Rhetoric Gym

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GEORGE (to mic, playful):
All right. Confession
Some people hear the phrase “rhetorical devices” and immediately reach for the nearest exit sign.
But over the years I have learned that rhetorical devices are not decorations. They’re not lace on the edge of language.
They’re engines.
They’re how a speaker makes an audience feel the truth—
even when the truth is… being negotiated.
And Shakespeare? Shakespeare wasn’t born with a quill in his hand.
He was trained.
Today we walk into the rhetoric gym.

GEORGE:
And we’re going to meet the young Shakespeare as he learns the craft of making words do things.

But first

GEORGE:
This is Celebrate Creativity. I’m George Bartley.

This series blends historical research with fiction and imagined conversations. Not a documentary, not advice.

Today: the schooling that made Shakespeare’s language possible—and how those rhetorical “moves” show up in the plays like fingerprints.

Now Picture it: a grammar school. from at least six o'clock in the morning to 6 o'clock at night Monday through Saturday. Repetition that drills itself into the mind.

Latin. Translation. Memorization. Imitation.
Not because the world is kind, but because the world is competitive.
A boy learns to hold language in his mouth like a tool—and to sharpen it.

GEORGE:
Master Shakespeare—be honest. Was Learning about rhetoric miserable?

SHAKESPEARE (pleasant, sardonic):
It was character-building.

GEORGE:
That’s what people say when it was miserable.

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