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Chapter 1 - Rhetoric

Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar

from Part I - Contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2020

Katharine A. Craik
Affiliation:
Oxford Brookes University
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Summary

In early modern England the theory of the emotions set out in classical rhetoric provides a context for understanding how they work in Shakespeare which is at least as important as Galenic humoral theory. The key concepts that link oratory and drama are ethos and pathos, where ethos may be understood in terms of character delineation and pathos as the emotion which character representation is intended to arouse in the audience. The key term used to describe the way rhetoric works on an audience is movere, ‘moving’. Rhetoric provided Shakespeare with a model of how to move the affections of his audience, but there are many points in his plays that reveal an awareness of the dangers of rhetoric – that the obvious deployment of artifice risks sounding insincere – and it is this that lies behind his development of more naturalistic forms of expression in his drama. This is also what lies behind the construction of Shakespeare’s reputation as the supreme exponent of the passions in the 150 years after his death, as ‘nature’ became the third term in the relationship between rhetoric and the emotions and the essential principle on which ‘moving’ is based.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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  • Rhetoric
  • Edited by Katharine A. Craik, Oxford Brookes University
  • Book: Shakespeare and Emotion
  • Online publication: 01 October 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108235952.003
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  • Rhetoric
  • Edited by Katharine A. Craik, Oxford Brookes University
  • Book: Shakespeare and Emotion
  • Online publication: 01 October 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108235952.003
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Rhetoric
  • Edited by Katharine A. Craik, Oxford Brookes University
  • Book: Shakespeare and Emotion
  • Online publication: 01 October 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108235952.003
Available formats
×