Institutio Oratoria - Limitations

Limitations

Several limitations have been pointed out in Quintilian’s work. Among them is the injunction that he was too immersed in the culture of rhetoric. Because of his position and his profession, it was impossible for him to view rhetoric from the outside. Therefore, it would have been difficult for him to entertain any doubts about its value. This helps explain his ideal orator as a morally good man—-rhetoric to Quintilian was in itself inherently good. It may also shed some light on his view of philosophy; he “considered rhetoric to be the basis of all education, viewed philosophy as a challenge to its supremacy” (Dominik, 53). He believed that an orator should read philosophy, but only because philosophy had usurped some of the functions of oratory in the first place.

Another limitation of Quintilian is that he is inevitably a victim of his own educational tradition. As mentioned above, he lived in a time of flowery, ornate language. Therefore, although he obviously prefers natural language and attempts to interject some simplicity into the way language is taught, to a certain degree he is forced to accept the unnatural language of his time, simply because of the force of current fashion.

Finally, some have called into question the idea of the ideal orator. The education so dictated in Institutio Oratoria was designed to create a person who had never existed, and probably never would. Quintilian seemed willfully unconscious of the changes since the days of great Ciceronian oratory. To what end would this perfect orator be created, if there was no place for him?