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Recent Studies in Rhetoric and Nationalism in Shakespeare

Quentin Skinner and Marisa Cull show a keen eye for intricate relationships among history, literature and politics of the Renaissance period in Forensic Shakespeare and Shakespeare’s Princes of Wales. Despite the fact that they deal with various issues and peruse different Shakespeare plays, Skinner and Cull, by contextualizing his works with in the contours of Renaissance England, deliberate how the classic Greek and Latin traditions were engraved on the nation. While Skinner in Forensic Shakespeare takes to heart Shakespeare’s deployment of classic rhetorical techniques in his forensic plays, Cull expands the scope to include interwoven Anglo-Welsh relationships by cross-referencing the chronicles and history plays of early modern England. They each examine the sixteenthand seventeenth-century plays from judicial and political perspectives. First of all, the focal point of Skinner’s book is Shakespeare’s well-versed use of rhetorical techniques, an essential subject of Renaissance education. By tracing the history of rhetoric, we can find that the skill has been closely associated with political and public matters since the ancient Greek period. As Quintilian suggested, the training of an ideal orator is meant to produce an eloquent political and moral leader. In human history, education was one of the tools used to convey ideas of nationalism and the construction of national identity. Cull, on the other hand, probes into relationships between theater and English monarchy. Theatergoing was a major form of entertainment for the nobility during the Renaissance period, and theatrical performance imperceptibly inculcated ideology of nationalism into the minds of playgoers. Through Shakespeare’s portrayal, the forgotten heirs to the princedom of Wales were remembered to reshape Anglo-Welsh relationships. In the end, Shakespeare’s princes of Wales continue to live to this day. reformation, Vol. 20 No. 2, November, 2015, 174–183