Publication Details | Synopsis | Secondary Commentary |Varieties & Dialects | Other
Publication details |
Author: Foote, Samuel
Author dates: 1720 - 1777
Title: The Orators
First played: 1762
First published: 1762, for J. Coote, G. Kearsly, and T. Davies, 67p
C18th availability: Available from ECCO (1762): http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/ECCO?dd=0&locID=utoronto_main&d1=1196601400&srchtp=b&SU=All&c=54&d2=1&docNum=CW3306678551&b0=the+orators&h2=1&vrsn=1.0&b1=KE&d6=1&ste=10&d4=0.33&stp=Author&dc=tiPG&n=10&d5=d6
Modern availability: Available from LION (1996):
http://lion.chadwyck.com/toc.do?action=new&divLevel=0&mapping=toc&area=Drama&id=Z000079935&forward=tocMarc&DurUrl=Yes
Genre: Comedy
Trend(s): Dialect; Contemporary Satire; Popularity
Character types: Orator; Business / Trades; Scottish; Legal; Irish
Synopsis |
Foote acts as an instructor of oratory. His "pupils" present humorous speeches and debates.
Act I.
Scamper and Tirehack, two Oxonians, are waiting at the theatre for their girl friends. Foote’s lecture on oration is about to begin. Foote arrives and confirms that the subject matter will be serious; however, the boys will be able to “laugh at [his] frolicks and fancies.” Foote prepares to begin the lecture, but is interrupted by Suds, a soap-boiler newly elected to the common council, and who has been pressured by his wife to learn the art of “speechifying.” Foote begins to lecture: reading should be important to oratory, but is in fact useless, he says; oration is based on a man’s experience. Intelligent people from each county should be sent to university at the county’s expense. An unfortunate consequence of this plan will be the lack of farm workers; to counteract this, Foote recommends importing Irish workers, and exempting young men from free education. To be a proper orator, one must be able to read a speech, or memorize it by rote (as “the professors of the stage” do, says Foote). He lays out the framework of his speech. Foote attempts to calculate the number of orators in the country, explains how the science of oration is like a tree, and divides orators into four classes: the pulpit, the senate, the bar, and the stage.
Scamper interrupts Foote’s “dull prosing”, and demands to see a pupil. Foote brings out Donald, a Scot, whom he has taught for 6 weeks. Donald proceeds to give a speech on oration, claiming Satan was the first orator, but is consistently interrupted by the audience, who mock his diction and his argument. Donald leaves in disgust. Foote prepares to discuss how oration is used by lawyers.
Act II.
Foote’s pupils emerge, dressed for the courtroom. Foote is to act as a witness. The pupils are reminded to “remember…[their] proper pauses, repetitions, hums, has and interjections”. The accused is a ghost who is being tried for disturbing the peace by scratching and fluttering. Bodkin, a Methodist witness, is called; under questioning, he divulges that the “spirit” has moved him to impregnate “barely but nine” girls. Peter Paragraph (Foote), a one-legged Irishman, is a witness to prove that Fanny the Phantom does not have an alibi. Bodkin and Paragraph argue and run offstage. Fanny the Phantom is to be tried with a jury of ghosts, including “the evil genius of Brutus” and the ghost of Banquo. Terence, an audience member, is confused by Paragraph’s identity, believing him to be a real person (in fact, Foote is satirizing a real one-legged Irish printer). Scamper and Tirehack confirm that he is Foote. M’George enters, claiming that a doctor who has lost his practice (and who cannot read!) would like Foote to instruct him in oratory.
Act III.
The pupils, “a set of illiterate mechanics”, are to debate European politics in the Robin Hood Society. However, their lofty topic degenerates into a well-structured discussion about which kind of liquor they prefer to drink while debating. The pupils’ instruction in oration is clear from their elevated tone and the formality with which they debate, although they retain familiar diction. Each pupil advocates for replacing porter with Irish usquebagh, except for Slaughter, who proposes rum. The ‘meeting’ is adjourned when Catchpole, a pupil, recommends debating whether usquebagh is subject to a duty, or is, “as in the case of horses, an article of dry goods.” Foote, the instructor, concludes by inviting the audience members to approach him for lessons in oration.
Secondary commentary |
A) Dircks, Phyllis T. ‘Foote, Samuel (bap. 1721, d. 1777)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 26 May 2008. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/9808
"[By] 28 April 1762 he had leased the Haymarket to institute a ‘Course of Lectures on English Orators’. The Orators exploited his considerable talent in topical satire and mimicry for thirty-eight performances. Two of Foote's most successful satiric attacks were on Thomas Sheridan and George Faulkner, the one-legged Dublin printer whom Foote mocked as Peter Paragraph. In January he printed in the Gentleman's Magazine ‘An address to the public’, a mock suit for libel by Peter Petros against Aristophanes, capitalizing on his nickname ‘the English Aristophanes’."
B) Howard, Douglas. ‘Samuel Foote: January, 1721-October 21, 1777.’ Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 89: Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Dramatists, Third Series. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Edited by Paula R. Backscheider, University of Rochester. The Gale Group, 1989. LiteratureResourceCenter. 26 May 2008.
http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=contains&locID=utoronto_main&srchtp=athr&ca=1&c=1&ste=6&tab=1&tbst=arp&ai=U13704537&n=10&docNum=H1200002827&ST=samuel+foote&bConts=10927
"In his next play, The Orators, Foote returned to his usual method of creating a vehicle for mimicry and satiric comment on the issues of the day. The play is a loose amalgam of mock lecture and trial followed by a skit satirizing the Robin Hood Society, an amateur debating club. First billed as a "Course of Comic Lectures on English Oratory," Foote's play recalls his earlier jabs at Macklin, but this time his target was Thomas Sheridan, who had begun a series of lectures on oratory. The Orators opened at the Haymarket on 28 April 1762, and its success as summer fare rivaled that of The Minor two years earlier."
Varieties & Dialects |
Overview of varieties / dialects
Several dialects are presented to achieve a comic effect. Foote’s elegant language of oration contrasts with the imperfect dialects of his pupils and of the audience members, while the two Oxonians speak Standard English. Donald’s sincere speech is mocked by the audience because of his Scots dialect. Suds uses neologisms (“speechifying”), while the pupils impersonate the nuances of legal speech and use elevated language to debate low-level topics, though their dialects and accents appear within the oratory language.
Varieties / dialectsVariety: Suds’ neologisms and bad grammar
a. Sample of dialect:
[page 6]
SUDS.
Why the affair is this. My wife Alice---for you must know my name is Ephraim Suds, I am a soap-boiler in the city, took it into her head, and nothing would serve her turn, but that I must be a common-council man this year; for says Alice, says she , It is the onliest way to rise in the world.
FOOTE.
A just observation---you succeeded?
SUDS.
Oh! there was no danger of that---yes, yes, I got it all hollow; but now to come to the
[Page 7 ]
marrow of the business. Well, Alice, says I, now I am chosen, what's next to be done? 'Why now, says Alice, says she , thee must learn to make speeches; why dost not see what purferment neighbour Grogram has got; why man 'tis all brought about by his speechifying . I tell thee what, Ephraim, if thee can'st but once learn to lay down the law, there's no knowing to what thee may'st rise---"
b.1 Orthography: “purferment”
b.2 Grammar: “Why, I want to be made an orator on ; and to speak speeches, as I tell you, at our meetings, about politicks, and peace, and addresses, and the new bridge, and all them kind of things.”; “thee must learn” (repeated misuse of 2nd person singular)
b.3 Vocabulary: Neologisms: “onliest”, “speechifying”
c. Nationality: English
d. Character profile: soap-boiler turned politician
e. Consistency of representation: consistent
Variety: Donald’s Scots dialect
a. Sample of dialect:
[page 29]
FOOTE.
Will you give these ladies and gentlemen a proof of your skill?
DONALD.
Ah, ye wad ha' a specimen of my oratorical art.
FOOTE.
If you please.
DONALD.
In gude troth on ye sal; wol ye gi me a topick?
--
[page 31]
DONALD.
I say it was that arch-chiel, the Deevil himsel. Ye ken weel, my lads, how Adam and Eve were planted in Eden, wi plenty o' bannocks and cail, and aw that they wish'd, but were prohibited the eating of pepins.---
b.1 Orthography
b.2 Grammar
b.3 Vocabulary: Scots: ‘ken’, ‘bairns’, ‘pepins’, ‘bannocks’
c. Nationality: Scottish
d. Character profile: has been a pupil for 6 weeks
e. Consistency of representation: consistent
Variety: “Language of the Bar”
a. Sample of dialect:
[page 38]
COUNSELLOR stops the Clerk short.
May it please your worship---hem---I am counsel in this cause for the ghost---hem---and before I can permit her to plead, I have an objection to make, that is---hem---I shall object to her pleading at all---hem---it is the standing law of this country---hem---and has ---hem---always been so allow'd, deem'd, and practis'd that---hem---all criminals should be try'd per pares , by their equals---hem---that is---hem---by a jury of equal rank with themselves. Now, if this be the case, as the case it is; I---hem---I should be glad to know, how my client can be try'd in this here manner.
b.1 Orthography
b.2 Grammar: “try’d in this here manner”
b.3 Vocabulary: Latin terms (“per pares”); diction (hems)
c. Nationality: English
d. Character profile: impersonating a trial scene (play-within-a-play); this is a sterotypical portrayal of a lawyer
e. Consistency of representation: consistent
Variety: Terence’s speech
a. Sample of dialect:
[page 53]
TERENCE.
Ay prithee don't bodder me; what, dy'e learn no more manners at Oxford college than to stop a gontleman in the midst of his speech before he begins; oh for shame of yourself--- Why the matter is this, Mr. Justice, that there, what the dibble d'ye call him Pra-Praragraf, but by my shoul that is none of his name neither, I know the little bastard as well as myself[.]
--
[page 55]
TERENCE.
Done---I'll ask the Orator himself---here he comes;
[Enter Foote ]
Harkee, honey Fot,
[page 56 ]
was it yourself that was happing about here but now.
b.1 Orthography
b.2 Grammar: “for shame of yourself; “that is none of his name neither” (archaic: many negatives add emphasis)
b.3 Vocabulary: “shoul”, “Harkee”, “bodder”, “what the dibble”, “honey”
c. Nationality: Irish
d. Character profile: Irish audience member; confused by Foote's impersonation of Peter Paragraph
e. Consistency of representation: consistent
Variety: Foote’s “oratory” style
a. Sample of dialect:
[page 58]
FOOTE.
Having thus compleated our lecture on the eloquence peculiar to the bar, we shall produce one great group of orators, in which will be exhibited specimens of every branch of the
[Page 59 ]
art. You will have at one view, the choleric, the placid, the voluble, the frigid, the frothy, the turgid, the calm, and the clamorous; and as a proof of our exquisite skill, our subjects are not such as a regular education has prepared for the reception of this sublime science, but a set of illiterate mechanics, whom you are to suppose assembled at the Robin-hood in the Butcher-row, in order to discuss and adjust the various systems of Europe; but particularly to determine the separate interest of their own mother country.
b.1 Orthography
b.2 Grammar: “our” = royal ‘we’
b.3 Vocabulary: Elevated diction: “as a proof of our exquisite skill, our subjects are not such as a regular education has prepared for the reception of this sublime science”
c. Nationality: English
d. Character profile: the "orator"
e. Consistency of representation: consistent
Variety: The illiterate mechanics’ speeches
a. Sample of dialect:
O'DROHEDA.
Mr. President, the case is this; it is not becase I am any grate lover of that same usquebagh that I have set my mark to the motion: but becase I did not think it was decent for a number of gontlemen that were, d'ye see, met to settle the affairs of the nation, to be guzling a pot of porter; to be sure the liquor is a pretty sort of a liquor enough when a man is hot with trotting between a couple of poles; but this is anotherguess matter, becase why, the head is concerned, and if it was not for the malt and the haps, dibble burn me but I would as soon take a drink from the Thames as your porter. But as to usquebagh; ah long life to the liquor---it is an exhilirator of the bowels, and a stomatic to the head; I say, Mr. President, it invigorates, it stimulates, it---in short it is the onliest liquor of life, and no man alive will die whilst he drinks it.
b.1 Orthography
b.2 Grammar
b.3 Vocabulary: O’Droheda’s familiar diction “d’ye see”, “onliest”; “dibble burn me” “hot with trotting”, “I say” and topics (liquor) vs. the elevated language he has been taught: “Mr President, the case is this” ; “it is an exhilirator of the bowels, and a stomatic to the head…it invigorates, it stimulates”
c. Nationality: Irish
d. Character profiles: mechanics presenting a theatrical debate about the fate of Europe (but really about varieties of alcohol)
e. Consistency of representation: inconsistent (elements of dialect appear within the elevated tone in which they have been instructed)
The orator is also a grammarian:
[page 7]
SUDS.
O Lud! It is unknown what knowledge we got; we can read---oh! we never stop to spell a word now---and then he told us such things about verbs, and nouns, and adverbs, that never entered our heads before, and empharis, and accent; heav'n bless us, I did not think there had been such things in the world.
Other points of interest |
Satirizes Thomas Sheridan's popular lectures on oratory.
©2009 Arden Hegele