oration

Previous Lincoln scholars have treated the Lyceum Speech more as an outburst than an oration, at best the overwrought declamation of a gifted tyro.

Members of the audience have been cast as performers and the actors at times became the audience, trapped with repeating dramatic orations while watching us play.

Students heard dueling orations that denounced the Nixon administration and Students for a Democratic Society.

“Avoid emotional oration and loud, impassioned pleas. A well-reasoned and logical presentation without resort to histrionics is easier for listeners to comprehend.”

Mr. Biden described giving an oration in law school on a case he had not read and lying his way into an exclusive club in Delaware.