The ancient concept of ‘gesture’ had no place in the brave new world of Stanislavskian naturalism. Rhetorical gesture was understood as an adjunct of speech, hardwired to speech in the idiom of modern brain science. Classical gesture: refused to separate the physical person of the orator from his moral and intellectual capacities. The gestures of a Ciceronian speech were deemed to be implicit in the words. Renaissance gesture: raising the question of whether gesture is teachable. Shakespearean gesture: I focus on Bertram Joseph’s controversial research into gesture, and examine his work with Shakespearean actors presenting Macbeth at the Mermaid. Baroque gesture: contrasting Le Faucheur’s practice in the pulpit with the new approaches of Descartes and Le Brun. Enlightenment France: F. Riccoboni’s argument for an intelligent actor in control of his movements. Enlightenment Germany: Lessing’s desire for ‘individualizing’ gestures was not well received by actors. Engel followed Lessing in quest of detail, but Goethe return to tradition in order to find a language of the body that would support the delivery of verse.

In this chapter I provide a sketch of rhetorical performance practice as it emerges from the rich, complex, and contradictory texts of the Greco-Roman world. A visual conception of ancient rhetoric: John Bulwer’s representation of rhetorical stage acting, which contrasts the stage actor with the dialectician. Greece and Rome: Greece developed the art of rhetoric, accepting the centrality of acting or ‘hypokrisis’, while Roman orators placed more emphasis on the constant persona of the orator. Cicero and Roscius: a case study of how Cicero used performance skills to defend the celebrity stage actor in court. Cicero’s ‘De Oratore’: Cicero’s masterpiece, couched as a dialogue to make it clear there is no single set of rules for being an orator. Quintilian: who codified Cicero, and made rhetoric the foundation of an educational programme. Tacitus: who dissented from Quintilian’s political conformism. Augustine: who tried to adapt his rhetorical training to serve the needs of Christian preaching, anticipating the dilemmas faced by rhetorical performers in the Renaissance.