Episode 58 (Shakespeare's Rhetoric)

For the November 2022 episode of the podcast, Paul welcomes Gideon Burton, professor in the English Department at Brigham Young University in Salt Lake City, Utah, and creator of the website Silva Rhetoricae: The Forest of Rhetoric. Paul and Gideon discuss Shakespeare’s use of rhetoric, in addition to rhetoric in general, which is often defined as the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing.

Gideon Burton has taught courses in rhetoric, Renaissance literature, and digital media since 1994 at Brigham Young. His Silva Rhetoricae: The Forest of Rhetoric website has introduced countless online visitors to the basic concepts and terms of rhetoric since 1996. An avid skier,  Gideon lives in Salt Lake City.

Dr. Burton’s faculty biography, with a list of his publications, is available here.

Paul Meier’s Voicing Shakespeare, with a chapter on Rhetoric, is available here.

Click here for more Guess that Accent quizzes on IDEA.

Paul’s free ebook, The Original Pronunciation of Shakespeare’s Pronunciation, and other material on the topic, is available here. And for further related topics, see episodes 15 and 36 of this podcast.

Hear Alex Waldman, a Royal Shakespeare Company actor, explore the same speeches as Paul and Gideon do in this month’s podcast:

The speeches discussed in this podcast, from William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, 3:2:

Brutus:

Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my cause, and be silent, that you may hear: believe me for mine honour, and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe: censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses, that you may the better judge. If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar’s, to him I say, that Brutus’ love to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: –Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all free men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him: but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears for his love; joy for his fortune; honour for his valour; and death for his ambition. Who is here so base that would be a bondman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I offended. I pause for a reply.

Then none have I offended. I have done no more to Caesar than you shall do to Brutus. The question of his death is enrolled in the Capitol; his glory not extenuated, wherein he was worthy, nor his offences enforced, for which he suffered death.

Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony: who, though he had no hand in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying, a place in the commonwealth; as which of you shall not? With this I depart,–that, as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself, when it shall please my country to need my death.

 

Marc Antony:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men–
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

 

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)

 

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