From the Mint

I'm rereading Gilbert Austin's Chironomia, or A Treatise on Rhetorical Delivery (London, 1806; I have a reprint, Carbondale: Southern Illinois Universit Press, 1966) at the moment, which I am sure will spark a number of posts. I'm working on learning the rest of his notated examples, and just this morning finished memorizing the basic structure of Gray's Elegy, though it is going to take a lot of work to make it good and to feel as comfortable with it as I do with the one piece I learned many years ago and often use as a demonstration, John Gay's "The Miser and Plutus".

This morning I read the introductory material and the chapters on the voice while taking the subway to work. Austin begins with voice and countenance, which along with gesture comprise the triumvirate of Rhetorical Delivery. I loved this quote about articulating text, which is so beautifully specific as to foreshadow a gesture itself:

[Words] are to be delivered out from the lips, as beautiful coins newly issued from the mint, deeply and accurately impressed, perfectly finished, neatly struck by the proper organs, distinct, sharp, in due succession, and of due weight. (Austin, Chironomia, p. 38).

May we all mint our words like coins this weekend, and may they prove to be as valuable as actual currency! Happy Memorial Day.