Forensic Shakespeare (Clarendon Lectures in English) by Quentin Skinner

by Quentin Skinner

Shakespeare and Judicial Rhetoric illustrates Shakespeare's creative processes by revealing some of the intellectual materials out of which some of his most famous works were composed. Focusing on the narrative poem Lucrece, on four of his late Elizabethan plays -- Romeo and Juliet, TheMerchant of Venice, Julius Caesar and Hamlet -- and on three early Jacobean dramas, Othello, Measure for Measure and All's Well That Ends Well, Quentin Skinner argues that there are major speeches, and sometimes sequences of scenes, that are crafted according to a set of rhetorical precepts about how to develop a persuasive judicial case, either in accusation or defence. Some of these works have traditionally been grouped together as "problem plays," but here Skinner offers a different explanation for their frequent similarities of tone. There have been many studies of Shakespeare's rhetoric, but they have generally concentrated on his wordplay and use of figures and tropes. By contrast, this study concentrates on Shakespeare's use of judicial rhetoric as a method of argument. By approaching the plays from this perspective, Skinner is able to account for some distinctive features of Shakespeare's vocabulary, and also help to explain why certain scenes follow a recurrent pattern and arrangement.

Genres: Shakespeare, Nonfiction, History, Literary Criticism

Hardcover

First published October 30, 2014

About the author

Educated at Caius College, Cambridge, where he was elected to a Fellowship upon obtaining a double-starred first in History, Quentin Skinner accepted, however, a teaching Fellowship at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he taught until 2008, except for four years in the 1970s spent at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. In 1978 he was appointed to the chair of Political Science at Cambridge University, and subsequently regarded as one of the two principal members (along with J.G.A. Pocock) of the influential 'Cambridge School' of the history of political thought, best known for its attention to the 'languages' of political thought.

Skinner's primary interest in the 1970s and 1980s was the modern idea of the state, which resulted in two of his most highly regarded works, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: Volume I: The Renaissance and The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: Volume II: The Age of Reformation.

Reviews

[James Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book and found it immensely interesting. The core thesis: that Shakespeare's education in classical rhetoric and the continuing influence of that rhetoric in contemporary judicial activity, played a very substantive role in shaping some of Shakespeare's plays was very persuasively made.

I especially enjoyed the material of the first section exploring how Cicero, Quintilian, ad Herennium, had understood rhetoric and how these writers had influenced the education system. I have always enjoyed studying how the Classics influence Shakespeare ( I would definitely recommend Burrows Shakespeare and Classical Antiquity (Oxford Shakespeare Topics)).

The narrow focus on seven or eight plays was interesting in that it reiterates the idea that Shakespeare's work comes in phases and that the contemporary literary world and he were in dialectic as was his education and his cultural context. It also meant that I had read all of the plays he focuses on (except one and I felt compelled to read that one) and this was definitely necessary: Skinner feels only a limited need to give any gloss on who characters are or what the plot is doing, the names appear and their ideas discussed, which is what one expects in an academic study.

I would definitely recommend this book and, for those who may need a brief introductory blast to the plays beforehand, Emma Smiths's Podcasts from Oxford on the plays, which covers most of these (https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/appr...).

[mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has much to offer one like me
A scholar in so much but not the Bard,
For in these times persuasive one must be
Authorities dead set to make life hard.

In rhetoric we find a classic way
That slings and arrows could miss wide their mark.
A winning case is brief, one ne'er re-say
But on this point the tome's misstep is stark
It never endeth.

(I still learned a lot though. So three stars.)

[Muhammad Ahmad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like Garry Wills's "Rome and Rhetoric: Shakespeare's Julius Caesar" this book is based on lectures. But for all its erudition, it gets too deep into the weeds to maintain the lay reader's interest. Many useful insights about how closely Shakespeare's rhetoric echoed the rules of rhetoric taught into contemporary and classical texts. But the book would have benefited vastly from the kind of economy with which Wills presents his case.

[Hollyann Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book on how Shakespeare captured human nature within his plays.

[Éowyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Forensic doesn't mean this is the Shakespeare equivalent of Silent Witness - this is a book looking at a group of Shakespeare's plays (and one poem), of which several are often considered 'problem' plays and the use of rhetoric within them. Skinner argues that this is deliberate and relates to a re-emerging interest in the Roman Rhetoricians in the Tudor period. The book is based on a series of lectures given by Skinner, so although as a casual reader I found it interesting, it was also hard work at times, particularly the opening chapters.