Epideictic in the Renaissance

Abstract

The epideictic (derived from the Greek term) or demonstrative (Latin origin) genre is one of the three rhetorical genres – together with the judicial and deliberative – which form part of the cultural heritage passed down by scholars of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The judicial speech is used to accuse or defend somebody, the deliberative to recommend or warn against something, and the epideictic to praise or blame someone. While the counsel evokes the future (deliberative speech) and the judge the past (judicial), the author of an epideictic text focuses instead on the present but can also take into account the past and future (Aristote, Rhétorique, Le Livre de poche, Paris, 1991, p. 94). The concepts discussed are varied: as part of a panegyric or eulogy, one can praise the gods, men, places, and many other subjects (Cicéron, De oratore, Les Belles-Lettres, Paris, 1869; Topiques, Les Belles-Lettres, 1990; L’orateur, Les Belles-Lettres, 2002; Quintilien, Institution oratoire, Panckoucke, Paris, 1839 III, 7, p.113).