Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the primary use of rhetoric is to convince the reader to take the author's side of an opinion; but sometimes the author, as in Machiavelli's "The Prince", has hidden his opinion so deeply in the rhetoric that it is misunderstood. The author points out that Shakespeare used rhetoric in his plays, especially in his political tragedies, to demonstrate how easily men and women were corruptible by power. The paper relates that in "Julius Caesar" Cassius was totally corrupted by his quest for power and brought down ignominiously in battle; however, Brutus, whose flaw was poor judgment and needed to be "one of the gang", was permitted to honorably commit suicide rather than be tried and executed. Many long textual examples.

Table of Contents
Uses and Abuses of Rhetoric
Rhetoric in "Julius Caesar"
Machiavelli's "The Prince"
Rhetoric Unveiled

From the Paper:

"If Johnny Cochrane were playing to both the jury and the country in this use of a crude rhetorical device, certainly a playwright like Shakespeare would be playing to both royalty and the average playgoer when he wrote "Julius Caesar". Advertisement was limited to a few playbills posted on walls and what the town crier could yell to the generally illiterate common rabble. In looking at any of Shakespeare's plays as Renaissance commercial theatrical adventures, memorable lines would have been good selling points for the literate as was word of mouth of the great fight and death scenes to the common man. Even today our far more sophisticated tastes run from high action adventure to the deeply philosophical in our entertainment."

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