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By William H. Benson

The Parallel Lives

Of The NOBLE AMERICAN RELIGIOUS THINKERS AND BELIEVERS:

Roger Williams VS. Cotton Mathers

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Imitating Shakespeare

Strange how certain books captivate my interest, others not as much. I find myself going back again and again to reread Mark Forsyth’s 2013 book, “The Elements of Eloquence.”

     In Forsyth’s “Preface,” he writes, “Shakespeare was not a genius. He was the most wonderful writer who ever breathed. But not a genius. Instead, he learned rhetorical techniques and tricks.”

     Of Shakespeare’s first plays—“Love’s Labour’s Lost,” “Titus Andronicus,” and “Henry VI, Part 1”—Forsyth says, “there is not a single memorable line in them.” But the young poet / playwright kept learning, and transformed himself into a word craftsman.

     Forsyth argues that Shakespeare’s first memorable line was from “Henry VI, Part 2,” when one peasant says to another, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Then in “Henry VI, Part 3,” a character says, “I can smile, and murder while I smile,” an example of anastrophe.

     In each additional play, Shakespeare learned to lay down a series of thought-provoking lines. In “Much Ado About Nothing,” “Julius Caesar,” “King Lear,” “Macbeth,” “Hamlet,” and “Romeo and Juliet,” he chocked each full of wonderful lines.

     A wit once called those illuminating lines, “Jewels in your mouth.”

     A favorite of mine is found in “Julius Caesar,” “O that a man might know the end of this day’s business, ere it come, but it sufficeth that it will end and then the end is known.” 

     Forsyth writes a series of quick chapters, 39 in all, and in each he describes a single rhetorical trick. The first chapter he entitles “Alliteration,” and then says, “Nobody knows why we love to hear words that begin with the same letter, but we do.”

     For example, “Full fathom five thy father lies,” comes from “The Tempest,” and, “The barge she sat like a burnished throne, Burned on the water,” from “Antony and Cleopatra.”

     In recent years, people would say, “ban the bomb,” “power to the people,” “put a tiger in your tank,” “it’s enough to get your goat,” “cool as a cucumber,” and “dead as a doornail.” 

     On page 12, Forsyth makes a startling statement. “You can spend all day trying to think of some universal truth to set down on paper, and some poets try that. Shakespeare knew that it’s much easier to string together some words beginning with the same letter.”

     “Alliteration is the simplest way to turn a memorable phrase.”

     In chapter 16, Forsyth considers the “Tricolon.” Three is a magic number. “Eat, drink, and be merry.” “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” “Truth, justice, and the American way.” “Faith, hope, and love.” “Friends, Romans, countrymen.” “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”

     Not one, not two, and not four, but three items points to completeness.  

     In chapter 21, Forsyth explains that Shakespeare surrendered to iambic pentameter, what Forsyth calls, “the Rolls-Royce of verse forms,” or “the king of English verse forms.”

     An iamb is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, “te-TUM.” A series of five iambs in a row, a single line, is a pentameter: te-TUM, te-TUM, te-TUM, te-TUM, te-TUM.

     Two examples: “If music be the food of love, play on,” from “Twelfth Night,” and “The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” from “Hamlet.” Each line contains just ten syllables.

     Tuesday of this week, November 19, marked the 161st anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s delivery of his address at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

     I wonder, how did Lincoln learn to write like that? Brief, to the point, only 272 words, inspirational, motivating. Lincoln read a lot, most often Shakespeare’s tragedies. He read and re-read “Macbeth” throughout his life, often aloud to others whom he forced to listen.

     John Hay said of Lincoln, “He read Shakespeare more than all the other writers together.”

     Near the end of the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln tried his hand at the elements of eloquence when he tied alliteration to a tricolon, “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” 

App shouldn’t be necessary to identify family

Phone App that Prevents Incest?Bill Benson, In Retrospect by William H. Benson June 12, 2013 Recent news tells of a cell phone app for Iceland’s 325,000 residents. Because nearly all are descendents of about 15,000 Vikings who settled there late in the ninth century,...

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Israel’s Independence Day

Israel’s Independence DayIsrael's Independence Day by William H. Benson May 14, 2020 On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed Israel’s Declaration of Independence. He said that the new State of Israel will “uphold the full social and political equality of all its...

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America’s Civil War—final days

America’s Civil War—final daysAmerica’s Civil War—final day by William H. Benson April 28, 2020 Abraham Lincoln won a second term as president in the 1864 election in November, and he was inaugurated on Saturday, March 4, 1865, on the Capitol’s east front. Crowds...

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The Fourteenth Amendment

The Fourteenth AmendmentAfter Congress and enough states ratified the thirteenth amendment that terminated slavery, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866. This law declared that “all people born in the United States are entitled to be citizens, without regard...

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Shakespeare and the plague

Shakespeare and the plagueShakespeare and the plague by William H. Benson April 13, 2020 In Thomas Dekker’s first pamphlet, The Wonderfull Yeare, he highlights three events that occurred in England in the year 1603. First, on March 24, 1603, Queen Elizabeth of England...

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War, pestilence, famine

War, pestilence, famineWar, pestilence, famine by William H. Benson March 30, 2020 Voltaire, the French philosopher, stated his creed in his Philosophical Dictionary. “I believe that theological disputes are at once the most ridiculous farce, and the most dreadful...

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Older Posts

Karl Marx

Karl MarxKarl Marx by William H. Benson March 17, 2020 A month ago, I happened to catch a “Planet Money” podcast called “Overrated / Underrated.” An economist named Tyler Cowen, a professor at George Mason University, fielded a series of questions, and one was, “Who...

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Adam Smith

Adam SmithAdam Smith by William H. Benson March 6, 2020 Last week, I happened to hear an economist named Tyler Cowen, professor at George Mason University, play a game called “Overrated / Underrated” on National Public Radio’s podcast “Planet Money.” An interviewer...

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Coronavirus / COVID-19

Coronavirus / COVID-19Coronavirus / COVID-19 by William H. Benson February 20, 2020 In October of last year, Eric Toner, a scientist at Johns Hopkins, ran a simulation of a pandemic of a coronavirus. After six months, his simulation indicated that all countries would...

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Queen Elizabeth II

Queen Elizabeth IIQueen Elizabeth II by William H. Benson February 5, 2020 After George VI, King of England, passed away on Feb. 6, 1952, his eldest daughter, Elizabeth, then just 25, became Queen Elizabeth II on that day, although her coronation at Westminster Abbey...

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Time’s illusions

Time’s illusionsTime’s illusions by William H. Benson January 24, 2020 Mother Nature builds chunks of time: a day, a month, a year. From one sunup to the next defines a day. One full moon to another full moon—29 ½ days—defines a month. On occasion though, two full...

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The Fifteenth Amendment

The Fifteenth AmendmentThe Fifteenth Amendment by William H. Benson January 2, 2020 In early Nov. of 1806, an older man climbed out of a coach and hobbled into a post office, in New Rochelle, New York. In Jan. of 1807, he would turn 70 years of age. Four months...

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William Benson

One of University of Northern Colorado’s 2020 Honored Alumni

William H. Benson

Local has provided scholarships for history students for 15 years

A Sterling resident is among five alumni selected to be recognized this year by the University of Northern Colorado. Bill Benson is one of college’s 2020 Honored Alumni.

Each year UNC honors alumni in recognition for their outstanding contributions to the college, their profession and their community. This year’s honorees were to be recognized at an awards ceremony on March 27, but due to the COVID-19 outbreak that event has been cancelled. Instead UNC will recognize the honorees in the fall during homecoming Oct. 10 and 11……

Newspaper Columns

The Duodecimal System

For centuries, the ancient Romans calculated sums with their clunky numerals: I, V, X, L, C, D, and M; or one, five, ten, 50, 100, 500, and 1,000. They knew nothing better.

The Thirteenth Amendment

On Jan. 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and by it, he declared that “all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are and henceforward shall be free.” Lincoln’s Proclamation freed some 3.1 million slaves within the Confederacy.

The Fourteenth Amendment

After Congress and enough states ratified the thirteenth amendment that terminated slavery, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866. This law declared that “all people born in the United States are entitled to be citizens, without regard to race, color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude.” The Act equated birth to citizenship.

The New-York Packet and the Constitution

Jill Lepore, the Harvard historian, published her newest book a month ago, These Truths: A History of the United States. In a short introduction, she describes in detail the Oct. 30, 1787 edition of a semi-weekly newspaper, The New-York Packet.

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Mr. Benson’s writings on the U.S. Constitution are a great addition to the South Platte Sentinel. Its inspiring to see the history of the highest laws of this country passed on to others.

– Richard Hogan

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Mr. Benson, I cannot thank you enough for this scholarship. As a first-generation college student, the prospect of finding a way to afford college is a very daunting one. Thanks to your generous donation, my dream of attending UNC and continuing my success here is far more achievable

Cedric Sage Nixon

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– Extra Times

FUTURE BOOKS

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