Classical fencing is the style of modern fencing as it existed during the 19th and early 20th century. According to the 19th-century fencing master Louis Rondelle,
- "A classical fencer is supposed to be one who observes a fine position, whose attacks are fully developed, whose hits are marvelously accurate, his parries firm and his ripostes executed with precision. One must not forget that this regularity is not possible unless the adversary is a party to it. It is a conventional bout, which consists of parries, attacks, and returns, all rhyming together."
Used in this sense, classical fencing is a style of historical fencing focussing on the 19th and early-20th century national fencing schools, especially in Italy and France, i.e. the schools out of which the styles of contemporary sports fencing have developed. Masters and legendary fencing figures such as Giuseppe Radaelli, Louis Rondelle, Masaniello Parise, the Greco brothers, Aldo Nadi and his rival Lucien Gaudin are today considered typical practitioners of this period.
Classical fencing weapons included the standard foil, épée (with a variety of different tips, including pointes d'arret), and sabre (including both blunted dueling sabres and, beginning in the early 20th century, modern sporting sabres).
Famous quotes containing the word classical:
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)