Gestika v raně novověkém herectví (a kazatelství?)
Gestures in Early Modern acting (and preaching?)

Summary/Abstract: The performative aspect – delivery – was considered a crucial, if not the most important, component of rhetoric already in antiquity. This was undoubtedly also true for early modern homiletics. However, this aspect of sermons remains virtually unknown today, primarily because it could not be recorded in its time. Apart from visual representation, we must therefore rely on theoretical works whose authors, at least to some extent, addressed the performative form of preaching. These include both classical works, which served as the primary sources of inspiration in the early modern period, and contemporary studies. This paper aims to provide an overview, based on selected works, of the types of gestures preachers may have used during this period and the principles and rules that guided them. The starting point is Institutio oratoria by Marcus Fabius Quintilian, who, alongside Cicero, is regarded as the foremost authority in rhetoric, as well as two works by Jesuit authors: Joseph de Jouvancy’s De ratione discendi et docendi and Franz Lang’s poetics Dissertatio de actione scenica.

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