Encomium

• A general category of oratory
• A method within rhetorical pedagogy
• A figure of speech praising a person or thing, but occurring on a smaller scale than an entire speech
• The eighth exercise in the progymnasmata series
• A literary genre that included five elements: prologue, birth and upbringing, acts of the person's life, comparisons used to praise the subject, and an epilogue

  Examples

• Gorgias' famous Encomium of Helen offers several justifications for excusing Helen of Troy's adultery
• In Erasmus' In Praise of Folly, Folly composes an encomium to herself
• De Pippini regis Victoria Avarica is a medieval encomium of the victory of Pepin of Italy over the Avars
• Encomium Emmae Reginae is a medieval encomium of Queen Emma of Normandy
• Laudes Mediolanensis civitatis or Versum de Mediolano civitate is a medieval encomium of Milan
• Versus de Verona is a medieval encomium of Verona
• Polychronion is chanted in the liturgy of Churches which follow the Byzantine Rite
• Paul the Apostle uses a kind of encomium in his praise of love, in 1 Corinthians 13; the prologue is verses 1–3, acts are v. 4–7, comparison is v. 8–12, and epilogue is 13:13–14:1.