Textual invention : intertextual antecedents in the Renaissance

Ryczek discusses the notion of the textual invention (inventio textualis) introduced by the Danzig-born humanist Bartholomew Keckermann (1572-1609) in his handbook to church preaching (Rhetorica ecclesiastica, Hanau 1600). Ryczek’s focus is on Keckermann’s epithet describing the art of constructing an argumentation - an epithet that stresses its close connection with Biblical hermeneutics. To outline this category Ryczek contextualizes it with a broadly defined return to the sermon as a rhetorically disciplined commentary on a chosen fragment of the Scriptures. The rhetorical reading (interpretation) represents in this concept a hub of the inventive art of discovering new meanings and convincing arguments.