Continuity in Peirce's Lesson in Elocution: A Performance-based Approach

Abstract: Peirce's "Lesson in Elocution" (written ca. 1892) provides insight into his ideas on continuity and community through his knowledge of performance cultures such as theatre, elocution, rhetoric, and declamation. This unpublished manuscript constitutes the extant part of an application Peirce drafted to the Episcopal Church's General Theological Seminary for the position of elocution instructor. Continuing Henry C. Johnson, Jr.'s account (published in Transactions [2006] vol. 42, no. 4) of the Lesson as evidence of Peirce's religious practices, this article explores the Lesson as demonstration of his performance knowledge and experience. What would Peirce have brought as philosopher and scientist to the teaching of elocution? Conversely, what did his performance knowledge bring to his work on continuity and community? Outlining significant differences between Peirce's semiotic approach and that of the Seminary's then-current instructor, Francis Thayer Russell, the article argues, employing selected performance theory concepts, that performance often operates in semiosis itself, as Peirce defined it.