, Egyptian president and leader of Arab nationalism
- Richard M. Nixon
- James Orbinski
- Patrick Pearse (Irish Republican leader)
- Ronald Reagan (US President)
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Daniel Webster
- Malcolm X
- Hassan Nasrallah
- William Lloyd Garrison
- Sukarno (Indonesian President)
- Barack Obama
[edit] Sources and references
(incomplete)
- American Rhetoric
- EtymologyOnLine
- Catholic Encyclopaedia (passim)
- 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica (passim)
- Californian mason site