"Sweet smoke of rhetoric": Sussing Shakespeare

“Rhetoric” is most often defined as strategies of persuasion—strategies that range from simple requests and statement of facts, to seduction, flattery, force.  Rhetoric can be used to promote worthy causes: it says, “Let’s do some good.” Sermons practice the rhetoric of “believe what I believe”—sometimes with the proviso “or else” as subtext. Commercial ads are quintessentially messages of “buy me.”  Artists are rhetoricians: “see the world as I see it.” The rhetoric of seduction and flattery broadcast, like a bird of paradise, “I’m the one and only for you.” Rhetoric is too often used by tyrants to dominate, confuse, delude; to inflate their own images; to vanquish others, greedily amass and hoard resources, and to subjugate and enslave others.

To read Shakespeare from the critical perspective of rhetoric is to discover and appreciate the devices he uses to (1) capture and maintain our attention from scene to scene, (2) develop dramatic tension between characters, (3) seduce us through stagecraft to, in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s phrase, “suspend our disbelief” and participate in the illusion that is theatre.  Theatergoers buy into plays and films to enjoy that illusion.

Aristotle identified three rhetorical appeals—Pathos, Ethos, Logos:

Pathos stirs, amplifies, and takes advantage of emotions. 

Ethos says “believe me because of who I am.”  Since we only vote for ourselves,

an ethical appeal also says “I’m like you.”

Logos offers reasons for belief and action.

Let’s consider how these strategies are managed in the opening of a pivotal soliloquy, St. Crispin’s Day speech in The Life of King Henry the Fifth, as King Henry rallies his small coterie of soldiers to fight the vast French army at Agincourt:

           WESTMORLAND.

                                                                   O that we now had here

                         But one ten thousand of those men in England

                         That do no work to-day!

Westmorland bemoans his fear, O, a word/sound—appealing to the Pathos/emotion of woe—that being outnumbered, the English army will be vanquished.  He uses the rhetorical device of hyperbole, inflating the numbers to ten thousand, a number named “myriad,” which has classically considered astronomical.  Comparing himself to the indigent in England “That do no work to-day!” uses the device of inflating his own ethos/moral standing.  He reverts, through this, to both appealing to the King’s ethos—oh, great leader, protect me—and appealing to the King’s Pathos—please pity us.  The rhetoric here is we’re doomed. Let’s not go into battle.  Westmorland only indirectly uses a Logical appeal—we are outnumbered; therefore, we shouldn’t fight. 

By setting up this dramatic tension, appealing to our own fears, Shakespeare invites the audience/readers to identify with Westmorland, thus rousing our interest in how the King will respond:

KING.

                                                                  What's he that wishes so?

                          My cousin, Westmorland? No, my fair cousin;

                          If we are mark'd to die, we are enough

                          To do our country loss; and if to live,

                          The fewer men, the greater share of honour.

                          God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.

            The first thing we notice is that, given that this portion of the play is written in blank verse, the King literally finishes Westmorland’s line.  In this context, using this device (let’s call it cutting him off, or having the last word) King’s asserts his Ethos—he’s in charge. It is an act of dominance. The king confronts Westmorland’s exclamation point with a question—thus further undermining Westmorland.  A question that is a true request for an answer puts the questioner in a dependent position to the one to whom the question is posed—a position of anticipation and waiting.  “What’s he that wishes so?” is a rhetorical question that expects no response.  The King, having established his position, is actually forbidding an answer to the question.  Also, the King very well knows who asked the question.  By asking “What’s he” and not “Who’s he,” he is diminishing his cousin to a thing—What thing is he could ask?  It is a question that shames Westmorland.  Once having made this combined appeal of Pathos and Ethos so that Westmorland is vulnerable, the King has him in his power. The men are all present for this interchange, so the King’s image is at stake.  He quickly shows himself to be compassionate with “my fair cousin.”  He can afford to condescend to Westmorland as “fair” and as kin.  That’s a classic move of passive/aggression.  To object to this treatment—which seems flattering—Westmorland would seem disingenuous.  It silences him.  After three short lines, he is cut off by the King, who proceeds to speechify for 49 lines.  That’s dominance.  The King wins.

            Choose your favorite passage in Shakespeare, and savor the words slowly for appeals to Pathos, Ethos, and Logos.

Works Cited:

Cover art: https://slideplayer.com/slide/3782888/

Useful Link:

Brinks, Melissa. “The 20 Most Useful Rhetorical Devices”  

https://blog.prepscholar.com/rhetorical-devices-list-examples