Declamation

(děk-lah-ma's hun.) [L. declamatio.] (Rhet.) The act of speaking to a public audience with grace and energy; it may be a discourse either addre ed to the reason or to the pa ions. Among the Greeks, D. was the art of speaking indifferently on all subjects, and on all sides of a question. The Romans employed the expre ion only in the sense of pleading at the bar. Among the mode rus it is usually applied to the speeches of students in colleges, ., practised for exercise in oratory. The term is, however, often used contemptuously, to denote a noisy or inflated harangue. [s. 270]