| Origins | Origins in Cicero’s dicta that oratory should instruct, convince, and excite the listener. Parts of an Oration (based on Cicero)
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| Structure | Parts of a Sermon
A.Laying open the text
B. Doctrine
C. Reasons
D. Application E. Epilogue
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| Puritan and Anglican Sermons |
Perry Miller, The New England Mind: “The Anglican sermon is constructed on a symphonic scheme of progressively widening vision; it moves from point to point by verbal analysis, weaving larger and larger embroideries about the words of the text. The Puritan sermon quotes the text and “opens” it as briefly as possible, expounding circumstances and context, explaining its grammatical meanings, reducing its tropes and schemata to prose, and setting forth its logical implications; the sermon then proclaims in a flat, indicative sentence the “doctrine” contained in the text or logically deduced from it, and proceeds to the first reason or proof. Reason follows reason, with no other transition than a period and a number; after the last proof is stated there follow the uses or applications, also in numbered sequence, and the sermon ends when there is nothing more to be said. The Anglican sermon opens with a pianissimo exordium, gathers momentum through a rising and quickening tempo, comes generally to a rolling, organ-toned peroration; the Puritan begins with a reading of the text, states the reason in an order determined by logic, and the uses in an enumeration determined by the kinds of person in the throng who need to be exhorted or reproved, and it stops without flourish or resounding climax” (332-3). |
Events Calendar
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May 2012 |
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No Events Scheduled For May 20
On Speech
Brevity is the best recommendation of speech, whether in a senator or an orator.
— Cicero
"No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care"
— Theodore Roosevelt
In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of producing persuasion; second, the language; third the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech.
— Aristotle
Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you.
— Winston Churchill
Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.
— William Penn
Eloquent speech is not from lip to ear, but rather from heart to heart.
— William Jennings Bryan
There is no tone of voice more compelling than honesty; thus the first principle of persuasion is truth.
— Michael Fowler
