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Rhetorical Question

A rhetorical question is one whose answer is so obvious that neither the speaker nor the listener is not expected. “For who so firm that cannot be seduc'd?” Julius Caesar, 1.2.320. Also see rogatio.

Rhetorical Question is an example of:
Omission, Substitution

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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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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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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We must not make a scarecrow of the law

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Angelo
We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,
And let it keep one shape till custom make it
AntithesisTheir perch and not their terror.Metaphor

Well, heaven forgive him and forgive us all.
Some rise by sin and some by virtue fall.
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Source:
Act 2
Scene 1
Line 1

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Come you hither to me, Master Tapster

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Escalus
Come you hither to me, Master Tapster. What’s your
name, Master Tapster?
Pompey
Pompey.
Escalus
What else?
Pompey
Bum, sir.

Does your Worship mean to geld and
splay all the youth of the city?

Escalus
Troth, and your bum is the greatest thing
about you,
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Source:
Act 2
Scene 1
Line 220

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Kneel not, gentle Portia

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Brutus
Kneel not, gentle Portia.
Portia
I should not need, if you were gentle Brutus.Antanaclesis

Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus,
Is it excepted I should know no secrets
That appertain to you? Am I yourself
But, as it were, in sort or limitation,
To keep with you at meals,

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Source:
Act 2
Scene 1
Line 300

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