VIEIRA E OS ESTILOS CULTOS: "UT THEOLOGIA RHETORICA"

Abstract

Among the many redefinitions Counter-Reformist action and practices effected during the 16th and 17th centuries, the reinterpretation of Aristotle’s Poetics and Rhetorics pose some crucial questions. The first and most important of all is related to the necessity of postulating an equivalent to Horace’s ut pictura poiesis that could determine the necessary and desirable relation between theological dogma and sacred discourse, an ut theologia rhetorica, a rhetorical system that could be a device for the transmission of theological truths, particularly the biblical truth. These practical adjustments and accommodations required a vivid awareness to issues like the use of fantastical figures and metaphors. Counter-Reformation did not consider wonder and fantasy as essential to sacred discourse, but rather as poetic license. However, this configuration did not entail a complete invalidation of fantasy, but rather its conformity to the good transmission of biblical truth. This function implied a peculiar notion of metaphor and figure, which is here analyzed. Following Aristotle’s conception that every discourse is by nature metaphorical, allowing quick learning, the question of wit was crucial for the definition of fantastic and icastic representation. In centralized monarchies, metaphor is the basic substance for the so-called ‘agudeza’, a category that circumscribes the thought system during the Ancient Regime. The use of images, even fantastical, is not an act of pure fantasy that dissociates itself from theological common places, but the ordering of images that configure them in their sensible species, historical and natural. This study investigates these questions conceptually and in detail. It concentrates on Antonio Vieira’s discursive program, in which oratory invention stands as the designing of theological places, rhetorically adjusted to sacred matters. His program must then include also the censoring and control of arbitrary and colorful confusing topoi, defined by Vieira as the fantastical delectare of his Dominican rivals.