1. Rhetoric: using language to debate
The use of language to debate an issue is probably the most deeply characteristic feature of rhetoric.
Rhetoric first emerged in the law-courts and the political assemblies of ancient Athens –- so that the idea of two sides to every argument is deeply embedded in rhetorical teaching.
It leads to the notion that the job of rhetoric is to find the means of putting your own side of the argument most persuasively – even if (like some defence lawyers) you may not believe the case you are making, or even if (like many politicians) you will use any means, even the most deceptive and devious ones, to put your case across.
But it also leads to a deep-rooted assumption within the practice of rhetoric that no argument is ever completely watertight or final, and no statement of ideas in language is ever simply “the truth.”

2. Rhetoric: using language to debate
If we think of Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be speech,” we call it a soliloquy –- meaning that it’s the expression of his own private thoughts in a speech on stage. We tend to think of it as thinking out loud.
But from a rhetorical point of view, a speech is a public statement to an audience.
What’s more, from a rhetorical point of view, Hamlet’s speech is closer to an internal debate – where the two sides of the argument are “To be” v. “Not to be,” and where the argument is identified as a “question” (echoing the Latin term in rhetorical teaching for the topic of a debate: a ‘quaestio’).
We’re actually quite familiar with this idea of someone’s private thoughts being represented as an inner debate between two conflicting sides of an argument.

3. Using language to debate: Hamlet’s soliloquy, Hamlet (Act 3, scene 1)
To be, or not to be -- that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them.
To die, to sleep --
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep --
To sleep, perchance to dream -- ay, there’s the rub: [the obstacle]
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause – there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
Topic 1: live v. die
Topic 2: die = sleep
Objection

4. Using language to debate: Hamlet’s soliloquy, Hamlet (Act 3, scene 1)
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make [his quitting of a debt]
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, [dagger] [burdens]
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.
Topic 3: choosing not to go on living
v. worrying about the afterlife
Conclusion

5. Hamlet’s soliloquy, Hamlet (Act 3, scene 1): invention, disposition, elocution
By looking at Hamlet’s soliloquy as a rhetorical debate, we begin to see the main parts of rhetoric at work:
= the discovery of the ideas/arguments Hamlet is using
= the structure/arrangement of the speech
= we can also see the figures of speech/thought that are used, and give the speech an appropriate style
invention
disposition
elocution

6. Hamlet’s soliloquy, Hamlet (Act 3, scene 1): elocution: figures of speech & thought
To be, or not to be -- that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep --
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep --
To sleep, perchance to dream -- ay, there’s the rub: [the obstacle]
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause – there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
antithesis
trope/metaphor
anaphora
polyptoton
anadiplosis

7. Hamlet’s soliloquy, Hamlet (Act 3, scene 1): elocution: figures of speech & thought
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make [his quitting of a debt]
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, [dagger] [burdens]
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.
anaphora
congeries
trope/metaphor
alliteration