Matizes eloquentes: imagens, corpo e alegoria na prédica de Antônio Vieira

Abstract

The present research aims to comprehend how the images specifically the physical ones rhetorically constructed by the priest Antonio Vieira articulate to the establishment of the figurative and the ornamentative discourse of his sermons, which is directly related to the interpretation of the Biblical simbology, likewise, that in the domain of Christian rhetoric from which categories of textual interpretation make use of the levels of signification related to Biblical discourse. Our purpose was to verify that the Christian treatise oriented the Ignatian in how to worthly articulate the two systems of signals: the hermeneutic theory applied to common discourses and the rhetorical art operated in exegesis - and based on this study, visualize the creation of a rhetoric of the essential things , intended as a substantial rhetoric that blended the two levels: the rhetorical and the hermeneutical. To do so, we started from the viewpoint of the exam of the theological appropriation from the ancient Rhetoric, that is, by the process of substantialization of the rhetorical devices which are functional. The research aims also to highlight that the Jesuit discursive activity was permeated by strongly metaphorical and allegorical argumentation, which was supported by rhetorical, political and theological ideas. It is also our intention to understand how the images especially the ones related to the body were important to the intense religious/spiritual weight imprinted by the Ignatian with the purpose of generating the perceptions and feelings meant by it. Finally, it is our objective to establish the organization of the images and display their power to encompass, to unite, intending a universal and particular significance, as well as to assure the independence among them