Rhetoric in Lithuanian homiletics: musical aspects

Abstract

Rhetoric in antiquity relates to philosophy, psychology, law, philology, ethics, pedagogy and music. In the 20th century with the emergence of many new sciences and their directions (communication, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, hermeneutics, semiotics), the concept of a New Rhetoric was formed, which reveals various aspects of interactions with these modern sciences. This allows applying new research methods for various types of rhetorical texts. One type of these specific rhetorical texts is homilies which are characterized by extremely complex multilayered semantics as well as exceptional requirements for presentation and with a lot of possibilities for different aspects of research. After reviewing the global scientific literature which researches rhetoric and homiletics, a very large number of studies can be found, where interaction between modern homiletics and classical rhetoric are discussed from the various historical and theoretical aspects, also stylistics of sermons, poetics and specifics of structure in different epochs, different cultures and in texts by different authors. Also, the aspects of the musicality of homilies are studied, which explores the expression of rhythm, musical-rhetorical affections of baroque, and other epochs, problems of recitation, chanting sermons, as well as the possibilities of application of general rhetorical regularities, adaptations, analysis of the features of expression in cultural epochs and in different confessions. In Lithuania after it regained independence some of these aspects are researched by scholars. Many of these studies keep their focus on the history of homiletics (Kristina Mačiulytė, Jolanta Gelumbeckaitė, Roma Bončkutė), although attention is drawn to one or the other aspect of rhetoric; e.g., addressee, laughter, metaphors, stylistics, originality, etc. (Viktorija Vaitkevičiūtė, Jūratė Pajėdienė, Aurelija Mykolaitytė, Regina Koženiauskienė, Irena Buckley), but the fundamentals of rhetoric of sermons, in particular in terms of composition and its musicality as the basis for creation of persuasion, are still insufficiently discussed. Yet no studies have been found, which analyze the musicality of sermons in terms of the concept of intermediality, explore them from the angles of transmediality, also look at characteristics of verbal and word music, analogues of musical forms and technique as the development of thematic materials and as the base of a deep persuasion. One of the goals of this article would be to discuss some fundamentals of the persuasion in sermon - the traditional compositional principles of rhetoric linking them with analogues of musical forms, as the most expressive of textual architectonics and its processuality - the internal form, etc. Research uses one sermon of a prominent Lithuanian preacher Capuchin friar Father Stanislovas. 1. Analysis will be based on the comparative methodology, the theory of intermediality (Werner Wolf), functional analysis (Viktor Bobrovsky), rhetoric principles of homilies (Wilfried Engemann), systematics of musical forms (Hugo Riemann), archetypical passions (Northrop Frye) and other works.