Prof. Diana Henderson 21L.010 / 21W.734J William Shakespeare
didn't go to college. If he time-traveled like Dr. Who, he would
be stunned to find his words on a university syllabus. However,
he would not be surprised at the way we will be using those
words in this class, because the study of rhetoric was essential
to all education in his day. At Oxford, William Gager argued
that drama allowed undergraduates "to try their voices and
confirm their memories, and to frame their speech and conform it
to convenient action": in other words, drama was useful.
Shakespeare's fellow playwright Thomas Heywood similarly
recalled: In the time of my residence in Cambridge, I have seen
Tragedies, Comedies, Histories, Pastorals and Shows, publicly
acted…: this is held necessary for the emboldening of their
Junior scholars, to arm them with audacity, against they come to
be employed in any public exercise, as in the reading of
Dialectic, Rhetoric, Ethic, Mathematic, the Physic, or
Metaphysic Lectures. Such practice made a stude