Some of the most famous speeches are remembered because of their skillful use of rhetorical devices. Examples of these famous speeches include Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech. There are many others. Some famous speeches are fictional or partly fictional.
Think of Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” monologue, which has become part of modern idiomatic speech in English. There is also the well-known speech of Mark Antony at Caesar’s funeral in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. It has stood as a standard for the use of rhetorical devices.
It’s not wholly fiction though. It is based on an actual speech and events from the life and death of Julius Caesar. Here is a list of popular speeches that use rhetorical devices and that have become part of popular culture:
Shakespeare: Mark Antony’s Speech at Caesar’s funeral
Shakespeare: Hath not a Jew Eyes Shylock speech
Abraham Lincoln's anti-slavery/anti-Confederacy speeches
Sir Winston Churchhill's WWII speeches
Martin Luther King: I Have a Dream Speech
In this article, we take a look at what rhetorical devices are and several famous speeches in which they were used for good effect, including the ones listed and more.
What are rhetorical devices?
Rhetorical devices are figures of speech used to enhance the effect of written and spoken language. They include a wide range of devices, ranging from metaphor and simile to rhetorical questions. However, since this article is about speeches, we will stick to oratory-related rhetorical devices.
Mark Antony’s speech: An excellent example
Mark Antony’s speech was written centuries ago by Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s language is often criticized as too old-fashioned and difficult to follow by a modern audience. This may often be true, especially when Shakespeare deliberately makes his characters sound like the everyday man using British dialect of his own era.
However, with Mark Antony’s speech, there is no such problem. It reads like a modern and updated piece of writing that anyone who can read or speak English reasonably well can appreciate.
Mark Antony was an ally and friend of Caesar, who was murdered on the Ides of March (March 15) by Brutus and conspirators. Mark Antony was able to convince Brutus to allow him to give a speech during Caesar’s funeral, which Antony used to stir the crowd to mutiny and chase the conspirators out of Rome, so that Mark Antony and Caesar’s allies could regain power.
Here is the speech in full. Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene 2:
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men–
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
Mark Antony makes use of three main rhetorical devices here — irony, praeteritio, and erotema. The irony lies in the fact that Antony is saying something without saying it. The speech points out the treachery and dishonor of Brutus, who was treated by Caesar as his own son, all while referring to Brutus as “an honorable man.” This is called praeteritio.
Erotema is another name for rhetorical questions, which Brutus uses to point out the absurdity of Brutus’s allegation that Caesar was ambitious. By “ambition,” Brutus meant to suggest that Caesar had ambitions to end the Republic and become a king or tyrant over Rome.
Brutus uses erotema to dismiss the notion. For example:
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
Brutus uses just about every known rhetorical device in this speech. We will cover as much of them as possible in the section below that talks about the different types of rhetorical devices.
Types of rhetorical devices
The most common and effective type of rhetoric is repetition. Repetition has several effects that a speaker would want to take advantage of. First, it establishes a rhythm, which may be pleasant to the ear. Second, it places emphasis. By repeating a phrase or word, the speaker will call attention to it.
Repetition can also be used to make something obvious. For example, let’s take a look at Brutus’ repetition of variations of the phrases:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
By repeating these two statements often enough and saying them alongside obvious evidence that Caesar wasn’t ambitious and that Brutus was unjust, the crowd will eventually agree and see that indeed Caesar was wronged by the conspirators.
Besides repetition, there are rhetorical devices based on structure and others based on dramatic effect. In all we can say that rhetorical devices can be categorized into three groups:
Repetitive rhetorical devices
Structure-based rhetorical devices
Drama-based rhetorical devices
In the following section, we look at examples of each of the following categories of rhetorical devices.
Repetitive rhetorical devices
The following table provides several examples of repetitive rhetorical devices. As mentioned earlier, repetitive rhetorical devices add emphasis and establish a rhythm. To see how they work in the instances provide, think of saying the speeches out loud. Better yet, you could get videos of these speeches if possible.
Rhetorical Device | Definition | Example |
Repetition at the start | Dr. Martin Luther King (1963): I Have a Dream speech. | |
Repetition at the end | Dan Quayle (1988): Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. | |
Repetition at the beginning and end, with a small change in the middle | Julius Caesar: For Brutus is an honourable man; So are they all, all honourable men– | |
When the same language is used at the end of one sentence or clause and at the beginning of the next. | Benjamin Franklin (1758): For the want of a nail the shoe was lost/For the want of a shoe the horse was lost. | |
Repetition of the root with a different ending. | Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 2: If it were so, it was a grievous fault, And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it. |
Structure-based rhetorical devices
Structure-based rhetorical devices work by maintaining, enhancing, or changing the normal structure of a phrase, sentence, or utterance. For example, isocolon maintains a parallel structure for phrases or sentences that are in succession, whereas chiasmus repeats elements but reverses their structure. The table below provides definitions and examples.
Rhetorical Device | Definition | Example |
Words, phrases, or sentences arranged in parallel structure | Dickens, The Pickwick Papers (1837): He was a morose, savage-hearted, bad man: idle and dissolute in his habits; cruel and ferocious in his disposition. | |
Repeating elements with their structure reversed | John Kennedy’s inaugural speech (1961): Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. | |
Inversion of words | Dickens, Capital Punishment (1846): What effects daily increasing familiarity with the scaffold, and with death upon it, wrought France in the Great Revolution, everybody knows. | |
Using extra conjunctions | Hawthorne, English Notebooks (1856): We talked about the position of men of letters in England, and they said that the aristocracy hated and despised and feared them . . . | |
Leaving out conjunctions | Churchill, London radio broadcast (1940): We seek to beat the life and soul out of Hitler and Hitlerism. That alone, that all the time, that to the end. | |
Leaving out words | Emerson, The American Scholar (1837): Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. |
Dramatic rhetorical devices
Dramatic rhetorical devices focus on encouraging the audience to participate or making a show of allowing the audience to participate. The most famous example would be erotema or rhetorical questions. Erotema gives the audience the impression that you are engaging them in the speech.
Rhetorical device | Definition | Example |
Saying things without saying them | Lincoln, debate with Stephen Douglass at Jonesboro (1858): I don't know any other way to meet it, except this. I don't want to quarrel with him — to call him a liar — but when I come square up to him I don't know what else to call him, if I must tell the truth out. | |
Breaking off in midstream | Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 2: Bear with me; My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, And I must pause till it come back to me. | |
Correcting oneself | Othello, Act 5, Scene 2: If she come in, she’ll sure speak to my wife. My wife, my wife. What wife? I have no wife. | |
Rhetorical use of the negative | Wilde, The Decay of Dying (1889): As a writer he has mastered everything except language: as a novelist he can do everything, except tell the truth: as an artist he is everything except articulate. | |
Rhetorical questions | The Merchant of Venice, Scene I, Act I: Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? | |
Asking questions and answering them | Shaw, The Apple Cart (1929): If you ask me “Why should not the people make their own laws?” I need only ask you “Why should not the people write their own plays?” They cannot. | |
Anticipating questions and meeting them. | Lincoln, speech at Galena (1856): You further charge us with being Disunionists. If you mean that it is our aim to dissolve the Union, for myself I answer, that is untrue; |
Examples of speeches that use rhetorical devices
Below is a list of famous speeches that make use of a range of rhetorical devices. The most obvious rhetorical devices may be mentioned for each. However, try to see other rhetorical devices you can identify on your own.
1. Shakespeare: Shylock’s monologue from Merchant of Venice, Act III, Scene I
This is from Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, Act III, Scene I:
Salarino:
Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take
his flesh: what's that good for?
Shylock:
To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else,
it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and
hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses,
mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my
bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine
enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath
not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as
a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will
resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,
what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian
wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by
Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you
teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I
will better the instruction.
Antonio has forfeited a debt to Shylock, a money lender, and Shylock wants his payment back in Antonio’s flesh. Shylock justifies his harshness based on how he has been abused before by Antonio. In the process he makes use of erotema or rhetorical questions — For example:
hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions?
He also uses other devices such as hypophora. Can you spot it?
2. Federick Douglass: What to the slave is the Fourth of July?
Federick Douglass was an African American who escaped slavery and who passionately advocated for the emancipation of all slaves. He was invited by abolitionists to give a speech on the American independence. He used it as an occasion to point out the irony of a country celebrating independence while practicing slavery:
Douglass, What to The Slave Is the Fourth of July Speech (1852):
Fellow citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?
The entire passage is nothing but a list of rhetorical questions. For the whole speech, you can check out this website: What to the Slave is the Fourth of July.
3. Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address
This is a famous speech that most Americans would be familiar with. The Gettysburg Address is a speech that U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivered during the American Civil War in dedication to the Gettysburg National Cemetery on November 19, 1863. The speech was given four and a half months after the Union victory over Confederate forces in the Battle of Gettysburg — the deadliest battle of the Civil War.
Lincoln, “The Gettysburg Adress” (1863):
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
The most famous line in that speech is likely “ . . . Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
It is an example of what is called epistrophe, that is, repetition at the end.
However, consider the following line:
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground.
This line includes isocolon (or parallel structure), asyndeton (leaving out conjunctions), and anaphora (repetition in the beginning).
4. Sir Winston Churchhill's WWII speeches
Sir Winston Churchill is seen as one of the heroes of WW II. His ability to inspire the British during the war with his speeches is a huge part of this reason. Here is one of those speeches:
Churchill, speech in the House of Commons (1940):
You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. . . . You ask, what is our aim? I can answer that in one word: It is Victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.
The main rhetorical device used here is hypophora — that is, asking a question and proceeding to answer it.
5. Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own is a famous book that was based on two based on lectures that she gave at Newnham College and Girton College — two women's colleges at the University of Cambridge. The book has become a hallmark of feminist literature.
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own (1929):
But, you may say, we asked you to speak about women and fiction—what, has that got to do with a room of one's own? I will try to explain. When you asked me to speak about women and fiction I sat down on the banks of a river and began to wonder what the words meant.
This is also an example of hypophora. The entire speech is dedicated to answering the question posed in the beginning.
The importance of rhetoric in speech
Rhetoric is important for several reasons. It has the power to enhance the appeal of the speaker to an audience, it makes us better appreciate literature, and it can enhance communication in everyday life.
1. Rhetoric in public life
Politicians can attest to that point. Whether or not politicians are successful in their goals depends on their ability to use rhetoric. For example, we saw how Brutus was able to use rhetoric to wrest power from the hands of the conspirators and change Roman history. Abraham Lincoln no doubt was able to achieve a huge part of his political success based on his rhetorical abilities.
2. Rhetorical analysis in literature
Knowledge of rhetoric and rhetorical devices is also important in terms of carrying out proper rhetorical analysis in literature. Sometimes, we can sense that a literary work is awesome or working, but cannot explain why. A knowledge of rhetoric and rhetorical devices can help us understand the process and reasons that result in the effect of that work of literature.
3. Using rhetoric to communicate
Politicians and authors are not the only ones capable of using rhetoric. Rhetoric can be used in everyday life to communicate. This could mean basic email communication, academic writing, speeches, and work or school-based presentations.
Familiarizing yourself with the basic principles of rhetoric or examples of rhetoric may help in improving your skills in communication. For example, isocolon is typically known as parallelism in everyday writing. Any form of communication can benefit from this, including emails, essays, and scientific papers. It does not necessarily have to be a speech predicated on saving the world or winning elections.
References
Farnsworth, W. (2010). Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric. David R. Godine.
Cite this EminentEdit article |
Antoine, M. (2024, October 27). Speeches With Rhetorical Devices. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/speeches-with-rhetorical-devices |
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