About this episode
I have decided to call a slight halt to episodes regarding Shakespeare's initial exposure to rhetorical devices for several reasons. I wanted to concentrate on a few of the major rhetorical devices, and I have done so in the past few episodes. And I certainly will talk about some of the rhetorical devices that were most important to Shakespeare during future episodes. And no, this is not the last time that I will mention rhetorical devices.
But ultimately, the “number” of rhetorical devices isn’t like the number of planets. It depends on how finely you slice the pie.
How many rhetorical devices are there?
Well, At least hundreds show up across handbooks.
If you include every named sub-type, variant, and overlapping term across centuries and languages, you’re in the realm of many hundreds to well over a thousand.
That range isn’t because anyone is sloppy—it’s because rhetoric is a naming tradition, not a fixed periodic table.
And there are many reasons there are “so many”: fine divisions and overlapping names. There is no doubt that Shakespeare had to learn hundreds of rhetorical devices, but I do think we've covered the main ones.
Now there are many ways to explain why there are so many:
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