Declamazione e poesia

On discussing the role and the utility of declamation in the rhetorical education, Quintilian singles out two different functions and purposes of the declamatory practice, the 'didactic' and the 'epideictic'. As a propaedeutic to practical oratory, declamation should be as close as possible to a real forensic speech; but in so far it has in itself an element of exhibitionism (ostentatio), in order to arouse the audience's pleasure (voluptas audientium), declamation can indulge more in stylistic and literary embellishments. On the other hand, these same purposes are elsewhere ascribed by Quintilian to poetry. A special affinity links therefore declamation and poetry by virtue of their common 'epideictic' nature, and this results in an interaction and reciprocal influence between the two genres, that emerges as one of the most distinctive features of the Latin literary culture of the imperial age. In accordance with these theoretical premises, some concrete examples are proposed in order to illustrate, in both directions, the relationship between declamation and poetry. Seneca the Elder's Controversy 2,7 and pseudo-Quintilian's Major Declamation 13 show how the use of poetic models, respectively the elegiac genre and Virgil's Georgics, can affect non only the stylistic and literary form of a declamation, but also its rhetorical and argumentative structure. On the other hand, the 'Armorum iudicium', the contest between Ajax and Ulixes for Achilles' arms in Book 13 of Ovid's Metamorphoses, and the speech of the eunuch Pothinus advising the Egyptians to kill Pompey in Book 8 of Lucan's Bellum civile, are examples of, respectively, a poetic controversia and suasoria.