Several Renaissance writers emphasized gesture in the delivery of public speaking, because they realized bodily movements to be effective in communicating intention, desire and emotion. The traditional Renaissance writers believed that rhetoric involved five processes: Invention, Disposition, Elocution, Memory, and Pronunciation. The first four processes dealt primarily with verbal communication, but the pronunciation of rhetoric included how to use the body when speaking. This attribute of public speaking was so important that renaissance authorities urged public speakers to observe and model their movements based on theatre actors.
A standard rule in performing gestures was that the movements must come natural and that every performer has a distinct way of gesturing. John Bulwer, a well-known Elizabethan writer, believed that the rhetorical speaker needed to evoke passion to communicate and evoke it in his audience. Following this claim, Bulwer wrote Chirologia and Chironomia, which compiled descriptions of various gestures which go back to ancient Greece and Rome with lots of illustrations showing how movements of the arm, hand, and fingers, fuse with the spoken word effectively. Bulwer cited Quintilian as the first Roman orator to compile an art out of the subject of gestures and to state that gesture must attend upon every flexion of the voice.
The control of a speaker’s gesture was very formalized. When speaking, one was only to use the right hand, because the left was a sign of inferiority or fault; but I think left handed people are smarter ;). Their reasoning was that the left hand was associated with falsehood and theft, and if a person was caught stealing, their left thumb would be branded.
As a performer, I have taken away a good amount of knowledge about how people in the Renaissance viewed public speaking and acting. They joined the two arts to create a passionate and emotional message that was very persuasive and believable. Their attention to body movements has impacted me the most, because, as I learned in Nonverbal Communication, 60-90% of all communication is nonverbal and it is the most convincing. So far the Renaissance has been my favorite historical period to research, due to their reinstitution of performance arts in the main society. What do you think about the Renaissance practices and the influence they have had on performance studies?
I like the way you truly connected to this question. You not only answered the question but also put your own input in it. Renaissance practices are still a part of todays society. A charismatic speaker must not only have an effective tone and volume but also good posture. Speaker's gestures are still very important today. The reason that we teach public speaking is to help students connect to the audience not only with their words but also physical language.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Damla. The Renaissance-era "speech coaches" were the founders of our profession. The began to apply the scientific principle to the art of speaking well, breaking down this art into understandable "bits" that could be mastered by students. The art of being able to speak well -- to engage in positive public self-creation -- was being demystified here. Skilled public speaking was being open up to people of knowledge and talent who were not necessarily born with wealth and status.
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