Description of the Rhetoric actio in Lecctiones de Oratoria sagrada by D. Antonio Sánchez Arce y Peñuela

Abstract

Professor Mª Ángeles Díez Coronado (2003) reports that in the Middle Ages, specifically in the tenth century, the artes praedicandi give a central role to the rhetoric actio. Its importance in the sacred Rhetoric remains in Spain during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: the voice and gesture enhance the pleasing before the instruction and, thus, the actio approaches theater. In the eighteenth century Spanish preaching texts include its study claiming simplicity, common sense and look at the classic manuals. That sageness will be effective in the nineteenth century. It is precisely at this point that Doctor Sánchez Arce y Peñuela’s handbook Lecciones de Oratoria sagrada (1862 it is the issue that we use) sees the light, whose book IV “Cualidades esteriores del predicador” is dedicated to the actio. In this article, presented at the Twentieth Biennial Conference of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric (ISHR), held at the University of Tübingen (Germany) from July 28 to July 31, 2015, we perform a descriptive reading of the aforementioned book IV included in the text of Doctor Sánchez Arce y Peñuela, but not before spending a few words about the contextualization of the fifth rhetoric operation, the evolution (concisely) of the ars praedicandi in Spain until the nineteenth century (inclusive), and the presentation of the author and his work.