Reading Barthes on silence as a rhetorical device reminded me just how long it too me to see the pun in Hamlet’s dying line, “the rest is silence”.
Silence as (much deserved) rest. Silence as no more words. Silence as that which lies beyond th’occurrents of the world.
Silence as a pause before the continuation of the music.
Which reminder sent me happily to this:
‘Silence tells me secretly, everything’.
Follow-up thoughts:
Bring Barthes and Hamlet together: Dying as a rhetorical device.
Since Quintillian the question for rhetoricians is how to ensure the link between rhetorical devices and truth and virtue. That is to say the best rhetoric should also be the most expressive of virtue and truth, and rhetorical devices should not be able to convey falsehood or mendacity.
This is of course impossible, and perhaps Death-as-rhetorical-device (martydom?) is the only the most intensely signaled way of attempting that.
Is it possible to die insincerely? It is certainly possible to die performatively.