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Rhetorical Question

Rhetorical Question (rih-TOR-ih-kul KWES-chun) is one whose answer is so obvious that it is not expressed. Also called an erotema. “For who so firm that cannot be seduc’d?” Julius Caesar, 1.2.320.

Rhetorical Question is an example of:
Omission, Questions

Characters, Actors and Figurative Language

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Early in Henry VIII, Anne Bullen, young and beautiful, considers the prospect of a prosperous future. In the same scene, Anne’s companion, the old lady, sardonically remarks on her lost youth and unfulfilled aspirations for wealth and position at court. The contrast of these two characters is clear, but Shakespeare uses more than casting, makeup, costumes, or even the subject matter of their opening dialogue,
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Alas, poor things, what is it you have got

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Thomas More
Alas, poor things, what is it you have got,
Although we grant you get the thing you seek?
George
Marry, the removing of the strangers, which cannot
choose but much advantage the poor handicrafts of the city.
Thomas More
Grant them removed, and grant that this your noise
Hath chid down all the majesty of England;
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Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

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Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?Rhetorical Question
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,Metaphor & Hyperbaton
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
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O, for a muse of fire

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O, for a muse of fire that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention!Metaphor

A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!Anapodoton

Can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
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Source:
Act 1
Scene Prologue
Line 1

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Noble patricians, patrons of my right, Defend the justice of my cause with arms

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 Saturninus and his followers at one door, and
 Bassianus and his followers at another door, with
 other Romans, Drums, and Trumpets.
Saturninus
Noble patricians, patrons of my right,
Defend the justice of my cause with arms.
And countrymen, my loving followers,
Plead my successive title with your swords.
I am his firstborn son that was the last
That wore the imperial diadem of Rome.
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An untimely ague Stayed me a prisoner in my chamber

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Buckingham
An untimely ague
Stayed me a prisoner in my chamber when
Those suns of glory, those two lights of men,Anaphora, Pun & Metaphor
Met in the vale of Andren.
Norfolk
’Twixt Guynes and Arde.
I was then present, saw them salute on horseback,
Beheld them when they lighted,
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This butcher’s cur is venomed-mouthed

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Buckingham
This butcher’s cur is venomed-mouthed, and I
Have not the power to muzzle him; therefore best
Not wake him in his slumber. A beggar’s book
Outworths a noble’s blood.Metaphors

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
That it do singe yourself.

Norfolk
What,
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Little Helen, farewell

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Parolles
Little Helen, farewell. If I can remember
thee, I will think of thee at court.
Helen
Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a
charitable star.
Parolles
Under Mars, I.Hyperbaton & Ellipsis
Helen
I especially think under Mars.

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
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But now, my cousin Hamlet and my son

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King
But now, my cousin Hamlet and my son—
Hamlet, aside
A little more than kin and less than kind.Paronomasia
King
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
Hamlet
Not so, my lord; I am too much in the sun.

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Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world

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Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves.Adynaton & Simile

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Men at some time are masters of their fates;
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Well, Brutus, thou art noble

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Well, Brutus, thou art noble; yet I see
Thy honorable mettle may be wrought
From that it is dispos’d; therefore it is meet
That noble minds keep ever with their likes;
For who so firm that cannot be seduc’d?Rhetorical Question and Ellipsis
Caesar doth bear me hard, but he loves Brutus.
If I were Brutus now and he were Cassius,
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Source:
Act 1
Scene 2
Line 320

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