Reason Not

by Omry Smith

This book guides the reader through some of Shakespeare’s most emotionally turbulent dramatic worlds, offering a close examination of the fascinating emotional rhetoric employed by several key characters. These characters manipulate others – and sometimes even themselves – using a device broadly known in the terminology of rhetoric as ‘Emotional Appeal’. Although Shakespeare displays immense interest in the human passions and makes frequent use of the tools of classical rhetoric, this study presents the first systematic inquiry into the emotional component of rhetoric in his drama. Emotional appeal plays a prominent role at the levels of theme and plot in four of Shakespeare’s plays: ‘Henry V’, ‘Julius Caesar’, ‘Othello’ and ‘Coriolanus’; a close examination of this device as employed in each of these plays thus offers new insight into other significant issues of concern to Shakespearean research. Furthermore, ‘Reason Not’ offers the reader a broad perspective on Shakespearean drama by