Book Review| November 01 2015 Review: Forensic Shakespeare, by Quentin Skinner Quentin Skinner, Forensic Shakespeare (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014), 368 pp. ISBN: 978-0199558247 Joanne Paul Joanne Paul New College of the Humanities 19 Bedford Sq London WC1B 3HH Joanne.Paul@nchum.org Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (2015) 33 (4): 440–442. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2015.33.4.440 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Joanne Paul; Review: Forensic Shakespeare, by Quentin Skinner. Rhetorica 1 November 2015; 33 (4): 440–442. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2015.33.4.440 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2016 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints.2016 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

440 RHETORIC A and justice. It offers an aspirational vision for the new rhetoric that has been unfolding for nearly a century. Hannah Arendt famously wrote of the human condition as in the world. Crosswhite's project embraces her vision as synonymous with the deep insight into the human condition that is offered by a philosophical rhetoric and the world its insights might instigate. Gerard A. Hauser University of Colorado Boulder Quentin Skinner, Forensic Shakespeare (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014), 368 pp. ISBN: 978-0199558247 Quentin Skinner last devoted a monograph to theories of rhetoric almost twenty years ago, in his Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy ofHobbes (1996). Forensic Shakespeare is in the same vein, deviating from the attention Skinner gives to republican liberty in his two more recent works (Liberty Before Liberalism, 1997 and Hobbes and Republican Liberty, 2008). Those look­ ing for further commentary on these themes within the scope of the history of political thought will not find it here; it is not Skinner's purpose. Forensic Shakespeare at no point treads this familiar ground of the history of political thought; the analysis, however, remains thoroughly within the realm of intellectual history. There are questions literary scholars might be keen to ask of this book, especially related to interpretation and theatrical staging, but Skinner makes clear from the outset that these are outside his remit. He is interested in what he calls "explanation" rather than "interpretation", in treating Shakespeare's works as historical texts, open to the sort of histor­ ical analysis Skinner is known for. The central claim of the book is that "among Shakespeare's plays there are several in which the dramaturgy is extensively drawn from clas­ sical and Renaissance treatises on judicial rhetoric" (p. 1). Skinner's focus is on two periods in Shakespeare's career - between 1594 and 1600, and between the summer of 1603 and the beginning of 1605 - covering plays such as Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, and Othello. These, especially Hamlet and those belonging to the Jacobean period, Skinner sug­ gests can be referred to as Shakespeare's "forensic plays" for their use of the rules and styles of forensic rhetoric - the rhetoric of the courtroom. This should immediately resonate with any reader familiar with these plays; the climax of the plot often involves a court scene in which the guilt of characters is disputed, whether in the courtroom of The Merchant of Venice or the tomb of Romeo and Juliet. But the question of why Shakespeare turns to forensic rhetoric in these periods of his career is a question that Skinner leaves open. As he 'states in his introduction, he intends this book as a foundational one - he will argue that Shakespeare was using these rhetorical sources in his plays, any further questions or conclusions are left for future studies. Reviews 441 Aftei a shoi t inti eduction, setting out his purpose, giving fulsome acknowledgement to the existing literature on the subject, and establishing his methodological boundaries, Skinner opens with a description of the clas­ sical rhetorical tiadition in Shakespeare s England, giving a thorough over­ view on the topic for those not otherwise familiar with it. Already Skinner begins to hint at Shakespeare's deviation from such traditional rhetorical norms, a topic to which he returns in the final pages of the book. This first chapter almost stands alone as a useful introduction to the revival, teaching and debates of classical rhetoric in Renaissance England, and is of itself demonstrative of Skinner's rich knowledge of the topic. The second chapter introduces the forensic plays, which are distin­ guished from the rest of Shakespeare's work in their focus on the forensic yem/s of rhetoric. Skinner makes the tantalizing suggestion that "Shakes­ peare is interested at most stages of his literary career in the full range of distinctively rhetorical utterance" (p. 48), but focuses on Shakespeare's use of forensic rhetoric in this selection of plays, leaving space for a study of Shakespeare and his engagement with the other two types of rhetoric - epideictic and deliberative, both which have a strong relationship with the political. The remaining chapters explore the parts of...