Modern rhetoric: sermons of Julius Sasnauskas

Abstract

Topic. This paper will analyse the rhetoric of Julius Sasnauskas, one of the most prominent contemporary preachers of Lithuania, with an emphasis on characteristics of communication, stylistics and form. Research question of this paper is the interaction between principles of a new rhetoric and traditional rhetoric in terms of speech codes, compositional principles, and stylistics. The aim. After regaining independence and freedom of religion, Lithuanian society has become extremely open and receptive to religious texts, therefore, it is important to explore, which codes are used for communication by talented clergymen to increase persuasion. Accordingly, research will discuss several aspects of interactions between rhetoric, music and literature, as time-based arts, and will look at the analogues of composition, devices of traditional rhetoric and principles of musical development. Relevance. Research on religious texts in Lithuania so far is focused on texts of the earlier ages, wherefore analysis of sermons of the 20th century has just started. In the texts by J. Sasnauskas, some scholars discern the features of postmodernism, a tendency towards the free-form essay and literary metaphoricity, but they are not analysed in greater detail. This work will use comparative methodology, the concept of intermediality, aspects of semiotics, musical semiotics, and various works in rhetoric and music (W. Engemann, A. J. Greimas, R. Koženiauskienė, A. Mykolaitytė , E. Tarasti, W. Wolf, and others).