Greek Declamation

Declamation was 'a toy model of oratory' in which students composed and delivered deliberative and forensic practice speeches in character. It was not confined to the schools: the professionals gave public performances to large and critical audiences. Greco-Roman education was more or less dominated by rhetoric; from the fourth century BC down to and beyond the end of classical antiquity declamation was an art within the larger art, inhabiting almost a distinct world, with its own laws, customs and mores. Latin declamation has been well studied but its Greek counterpart is less well known. This book sets the practice of declamation in its historical context, describes the conventional, though often bizarre, themes of the speeches and discusses the declaimers' public performances, rhetorical theory and knowledge and use of classical literature and history. This book will be of interest both to students of classical literature and to historians of ancient society and education. The main text is written so as to be wholly intelligible to those with no knowledge of Greek.

Literature & Fiction

Russell, D.A.

History & Criticism

Cambridge University Press

<p>The remains of classical literature contain a good deal of scattered literary theory, however difficult it may be to divine a consistent view among the conflicting interests of scholars, moralists and teachers of rhetoric. This book attempts to analyze the main themes against their historical background. It discusses ancient beliefs and theories relating to inspiration, the poet's message, imitation, the rhetorical approach to literature, classification of literary genres and the ancient sense of literary history. Aristotle, the Alexandrians, Longinus, Horace and other ancient critics have defined and influenced a critical terminology and technique for later generations of writers and critics. This edition should prove valuable to students of modern literary criticism and students of Greek and Latin.</p>

Criticism in Antiquity

Univ. Of California Pr.

Classics

(Please see: LiftingTheCurtain.com for excerpts, survey results, and illustrations.) The quality of education in today's urban high schools is a disgrace, and both our high school administrators and career bureaucrats in Department of Education are remarkably effective at hiding the problems behind the curtain of the school entryway.  Attending an actual class would shock most parents, revealing schools that are unlike anything that we experienced just 15-20 years ago.  We might know about a couple bad teachers, or hear the incessant cries for more funding, or notice the building needs major repairs.  But we can never get behind the curtain to see the real, systemic causes of widespread failures in educating our children.  The scope of the problem is nationwide.  Both ACT and SAT testing services reported that less than half of 2013 high school graduates were ready for college.  And that terrible figure does not include all those high school graduates who did not even take the test to apply for college. Everyone claims to have all the "answers." Legislators pass new laws with wonderful goals, but with unintended consequences that are destroying our children's education. A growing minority of urban parents expects teachers to take sole responsibility for raising and motivating their children. Unqualified career bureaucrats in Department of Education cubicles, far from any classroom experience or understanding, pass a host of yearly mandates that hurt our children.  Unqualified principals do the minimum to get by, while taking care of their cronies.  But no one, except those teachers who still fight to educate our children despite the system, tries to fix the real systemic problems.  Russell brings a decade of teaching in urban schools, along with his passion for children, to lift that curtain for all of us. An off-hand joke by a Boston talk show host ("... to fix education, just shoot all the teachers...") was the catalyst for Russell to realize that the best and brightest, those who could most help us fix education, had no chance to know what is really happening in our schools , and how bad it actually is.  We have asked everyone outside of the school building what is wrong with education, but ignore the views of everyone inside the building! Those who profit from the current failures in education protect their positions by vigorously attacking any whistleblower who dares reveal how badly education is failing our children.  With Lifting the Curtain, Russell draws the ire of career bureaucrats, cronyistic principals, the "clique" who dominates within-school decisions, a minority of urban parents, and the five percent of teachers who are not worthy of their positions.   But what Russell says is embraced just as passionately by all the good teachers and involved parents, and by a remarkably large majority of children that still wants the chance to learn and succeed.

Lifting The Curtain: The disgrace we call urban high school education (1st edition)

Education & Teaching

Schools & Teaching

D. A.\Russell

Excerpt: ... most of them Gauls and Thracians, who, not for any fault by them committed, but simply through the cruelty of their master, were kept in confinement for this object of fighting one with another. Two hundred of these formed a plan to escape, but their plot being discovered, those of them who became aware of it in time to anticipate their master, being seventy-eight, got out of a cook's shop chopping-knives and spits, and made their way through the city, and lighting by the way on several wagons that were carrying gladiator's arms to another city, they seized upon them and armed themselves. And seizing upon a defensible place, they chose three captains, of whom Spartacus was chief, a Thracian of one of the nomad tribes, and a man not only of high spirit and valiant, but in understanding, also, and in gentleness, superior to his condition, and more of a Grecian than the people of his country usually are. When he first came to be sold at Rome, they say a snake coiled itself upon his face as he lay asleep, and his wife, who at this latter time also accompanied him in his flight, his country-woman, a kind of prophetess, and one of those possessed with the bacchanal frenzy, declared that it was a sign portending great and formidable power to him with no happy event. First, then, routing those that came out of Capua against them, and thus procuring a quantity of proper soldiers' arms, they gladly threw away their own as barbarous and dishonorable. Afterwards Clodius, the praetor, took the command against them with a body of three thousand men from Rome, and besieged them within a mountain, accessible only by one narrow and difficult passage, which Clodius kept guarded, encompassed on all other sides with steep and slippery precipices. Upon the top, however, grew a great many wild vines, and cutting down as many of their boughs as they had need of, they twisted them into strong ladders long enough to reach from thence to the bottom, by which, without any...

Plutarch (Classical life and letters)

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Scribner

Plutarch

Longwood Pr Ltd

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

The Design and Construction of Flying Model Aircraft

Teen & Young Adult

Barlow Press

<p>The 2nd edition of the acclaimed look at today's failed education system -- with dozens of teacher submissions from across the USA and nine new chapters! Both KIRKUS and CLARION praise this important book "...from the unique perspective of a classroom teacher" that shows the real problems that have destroyed the education of our children. Few parents or legislators have any chance of seeing the real state of education in our urban schools. It is a shameful disaster -- unlike anything that we, as parents, experienced just 15-20 years ago. The real problems stay largely unseen, because career DoE bureaucrats and school administration are extremely good at hiding their failed policies behind the curtain of the school entryway. In Lifting the Curtain, Russell provides a detailed look at urban high school education from inside the classroom, including three years of research, and the first ever major survey of what students and teachers think of the educational system. If we want a real solution for our children, then for once we must focus on the real problems, the ones carefully hidden behind the educational curtain.</p>

Lifting the Curtain (2nd Edition): The disgrace we call urban high school education

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Criticism in Antiquity (BCPaperbacks)

Bristol Classical Press

Plutarch's "Lives" and "Morals" are among the formative books of western civilisation, Written around AD 100, in Greece under Roman rule, they reflect conditions of that time: not only the political limitations, but - more importantly - the rich inheritance of post-classical as well as classical Greek thinking. Russell sets out to explain what it is like to read Plutarch and what one needs to bear in mind in order to read him with understanding and appreciation. Plutarch is seen in his historical context, his language and style, as a scholar of the past, as philosopher and moralist. The "Lives" are then discussed with specific examples in more detail - Alcibiades and some of the main generals of the late Roman republic; in the final chapter Russell examines the reception of Plutarch down to the time of North's translation and Shakespeare's reliance on it. Each chapter is generously laced with quotation (in translation), so that the student and general reader get a feeling for Plutarch's work.

Plutarch (BCPaperbacks)

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Books by Russell, D.A.