| Abstrakt: |
The article challenges critics who regard Vieira as a supreme rhetorician. It reviews Cicero's rhetorical use of the Latin “verbum" to mean “word" dialogically (inveniendum) as opposed to dialectically (judicandum). It also reviews how Copernicus held that the earth is not the center of the universe because science is dialogical, just as the verba of the Portuguese discoveries (invenienda) are not dialectic. It then compares these findings with the Portuguese usage of António Vieira, S.J. António Vieira's seventeenth-century Livro changes the Ciceronian rhetorical verbum into modern Portuguese philosophical verba through dialog to demonstrate the discoveries are obviously true as invenienda. Vieira's translation of Latin engages the Portuguese in a dialog that itself does the persuading as time unfixes words, first in Portuguese in relation to Latin and now in English in relation to Portuguese. Ours differs from previous translations of Vieira into English. It shows the verba of the Livro itself, not the author or translator, make perfect sense in English today as Portuguese did then, all without recourse to rhetoric. It is as obvious in present day dialogs with aboriginals in English as it was obvious before with aboriginals in Portuguese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
