Rhetoric and Shakespeare

Meg Erb

Student ID: 20763845

ENGL309A

Dr. Michael MacDonald

3/26/2021

Word Count: 516

Reading Response: The Worlds of Olio + Othello

1. Cavendish starts Part 1 of Book 1 with an incredible posit about the reasonings behind men writing books. Within the bounds of rhetoric, it offers the reader some insight into a female rhetorician’s mind while consuming media in a field of study that is so harshly dominated by men. We understand that in Cicero’s and Quintilian’s eras, even up to Shakespeare’s, that receiving a good education and being proficient in rhetorical study was proof of being a man. Masculinity has been and always will be entrenched in the very definition and roots of rhetoric, while women are left to prove themselves as being equally deserving of praise whether or not they adhere to the rules of femininity or masculinity. Beyond rhetoric and its studies, Cavendish’s ideas could be extended to much of the communication between men and women. One could even consider that “mansplaining” is one of the most commonly seen proofs of Cavendish’s ideas about men’s wit.
2. The Four Discourses is something I had not considered much. Or rather, I’d considered but never really seen a solid answer for in rhetorical studies. Here, Cavendish outlines four kinds of discourses: foolish, extravagant, nonsense, and rational. Of these, she feels that nonsense is the most difficult. While rational “is to ask proper questions, or to answer directly to what he is questioned in, for reason is to clear the understanding,” to speak nonsense is “to speak that which hath no coherence to anything, when there is no words but may be compared to something, and though it hath no reference to what is spoken” (Cavendish, 51). It reminds me of Simlish, from the video game, The Sims.
3. In Lecture 12a, I learned more about Cavendish’s take on rhetoric. Here, the course materials teach us that she does not like any kind of rule-based system for rhetoric, that breaks it down into a system with a clear-cut way of being right or being wrong. Instead, she prefers a more natural and plain style. Considering this now after having read her work, I can see that she both believes that in the material of her text but also in her writing style of it.
4. Lecture 12b served a kind of re-learning experience. Now, I remember learning the basic definition of “kairos” in a first-year rhetoric course but had not given the title much more thought. This lecture allowed me to circle back to it and consider it more. The picture in Figure 1 (Time flies–Kairos personified. (Lysippos)) is a great image of all of the aspects of Kairos. It assesses the concept of the fleeting motion of opportune time in the wings, the brevity of that time in the hair, and the difficulty of balance in the scale and tightrope.
5. Kairos is obviously quite easy to apply to Shakespeare and the material of his plays, as he clearly has a great grasp of it in revealing plot to characters and to the audience. Within Othello, we can see it in Iago’s timing that he employs in sabotaging Cassio from Act 2, Scene 2.

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