ABSTRACT
In oral rhetorical performance, where logic was necessarily linear, the intonations, gestures, costumes, colors, actions—the "dramatization" of the oration—were perceived before any other "message."According to rhetorical theory and practice, law had always been a kind of microcosmic drama that was "staged" at the time of delivery. Rhetoricians had long compared their activity to drama, measuring the efficacy of their own delivery against that of the dramatic actor. Many theorists expressed discomfort with both the literary and the moral ramifications of the equation of rhetoric and drama. A fascinating articulation of the generic fluidity between rhetoric and drama, Quintilian's statement is nonetheless problematic from an ethical standpoint. Dramatic delivery shaped meaning, often in ways deemed inappropriate; yet in classical and medieval rhetoric, interpretation remained impossible without it. Eventually, however, the relationship between orators and actors became more than one of simile.
