RHETORIC EXERCISE

Purposes

to gain an appreciation of rhetoric as a discipline that teaches students how to manipulate language for particular effects; to realize the importance of figures of speech for reading English Renaissance poetry; and to be able to identify various figures of speech and understand how they function in a poem

Grading Information

  • Due Date: Oct. 6 in class
  • Weight: 10%
  • Format: please type all the answers along with the corresponding numbers to individual questions

Instructions

  1. Read over the questions carefully.
  2. This assignment requires that you collect some basic information on rhetoric and figures of speech, so you will probably want to consult the following resources:


Library Books on Reserve Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student
In Defence of Rhetoric
A Dictionary of Literary Devices: Gradus, A-Z
A Handbook to 16th Century Rhetoric
A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms
The World of Learning Links
The Figures of Speech Site minigar2.gif - 3.50 K

The Assignment


  1. Questions on Rhetoric in General
    1. Briefly explain the overall purposes of rhetoric in English humanist education. (2 marks)
    2. What are the five canons of rhetoric? (1 mark)
    3. Which canons of rhetoric were important for the Renaissance and why? (1 mark)
    4. What does the first canon enable the writer to do? (1 mark)
    5. What are the three means by which we persuade our audience? (1 mark)
    6. Briefly explain what the common topics are and list five of them. (2 marks)

  2. Progymnasmata Exercise
    1. Do oneof the fourteen exercises in the Progymnasmata. (10 marks)
    2. Briefly explain the pedagogical value of this exercise for a student learning about rhetoric. (2 marks)

  3. Identifying Figures of Speech
      Match each listed figure to the example below (no figure is repeated): occupatio, hypallage, pleonasm, synecdoche, prosopopoeia, polyptoton, auxesis, anaphora, zeugma, aposiopesis
    1. I will have such revenges on you both,/ That all the world shall--I will do such things--/What they are yet I know not, but they shall be/ The terrors of the earth!---King Lear, 2.4.281
    2. Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,/ Some in their wealth, some in their body's force...---Shakespeare Sonnets, 91
    3. These are the ushers of Martius: before him he carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears...---Coriolanus, 2.1.158
    4. Madame, I set your eyes before mine woes.---The Arte of English Poesie
    5. What he beheld, on that he firmly doted,/ And in his will his willful eye he tired.---The Rape of Lucrece, 416-17
    6. Let but the commons hear this testament [Caesar's will]--/ Which pardon me, I do not mean to read--/ And they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds.../ Have patience, gentle friends; I must not read it./ It is not meet you know how Casear loved you...---Julius Caesar, 3.2.130
    7. O comfort-killing Night, image of hell!/ Dim register and notary of shame!---The Rape of Lucrece, 764-65
    8. Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,/ But sad mortality o'er-sways their power...---Shakespeare Sonnets, 65
    9. Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,/ Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.---Shakespeare Sonnets, 128
    10. But of his cheere did seeme too solemne sad...---The Faerie Queene, Bk. 1, 1.2.8
      (1 mark each for a total of 10)

  4. Finding Figures of Speech
      From the works we have studied or will study this term, find an example of 5 of the following figures (please provide proper citations and explain why each is a good example):
    1. hyperbaton
    2. anastrophe
    3. metaphor
    4. oxymoron
    5. antanaclasis
    6. antithesis
    7. antimetabole
    8. correctio
      (2 marks each for a total of 10)

  5. Interpreting Figures of Speech
      In a three or four sentence paragraph, explain how each figure functions in the overall poem (please consider the rest of the poetic context in The New Oxford Book of 16th Century Verse):
    1. auxesis or gradatio: Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,/ That the dear she might take some pleasure of my pain,/ Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,/ Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain...---Astrophil and Stella, 1, (p.303)
    2. antanaclasis: And should in soul up to our country move;/ True; and yet true that I must Stella love.---Astrophil and Stella, 5, (p.304)
    3. oxymoron: Of living deaths, dear wounds, fair storms and freezing fires...---Astrophil and Stella, 6, (p.304)
    4. prosopopoeia: With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies,/ How silently, and with how wan a face!---Astrophil and Stella, 31, (p.308)
    5. metaphor: Let him but learn of love to read in thee,/ Stella, those fair lines which true goodness show.---Astrophil and Stella, 71, (310-11)
      (2 marks each for a total of 10)
Any questions about the assignment?
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