Crenshaw, William Thomas : An Investigation of Iago's Use of the Sixteenth Century English Rhetoricians' Schematization of the Topics of Invention

Authorities have established, from evidence in his plays and poems, that Shakespeare may well have been acquainted with rhetorical theory, including that of his contemporaries, the sixteenth century rhetoricians. Those rhetoricians were concerned with theories of persuasion. The object of this study is to determine whether Shakespeare took advantage of their theories of persuasion in his characterization of Iago, the persuader in The Tragedy Qf Othello, Moor Of Venice. Further, the object of this study is to determine if an analysis of Iago's persuasive tactics will serve as a key to his characteristic modes of thought, and to determine, by implication, whether the sixteenth century theory of persuasion, the tool of analysis of Iago's persuasive tactics, might be valuable to examination of Shakespearean poetics generally. The sixteenth century rhetoricians schematized their theory of persuasion. From that schematization, reconstructed in Sister Miriam Joseph's Shakespeare's use of the Arts of Language, the figures and tropes of speech related to the topics of invention are applied to Iago's discourse. The figures and tropes related to pathos and ethos in the sixteenth century schematization do not have a place in the investigation, which is limited to Iago's use of logos. G. B. Harrison's edition of Othello is examined. In Iago's arguments in that edition, all of the topics of invention schematized by the sixteenth century rhetoricians are used. The rhetoricians had schematized the topics into ninety-five tropes; Iago uses fifty-nine of those tropes, in various combinations, a total of four hundred five times. From this extensive use it can be concluded that there is a high coincidence between the sixteenth century rhetoricians' conception of a persuader and Shakespeare's conception of Iago as a persuader. Moreover, examination of Iago's various choices among the topics of invention and schemes of argument yields a conception of his characteristic modes of address and thought. As a speaker, he is aware that it ...