V. Rhetoric in More's Richard III
The following study guide should be used in conjunction with the text of
More's Richard III, available in PDF format on the Downloads
page.
RHETORICAL FIGURES IN THE
HISTORY OF RICHARD III
Erasmus describes the style of Sir Thomas More
as tending more “to Isocratic rhythm and logical subtlety than to the outpouring
river of Ciceronian eloquence,” and Erasmus goes on to point out that one
can “recognize a poet even in [More’s] prose for in his youth he spent much
time writing poetry.” To understand why Erasmus thought More’s
prose style like poetry and full of pleasing rhythm and logical subtlety,
a careful reader will want to pay attention to the figures More uses.
Recognizing the figures and reflecting upon their use not only reveals where
More employs powerful rhetoric, but also demonstrates the sometimes questionable
purposes for which his characters use it.
Here the figures are divided according to their major
appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos.
MAJOR FIGURES RELATED TO ETHOS
Anamnesis: “Calling to memory past matters.” “Anamnesis
helps to establish ethos, since it conveys the idea that the speaker is knowledgeable
of the received wisdom from the past.”
■Shaa and Buckingham both quote scripture in their speeches (pp. 58, 66).
■In the Latin version of this history, More uses key terms from Roman history,
alluding to their institutions of self-government in a revealing manner (e.g.,
pp. 69, 71).
Litotes: “The moderator.” “Deliberate understatement,
especially when expressing a thought by denying its opposite.” Cicero in
Ad Herennium presents “litotes as a means of expressing
modesty (downplaying one's accomplishments) in order to gain the audience's
favor (establishing ethos).” Most commonly, this “figure may
be used to dispraise another with less offense or to speak well of oneself
with greater modesty” or to indicate disagreement without giving great
offense. At times, all three uses may be instances of ironic expression.
To Dispraise Another with Less Offense:
■ “good men might, as I think, without sin somewhat less regard it than
they do” (24.16-18).
■ “as though no man mistrusted the matter, which of truth no man believed”
(46.12-13).
To Praise Another with Greater Modesty:
■ “taunting without displeasure, and not without play” (49.15-16).
■ “and thanks be to God they got not good, nor you none harm thereby” (45.7-8).
To Disagree with Less Offense:
■ “Yet will I not say nay” (25.2).
■ “No man denies” (29.30).
■ “And then said he to the Queen he nothing doubted but that those
lords of her honorable kin . . . should, upon the matter examined, do well
enough” (31.1-4).
Martyria: Confirms a question by one’s own experience.
Joseph writes that this figure acts like proof in that it provides testimony,
or the “character of witnesses,” which carries the “force of argument.”
More uses this figure in the voice of his narrator in order to lend credibility
to his history.
■ “However, this I have by credible information learned . . .” (6.14-15).
■ “But in the meantime, for this present matter, I shall rehearse you the
sorrowful end of those babes, not after every way that I have heard, but after
that way I have heard by such men, and by such means, as I think it were
hard but it should be true” (75.8-11).
MAJOR FIGURES RELATED TO PATHOS
Apostrophe: “Turning away from; the turn tale.”
“Turning one's speech from one audience to another. Most often, apostrophe
occurs when one addresses oneself to an abstraction, to an inanimate object,
or to the absent, usually with emotion.”
■ “O good God, the blindness of our mortal nature” (45.19).
Bathos: “an unintended and excessive sinking from the
lofty into the absurd or ridiculous just at the climactic point where true
pathos and grandiloquence are called for.”
■ “But the people were so far from crying ‘King Richard’ that they stood
as they had been turned to stone,
for wonder of this shameful sermon. After which once ended, the preacher
got himself home and never after dared look out for shame” (60.22-25).
■ “When the Duke has spoken, expecting that the people (whom he hoped that
the Mayor had framed before) should after this proposition have cried, ‘King
Richard! King Richard!’—all was hushed and mute, and not one answered thereunto.
Wherewith the Duke was marvelously abashed” (67.9-13).
Climax: “Mounting by degrees through linked words
or phrases, usually of increasing weight and in parallel construction.”
As in the examples below, climax can be used to heighten emotion.
■ “For men use, if they have an evil turn, to write it in marble; and whosoever
does us a good turn, we
write it in dust, which is not worst proved by her, for at this day she
begs of many at this day living, that at this day had begged if she had not
been” (50.15-19).
■ “For Richard, the Duke of Gloucester, by nature their uncle, by office
their protector, to their father beholden, to themselves by oath and allegiance
bound, all the bands broken that bind man and man together, without any respect
of God or the world, unnaturally contrived to bereave them, not only of their
dignity, but also their lives” (3.26-30).
Enargia: “Generic term for a group of figures
aiming at vivid, lively description.”
■ “[H]e returned into the chamber among them, all changed with a wonderful
sour, angry countenance, knitting the brows, frowning and frothing and gnawing
on his lips…” (40.27-29).
■ “For upon this page’s words King Richard arose (for this communication
had he sitting on the stool, and appropriate court for such council) and came
into the bedchambers” (76.18-20).
■ “After which time the Prince never tied his laces, nor took care of himself,
but with that young babe, his brother, lingered in thought and heaviness
. . .” (77.9-11).
■ “King Richard himself, as you shall hereafter hear, slain in the field,
hacked and hewed of his enemies hands, dragged on horseback dead, his hair
spitefully torn and tugged like a cur dog” (78.29-79.1).
Other types of enargia:
Effictio: “portrayal,” which consists “in representing
and depicting in words clearly enough for recognition of the bodily form of
some person . . . This figure is not only serviceable, if you should wish
to designate some person, but also graceful.”
■ “Richard, the third son, of whom we now treat, was in wit and courage
equal with either of them [his brothers], in body and prowess far under them
both: little of stature, ill featured of limbs, crooked-backed, his
left shoulder much higher than his right, hard-favored in appearance, and
such as in the case of lords called warlike, in other men called otherwise”
(5.1-6).
Notatio: “character delineation,” which lies in “describing a person’s
character by the definite signs which, like distinctive marks, are attributes
of that character . . .”; in so doing, notatio describes “the qualities
proper to each man’s character.” More often uses this figure in conjunction
with praising or blaming the person being described.
To praise:
■ “Yet she [Jane Shore] delighted not men so much in her beauty as in her
pleasant behavior. For a proper wit had she, and could both read well
and write, merry in company, read and quick of answer, neither mute nor full
of babble, sometimes taunting without displeasure, and not without play” (49.12-16).
■He [Edward IV] was a goodly personage, and very princely to behold:
of heart, courageous; politic in counsel; in adversity nothing abashed; in
prosperity, rather joyful than proud; in peace, just and merciful; in war,
sharp and fierce; in the field, bold and hardy, and nevertheless, no further
than wisdom would, adventurous” (2.9-13).
To blame:
■ “Thus ended this honorable man [Hastings], a good knight and a gentle
one, of great authority with his prince, of living somewhat dissolute, plain
and open to his enemy, and secret to his friend, easy to beguile, as he that
of good heart and courage forestudied no perils; a loving man and passing
well beloved; very faithful and trusty enough, trusting too much” (45.21-26).
Protrope: “A call to action, often by using threats
or promises.”
■ “Dear friends we come to move you to that thing which perchance we not
so greatly needed, but that the lords of this realm and the commons of other
parts might have sufficed, except that we such love bear you and so much set
by you that we would not gladly do without you that thing in which to be
partners is your well-being and honor, which, as it seems, either you see
not or weigh not” (68.13-19).
MAJOR FIGURES RELATED TO LOGOS
Antithesis: “Juxtaposition of contrasting words
or ideas (often, although not always, in parallel structure).” Aristotle thought
that the effect of antithesis could be heightened by parallel clauses.
He writes: “Such a form of speech is satisfying, because the significance
of contrasted ideas is easily felt, especially when they are thus put side
by side, and also because it has the effect of a logical argument; it is by
putting two opposing conclusions side by side that you prove one of them false”
(1410a19ff).
■ “[H]e got for himself unsteadfast friendship…and …steadfast
hatred” (5.18-20).
■ “For it suffices not that all you love them,
if each of you hates the other” (8.13-14).
■ “[H]er great shame won her much praise among those that
were more amorous of her body than curious of
her soul” (48.11-13).
■ “outwardly friendly where he inwardly hated,
not omitting to kiss whom he thought to kill”
(5.21-23)
[plus alliteration]
■ “[S]he rather kindled his desire than quenched
it (54.1-2) [plus alliteration].
Antithesis heightened by rhyme:
■ “[F]rom that time forward was there never so undevout a king
who dared that sacred place to violate,or so holy a
bishop that dared presume to consecrate” (23.7-9).
■ “[S]he not very fervently loved for whom she never longed”
(48.21-22) [plus alliteration].
Aporia: “the doubtful;” “Deliberating with oneself
as though in doubt over some matter; asking oneself (or rhetorically asking
one's hearers) what is the best or appropriate way to approach something.”
More often uses aporia as a form of irony.
■ “whether [the clergy] said it for his pleasure or as they thought” (27.11-12)
■ “[Y]et was [King Edward] in many things ruled by the Queen’s faction more
than stood either with his honor or our profit, or to the advantage of any
man else, except only the immoderate advancement of the Queen’s family, which
group either sorer thirsted after their own well being, or our woe, it
were hard I suppose to guess” (11.27-12.1).
■ “This is my mind in this matter for this time, except any of your lordships
anything perceive to the contrary. For never shall I by God’s grace
so wed myself to mine own will, but that I shall be ready to change it upon
your better advice” (22.15-19).
Dialysis: “the dismemberer.” “To spell out alternatives,
or to present either-or arguments that lead to a conclusion.”
■ “were it for the respect of his honor, or that she should by presence
of so many perceived that this errand was not one man’s mind, or were
it for that the Protector intended not in this matter to trust any one man
alone, or else, if she were determined to keep him,…-- immediately,
despite her mind, to take him (28.11-17)
■ “either because she was content with the deed itself well done, or
because she delighted to be sued unto and to show what
she was able to do with the King, or because wanton and wealthy women
be not always covetous” (50.1-4)
■ “Tell him it is plain witchcraft to believe in such dreams, which, if
they were tokens of things to come, why thinks he not that
we might be as likely to make them true by our going if we were caught
and brought back (as friends fail those who flee), for then had the
boar a cause likely to slash us with his tusks, as folk that fled for some
falsehood; wherefore, either is there no peril, nor none there is indeed;
or if any be, it is rather in going than abiding. And
if we much fall in peril one way or other, yet had I rather
that men should see it were by other men’s falsehood than think it were either
our own fault or faint heart” (43.19-28).
■ “Now then, if she refuse in the deliverance of him, to follow the
counsel of them whose wisdom she knows, whose truth she well trusts, it
is easy to perceive that perversity hinders her, and not fear. But
go to, suppose that she fear (as who may let here to fear her own
shadow), the more she fears to deliver him, the more ought we fear to leave
him in her hands. For if she casts such found doubts that she
fear his hurt, then she will fear that he shall be fetched thence.
For she will soon think that if men were set (which God forbid) upon so great
a mischief, the sanctuary would little impede them, for good men might, as
I think, without sin somewhat less regard it than they do.” (24.8-18)
Irony: a “dry mock.” “Speaking in such a way
as to imply the contrary of what one says, often for the purpose of derision,
mockery, or jest.” More was particularly well known for a form of irony that
Thomas Wilson classifies as “praising the unworthy.”
Praising the unworthy:
■ “But he [Richard] allowed not, as I have heard, the burying in so vile
a corner [of the princes he ordered killed], say that he would have them buried
in a better place because they were a king’s sons. Lo, the honorable
nature of a king!” (78.3-6).
■And for this cause, (as a goodly continent prince, clean and faultless
of himself, sent out of heaven into this vicious world for the amendment of
men’s manners), [Richard] caused the Bishop of London to put [Jane Shore]
to open penance” (48.2-5).
■ “The other two [concubines of Edward] were somewhat greater personages,
and, despite their humility, remained content to be nameless and to
forego the praise of their qualities” (49.21-23).
■ “[T]hat every man much marveled that heard him, and thought that they
never had in their lives heard so evil a tale so well told”
(67.21-23). [plus antithesis]
Other forms of irony:
■Richard’s statement to the Council: “For never shall I by God’s grace so
wed myself to mine own will,
but that I shall be ready to change it upon your better advice” (22.17-19).
■Richard’s habitually being called “Protector” (See esp. pp. 36, 37, 40,
51).
■Richard’s insistence that “it was the chiefest duty of a king to minister
the laws” (p. 73.24-26) after
repeatedly manipulating the laws and focusing his attention to “win … specially
the lawyers” to his side (73.27-29; 39.10ff)
Metaphor: Asserting identity between two things
that are unlike. Aristotle writes that the key to good use of metaphor
is that the objects identified correspond well to the things signified.
He writes: “It is like having to ask ourselves what dress will suit an old
man; certainly not the crimson cloak that suits a young man.” Aristotle
thought that we are fond of metaphors because “we all naturally find it agreeable
to get hold of new ideas easily,” and it is from metaphors especially “that
we can best get hold of something fresh.” Metaphors, then, teach us
quickly and with pleasure.
■ “a pestilent serpent is ambition” (9.16).
■ Referring to the prince and Richard the Protector: “the lamb was given
to the wolf” (20.16-17)
■ “And so they said that these matters be kings’ games, as it were, stage
plays, and for the most part played upon scaffolds” (73.15-17).
Oxymoron: “Placing two ordinarily opposing terms adjacent
to one another. A compressed paradox” – as in Milton’s “darkness visible.”
■ “holiest harlot” (49.19)
Parable: Teaching a moral by means of telling
a story.
■ Morton tells of a lion that proclaimed no “horned beast” should abide
in the wood;
afterwards, the boar flees, believing the order applies to him. A
fox rebukes the boar: “Thou may abide well enough; the lion meant not thee,
for it is no horn that is on your head.” The boar replies: “No,
marry . . . That know I well enough. But what if he call it a horn?
Where am I then?” (See 84.2-12). Morton’s moral, of course, is that
the king possesses dangerous power.
Paradox: “A statement that is self-contradictory
on the surface, yet seems to evoke a truth nonetheless.”
■ “taking counsel of his desire” (54.12)
Praecisio: Wilson calls this “a stop, or half
telling of a tale”; he then explains: “A stop is when we break off our
tale before we have told it.” More depicts Cardinal Morton using this figure
to heighten Buckingham’s curiosity. This is one of the “figures of
silence.”
■ “ ‘And as for the late Protector and now King. . . .’ And even there he
left off, saying that he had already meddled too much with the world. . .
. Then longed the Duke sore to hear what he would have sad because he ended
with the King and there so suddenly stopped” (83.14-20).
Pun: To play upon various meanings of the same
word. Joseph describes a pun as a figure of ambiguity—deliberately used by
the speaker or poet—that demonstrates wit and art. She writes that puns
“depend for their effect on the intellectual alertness necessary to perceive
the ambiguity.” When More plays with the different senses of
a word’s meaning, he does not think of it as merely word play, but as wit
used for a particular rhetorical effect. The following four figures illustrate
different kinds of puns in More’s Richard III.
Antanaclasis: Repetition of a word in a different
sense.
■ “Here is a gay goodly cast, foul cast away for haste” (47.19-20).
■ “[T]here is none of her kin the less loved for that they be her
kin, but for their own evil deserving. And nevertheless,
if we loved neither her nor her kin, yet were there no cause to think
that we should hate the King’s noble brother, to whose Grace we ourself be
of kin” (23.25-29).
■ “Great variance has there long been between you, not always for
great causes” (8.29-30).
■ “[B]ut under an easy name of ‘benevolence and good will’ the commissioners
so much of every man took, as no man would with his good will have
given—as though the name of ‘benevolence’ had signified that every man should
pay, not what he himself of his good will pleases to grant, but what
the King of his good will please to take (62.1-6).
■ “Keep one safe and both be sure, and nothing for them both more
perilous than to be both in one place”
(35.17-18).
Onomatopoeia: “Using or inventing a word whose
sound imitates that which it names.”
■ “the sound of a swarm of bees” (68.23-24)
Polyptoton: “Repetition of a word derived
from the same root.” Often More combines this figure with antanaclasis
to repeat words in both different forms and senses.
■ “[S]he would never have showed such kindness to him, to let him
so kindly get her with child” (57.8-9).
■ “that no one thing in many days before got him either more hearts or
more hearty favor”(3.13-14)
■ “were he faulty or were he faultless” (4.27-28)
■ “very faithful and trusty enough, trusting too much” (45.26)
■ “[A]s they were great states of birth, so were they great and stately
of stomach” (4.16-17).
Syllepsis: When a single word that governs
or modifies two or more others must be understood differently with respect
to each of those words. Syllepsis occurs in a combination of grammatical parallelism
and semantic incongruity, often with a witty or comical effect.
■ “Doctor Shaa by his sermon lost his honesty and soon after
his life” (52.4).
Simile: Asserting a likeness between two
unlike things.
■ “[Y]et much part of the common people were therewith very well satisfied,
and said it were like giving alms to hang them” (20.3-4).
■ “as though God and Saint Peter were the patrons of ungracious living”
(25.26-27)
■ “but all was as still as midnight” (67.25-26).
MAJOR FIGURES OF REPETITION
“Repetition is a major rhetorical strategy for producing emphasis, clarity,
amplification, or emotional effect.” (Notice that repetition can be
used to support logos or pathos.)
Alliteration: Repetition of an initial consonant
sound. Puttenham calls this “the figure of like letter,” which may “notably
affect the ear.”
■ “if division and dissension of their friends had not unarmed
them and left them destitute, and the execrable desire of sovereignty
provoked to their destruction, who, if either kind or kindness had
held place, must needs have been their chief defense” (3.22-26).
■ “falsehood of their feigned friends” (58.5-6)
■ “you have long time lacked and sore longed for” (61.15-16)
[Note the pun on “long.”]
Anaphora: Where the same word begins a series
of clauses or verses. Puttenham writes of anaphora that it occurs “when
we make one word begin, and as they are wont to say, lead the dance to many
verses in suite.”
■ “[T]here they build, there they spend and bid their creditors
go whistle them” (25.29-30).
Antimetabole: Repetition of words in reverse
grammatical order and successive clauses. So John F. Kennedy said:
“Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you
can do for your country.” See also Antithesis
and Parallelism.
■ “Faithful you be that know I well, and I know well
you be wise” (35.22-23).
■ “[S]he begs of many at this day living, that at this
day had begged if she had not been” (50.18-19)
■ “[B]e it as well as it will, it will never
be so well as we have seen it” (17.13-14).
Antistrophe: “Repetition of a closing word or words
at the end of several (usually successive) clauses, sentences, or verses.”
■ “By which, the less while I expect to live with you, the more deeply
am I moved to care in what case I leave you, for such as I leave you,
such be my children like to find you” (8.7-9).
Assonance: Repetition of vowel-sound similarity.
■ “The brother has been the brother’s bane”
(35.14).
■ “that butcherly office to some other than his own
born brother” (5.30-31).
Parallelism: Corbett and Connors define parallelism
as the “similarity of structure in a pair of series or related words, phrases,
or clauses.” More uses it in conjunction with other figures often.
See Antithesis, which is a form of parallelism.
■“[W]here the King took displeasure, she [Jane Shore] would mitigate
and appease his mind; where men were out of favor, she would bring
them in his grace; for many who had highly offended, she obtained pardon;
of great forfeitures she got men remission” (49.27-30)
■“I neither am so unwise to mistrust your wits, nor so suspicious to mistrust
your truths” (35.4-5).
■“I beseech you for the trust that his father put in you ever, and for trust
that I put in you now, that as far as you think that I fear too much, be you
well aware that to fear not as far too little” (35.26-28).
■“And yet therein she said was more honesty than honor in this marriage,
forasmuch as there is between no merchant and his own maid so great
difference, as between the King and this widow” (54.30-55.2)
GENERAL RHETORICAL TERMS
Parts of Rhetoric: More would have been familiar
with the five parts of rhetoric that are discoveries of Roman oratory, and,
in particular, with the work of Cicero and Quintilian. 1) Invention
is the finding of arguments. 2) Arrangement is the order of a speech’s
parts. 3) Style in the Renaissance often concerned the figures that
the orator might employ, but more generally it should be considered by three
classifications—low, middle, and high. More might have known from his study
of Cicero or Augustine that the low style was for teaching, the middle for
delighting, and the high for moving an audience. 4) Memory refers to
the various devices orators used to remember their speeches. 5) Delivery encompassed
such things as the speaker’s gesticulations, use of voice, and even when
to show passions such as anger when speaking.
Arrangement: The second of the five parts of
rhetoric, that having to do with ordering the whole discourse. The
arrangement of the discourse typically follows Cicero’s paradigm: 1)
exordium (catches the audiences’ attention); 2) narration (sets forth the
facts of the case); 3) division (sets forth points agreed upon by both sides
and points to be contested); 4) confirmation (sets forth the arguments that
support one’s case); 5) refutation (refutes opponents arguments); 5) peroration
(sums up and stirs audience).
■Buckingham’s speech at the Guildhall serves as an abridged example:
exordium (61.11-19); narration
(61.20-65.1); division (65.2-15); proof (65.16-66.24); peroration (66.25-67.8).
Of note, Buckingham fails to include “refutation.” In other words, he never
presents arguments against Richard, not even to rebut them later.
