I enjoyed a bit of serendipity when searching for a scholarly source for today. I visited the library and hunted down the Shakespeare section. I wanted to unearth a book focused particularly on rhetorical strategies in Shakespeare. So, I went personally to the section of Shakespeare research and I found a book titled “Why Shakespeare” by Gerald M. Picniss. Provided my focus on the idea of compartmentalizing the tools of Shakespeare’s success, I was intrigued by the title of this work. It did not disappoint. I was able to review some brief segments of the book, and look forward to utilizing it more fully. The book attempts to explain the specific strategies incorporated in Shakespeare’s plays that make them successful. He analyses the structure of the plays in the first half of the book, while the latter half hone in on the various Rhetorical strategies of the plays. For instance chapter six deals exclusively with the mixing of Verse and Prose in the plays and how this mixture engages the viewer mentally through its development of wit. This chapter specifically will help me in my rhetorical analysis of the plays, which I am very excited about since I am attempting to imitate much of this in the play that I am crafting.
