Leonato Essay

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Analysing Leonato's speech Leonato's speech is made up of 16 lines cursing at his daughter, Hero after the outburst of her supposedly sleeping with Borachio. The diatribe is full of hatred and fury and is profoundly a speech of denunciation. It is written in blank verse which is the language of emotion and is supported by Leonato. Full of anger and disgust Leonato begins his foul-mouthed speech of blight and abhorrence towards Hero. "Wherefore? Why doth not every earthly thing Cry shame upon her?" The speech starts off with adjacency pairs which is a question without it being answered, as Leonato asks three questions in the opening set of lines it gives a sense of rhetoric which in some ways does not give a sense of comedy. Shakespeare has included this to cause disruption within the speech. The audience can gain a sense of selfishness from Leonato as throughout his speech he uses pronouns 23 times within 24 lines of dialogue. It's a selfishness of himself, he would kill Hero if she did not do it herself, "Strike at thy life." The caesura puts emphasis on the line as it is incredibly deep of Leonato. The monosyllables depict an idea of stabbing Hero from Leonato's perspective - it is full of rage and emotion hence the blank verse. Shakespeare purposefully puts the caesura in place to cause more rage and emotion, the speech is not free-flowing as Leonato is brewing over with fury that he's struggling to find enough adjectives to describe his fume. He is stuttering with frenzy. The monosyllabic language that Leonato is using is representing a simplistic view of Hero's actions, "But mine, and mine I loved, and mine I praised" this shows the use of simplistic language of Leonato, his wrath once again building up and words failing to perceive him when speaking out, a selfish view as he is speaking of that Hero was his daughter and he has publically disowned her. He
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