The strategies of petition in the "Letters" of Catherine of Siena

Abstract

The Letters of Catherine of Siena have been studied several times at the level of linguistic expression and rhetorical strategies, and the characteristics of unity and the features of variation in relation to the addressee and the subject have been highlighted. The study presented here aims to identify the impact of communicative intent on the variation of language and style throughout the corpus of The Letters. In particular, we analyze the procedures implemented by the Sienese saint to ask her interlocutors to obey the divine will, observe certain rules of behaviour or, with greater energy, decisive action against the enemies of the faith. In all the letters, in fact, a central and unmistakable place is assumed by the petition addressed in appropriate and different ways to its addressees. The asking and the object of the petition are now underlined by a wise use of the verbs "to want" and "to pray", either by the imperceptible substitution of the allocative pronoun that depersonalizes the interlocutor, or by the alternation of the first and second person in relation to the content to be communicated. The importance is given to what Catherine asks for, and the way in which she asks for it is undoubtedly linked to the prophetic role of the saint, who in the Letters, contrary to what happens in the Dialogue of Divine Providence, emerges constantly. Catherine is a prophetess, because prophecy is the mission of those who act as guides for Christians in their historical life even before in their spirituality, and any strategy put into practice in the epistolary to obtain the victory of good is a testimony of such a function.