Rhetoric of Shakespearean Drama

4 credits · Undergraduate

This class examines the way in which a distinctively rhetorical concern with persuasion, tropes, topicality, and modes of appeal can be engaged in readings of Shakespearean texts. Using written documents from the period along with contemporary rhetorical criticism and theory, the class analyzes the importance of rhetoric in the production and performance of Shakespeare's plays, in their particular rendering of verbal conflict and the scene of persuasion, and in the analysis of their participation in larger cultural contests over the legitimacy of the prevailing political, legal, moral, or natural order.