Delsarte System of Oratory

Before concluding these essays, my homage to the innovating spirit, the matchless art, the sympathetic and generous nature of François Delsarte, I make a final appeal to my memo...

We have now to consider each branch of æsthetics in the totality of the system, to be assured whether or no this law discovered by Delsarte covers all departures in the domain o...

However striking and superior the system of François Delsarte has been shown to be, however admirable and attractive the manifestation of art in his person,--herein lie not his...

I now confront an important and very interesting subject; but one which is more difficult to handle than the most prickly briers. There has been a confusion, in regard to Delsar...

This is true, and it is as an application of this truth that we are about to consider the series, which is an exposition of the passions that agitate man, an initiation into imi...

I have shown Delsarte as a composer, as pre-eminently an artist, who, as a certain critic says, "was never surpassed;" I have insisted upon the two titles which form his special...

François Delsarte was born November 11, 1811, at Solesme, a little town of the Department of the North, in France. His father, who was a renowned physician and the author of sev...

Though Delsarte be acknowledged the discoverer of the law of æsthetics, he may have held points in common with many who before him had had presentiments of its coming and had in...

These movements derive their significance from the different angles formed by the fore-arm in relation to the arm. Let us first represent these different angles, and then we wil...

Gesture must always precede speech. In fact, speech is reflected expression. It must come after gesture, which is parallel with the impression received. Nature incites a movemen...

The head must be studied under two relations: as the agent of expression through its movements, and as the centre of attraction; that is, the point of departure or arrival for t...

Friendly relations--although disputes often arose--were established toward 1840 between Delsarte and Raymond Brucker (known to literature as Michel Raymond). Fortunately in spit...

We would fain prolong the faintest rays of all that glitters and fades too soon, and if intense light is generated in a human brain, we strive to retain its every reflection. No...

In François Delsarte's school there were morning classes and evening classes. The former were more especially devoted to the theory, to lessons. Those of which I shall speak mig...

When Delsarte had finished his studies, he entered the world unaided and alone; disarmed by the hostilities which could not fail to await him, by his very superiority, and by th...

Expression is very difficult. One may possess great knowledge and lack power to express it. Eloquence does not always accompany intellect. As a rule, poets do not know how to re...

It was in 1865 that Delsarte was heard in public for the last time. The meeting took place at the Sorbonne where the lectures of the Philotechnic Society were then given.

The object of measure in oratorical diction is to regulate the interval of sounds. But the length of the interval between one sound and another is subject to the laws of slownes...

The whole secret of captivating an audience by the charms of the voice, consists in a practical knowledge of the laws of sound, inflection, respiration and silence. The voice fi...

Starting from an undeniable law--that which regulates the constitution of man,--Delsarte applies it to æsthetics; he designates man as "the object of art," and groups in series...

To get one's bearings in that floating population (where persistency and fidelity are rare qualities) which haunts a singing-school, it is well to make classifications. In Delsa...

Delsarte married, in 1833, Miss Rosina Andrien. The young husband felt a high esteem for his father-in-law (primo basso cantante at the Opera); but we must not suppose that this...

Intensity may be applied alike to the voice and to sound. The voice is strong or weak, according to the mechanism of the acoustic apparatus. The strength or weakness of sound de...

The semeiotic is the science of signs, and hence the science of the form of gesture. Its object is to give the reason for the forms of gesture according to the types that charac...

Independently of its method, which was especially applicable to dramatic and lyric arts, Delsarte's doctrine, as we have seen, drew from the primordial sources, which are the la...

Let us note an incontestable fact. The science of the Art of Oratory has not yet been taught. Hitherto genius alone, and not science, has made great orators. Horace, Quintilian...

The infant in the cradle has neither speech nor gesture:--he cries. As he gains sensibility his tones grow richer, become inflections, are multiplied and attain the number of th...

To say nothing of six fine vocal exercises and a number of songs which had their day, his "Stanzas to Eternity" were highly popular. A mass by him was performed in several churc...

Delsarte always had his father's propensity to devote himself to mechanics that he might apply his knowledge of them to new things. When he felt his artistic abilities, not grow...

These inflections comprise three sorts of movements affected by each gesture, which usually unite and constitute a synthetic form. These three movements agree with the three pri...

Human word is composed of three languages. Man says what he _feels_ by inflections of the voice, what he _loves_ by gesture, what he _thinks_ by articulate speech. The child beg...

1. _Gesture is the Direct Agent of the Heart._--Look at an infant. For some time he manifests his joy or sorrow through cries; but these are not gesture. When he comes to know t...

1. _In Itself._--Speech is the most wonderful gift of the Creator. Through speech man occupies the first rank in the scale of being. It is the language of the reason, and reason...

If we consider philosophy in the light of all the questions upon which it touches, the subjects which it embraces, we must answer "No;" but if we concentrate the word within the...

In the Italian there are no two equal sounds; the quantity is never uniform. Italian is, therefore, the most musical of languages. Where we place one accent upon a vowel, the It...

From these three positions, the eccentric, the concentric and the normal, are derived nine degrees or species. Thus in each of these genera, the torso is inclined toward the spe...

Some years before his death Delsarte substituted for his concerts, lectures in which he explained his scientific doctrines and his philosophy of art. He also supplied the place...

Every language is composed of consonants and vowels. These consonants and vowels are gestures. The value of the consonant is the gesture of the thing expressed. But as gesture i...

Man reveals his life through more than four millions of inflections ere he can speak or gesticulate. When he begins to reason, to make abstractions, the vocal apparatus and gest...

We refer the student to the close of the volume, for a model of exercises comprising a series of gestures which express the most eloquent sentiments of the human heart.

Preliminary Reflections--The Series of Gestures Applied to the Sentiments Oftenest Expressed by the Orator: (1) Interpellation; (2) Thanks, Affectionate and Ceremonious; (3) Att...