ELOCUTION AND GESTURES

The figures here are from an elocution exercise in an 1851 schoolbook. The 19th-century world was one of performance and presentation, a large portion of which was oratory. Preachers, politicans, actors, and lecturers spoke in tones and gestures discrete from everyday conversation. As you can see, even young children were trained to decipher and employ the gestural codes. Notice that one did not only extend the arms, but shift weight, turn the body and head, and change position of the feet. Each numbered figure corresponds to a word in red in the below lines:


KNOW YE THIS, MY FRIENDS, THAT HE WHO REIGNETH IN HEAVEN,

WHOSE FOOTSTOOL IS THE SOLID GLOBE,

WHO AT A GLANCE TAKETH IN ALL THINGS,

WHOSE ESSENCE FILLETH ALL SPACE,

THE IMMENSITY OF THE UNIVERSE,

REGARDETH US, THE CREATURES OF HIS CREATION, HIS BOUNTY,

NOT AS OBJECTS TO BE CAST AWAY

OR REPELLED FROM HIS PRESENCE,

BUT AS BEINGS TO WHOM HIS HEART IS EVER OPEN,

HIS HAND EVER EXTENDED.

HE WILL TAKE US TO HIS ARMS, AS A MOTHER TAKETH HER CHILD.


To get a sample of past oratorical style, click the link "historical speeches" on the left.
This is a streaming of early historical speeches and recordings by Theodore Roosevelt, William Jennings Bryan, Ernest Shackleton, Sarah Bernhardt, William Howard Taft and others, created from early cylinder recordings at the University of California, Santa Barbara. (The rest of the site is worth browsing, with early home recordings, music, and one set of early vaudeville recordings.)