Download Julius Caesar - Teacher Barb

The Tragedy of Julius Caesar
Main Characters
Julius Caesar—a great Roman general and a senator
Brutus—the tragic hero of the play; a Roman senator
Mark Antony—Caesar’s friend
Artemidorus—he tries to warn Caesar of the conspiracy
Calpurnia—Caesar’s wife
Casca—a member of the conspiracy
Cassius—conspirator against Caesar
Cicero—a famous Roman orator
Cinna—a member of the conspiracy
Cinna the Poet—an innocent man killed by the mob because he has the same
name as Cinna the conspirator
Claudio—an attendant on Brutus
Decius—a member of the conspiracy
Flavius—a civil servant
Lepidus—the third member of the Triumvirate with Antony and Octavius
Ligarius—a member of the conspiracy
Lucilius—a soldier in Brutus’ army
Messala—a soldier in Brutus’ army
Metellus—a member of the conspiracy
Murellus—a civil servant
Octavius—Caesar’s adopted son and appointed successor
Pindarus-- a soldier in Brutus’ army
Portia—Brutus’ wife
Soothsayer—he warns Caesar about the Ides of March (March 15th), but
Caesar ignores him
Titinius-- a soldier in Brutus’ army
Trebonius—a member of the conspiracy
Varrus—an attendant on Brutus
Introduction
Julius Caesar is Shakespeare’s shortest play. It was written around 1599--1601
and performed at the Globe Theatre, a playhouse owned by Shakespeare’s
increasingly successful company, The Lord Chamberlain’s Men. However, the only
authoritative text of the play is the 1623 First Folio edition. The stage directions
suggest this text is based on the theatre company’s promptbooks rather than
Shakespeare’s manuscript.
Julius Caesar was the earliest of Shakespeare’s three Roman plays. As are Antony
and Cleopatra (which is sort of a sequel) and Coriolanus, Julius Caesar is a history
in that it dramatizes real events. The play is clearly a tragedy because of the
tragic character of Brutus, the noble Roman whose involvement I the conspiracy to
save the state plunges both him and his country into chaos.
Shakespeare drew on North’s popular translation of Plutarch’s Lives. Plutarch saw
the role of the biographer and history as bound together, saying that history was
the result of the achievements of great men. Shakespeare was clearly influenced
by this philosophy. In this regard, Julius Caesar is unlike Coriolanus, which
dramatizes the conflicts between the classes.
Rome was sharply divided into classes: the patrician citizens, the senators, and the
growing but underrepresented plebeians, or common folk. Citizens who favored
republican democratic rule were afraid that Julius Caesar’s power would lead to
their enslavement. So a group of conspirators assassinated Caesar, and the civil
war they hoped to avoid erupted anyway. The play follows events leading up to
Caesar’s death and the civil war.
Elizabethans would have been quick to pick up on the parallels between Ancient
Rome becoming an imperial power, and Elizabeth’s ability to consolidate the powers
of the monarchy.
By 1599, Queen Elizabeth I had been queen for close to forty years and had
enlarged her powers at the expense of the aristocracy and the House of Commons.
At age sixty-six, particularly old for her time, and with no heirs or named
successor, many feared her death would plunge England into the kind of chaos
suffered during the fifteenth century. The story of Caesars’ downfall provided a
perspective on what might happen when accepted methods of distributing power
were disrupted.
The Play (takes place in 44 BCE)
Julius Caesar enters as a hero having defeated the Gauls, then Pompey’s army.
Mark Antony attempts three times to crown Caesar king; however, some senators
take this as a threat to Rome. Cassius, in particular, has serious misgivings about
Caesar’s ambition and is clearly jealous of Caesar’s achievements. To offset
Caesar’s popular support, Cassius approaches Marcus Brutus, a nobleman known for
his integrity. If Brutus were to support a coup, it will be more acceptable to the
citizens of Rome, and, equally important, Brutus is also a close friend of Caesar.
Brutus clearly emerges as the most complex character and the play’s tragic hero.
He is a powerful public figure, but is also a loving husband and dignified military
leader. His rigid idealism becomes both his greatest virtue and his tragic flaw.
During a great storm, Brutus considers his options realizing that the conspirators
may well have to assassinate Caesar. Caesar, already warned by a soothsayer and
Calpurnia, his wife, ignores all advice to the contrary and pays a visit to the Senate.
There he is stabbed to death by Brutus, Cassius, and the rest.
Brutus dissuades the conspirators from slaying Antony with Caesar, and after the
assassination Antony asks to accompany Caesar’s body and speak at his funeral.
Brutus agrees, and at the funeral Antony delivers a stirring oratory that explains
the reasoning for the assassination. He follows with his famous, “Friends, Romans,
countrymen” speech, and through his masterful use of irony stirs the crowd to the
point where they call for the blood of Cassius, Brutus, and anyone else associated
with Caesar’s death.
Antony then joins Octavius (Caesar’s nephew) and Lepidus to wrest control of Rome
by force of arms. Brutus and Cassius raise armies against them. In a final battle,
with many of his coconspirators now dead, Cassius kills himself when facing defeat,
and is quickly followed by Brutus who takes his own life rather than be taken
captive. Upon discovering the body, Antony laments the tragic fall of Brutus,
calling him the noblest of them all.
Commentary
In a world of self-serving ambition, Brutus is truly “the noblest Roman of them all,”
but his commitment to principle repeatedly causes him to miscalculate. He ignores
Cassius’ suggestion to kill Antony as well as Caesar, and then, again against Cassius’
advice, he allows Antony to speak a funeral oration over Caesar’s body, plunging the
city and the country into chaos.
Antony, however, is strong where Brutus is weak. He is impulsive and quick-witted,
and he is able to save himself by convincing the conspirators he is on their side,
then in enraging the mob against the conspirators. Brutus is noble, to be sure, but
Antony proves himself to be the consummate politician.
Shakespeare explores several themes in Julius Caesar. The play raises questions
about what in our lives is determine by fate and how much free will we have.
Cassius, for example, says,
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
On the other hand, Caesar tells his wife,
“…death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.”
The text also explores public self versus private self and inflexibility versus
compromise.
Brutus interprets his defeat as the work of Caesar’s ghost—empowered by the
people’s devotion to Caesar—and the legacy of a man who somehow transcended
fate. Both Brutus and Caesar are stubborn men who ultimately suffer fatally for
it. It is the adaptable people, the ones who will compromise, who survive.
Famous Lines
“The live-long day” (I, i)
“Beware the Ides of March” (I, ii)
“Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o’ nights;
Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous” (I, ii)
“A dish fit for the gods” (II, i)
“Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.” (II, ii)
“Et tu, Brute!” (III, i)
“O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times” (III, i)
“Cry ‘Havoc,’ and let slip the dogs of war” (III, i)
“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones” (III, ii)
“If you have tears, prepare to shed them now” (III, ii)
“Great Caesar fell.
O, what a fall was there, my countrymen!
Then I, and you, and all of us fell down,
Whilst bloody treason flourish’d over us” (III, ii)
“There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries” (IV, ii)
“His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix’d in him, that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, ‘This was a man!’” (V, v)
Rubie, Peter. The Everything Shakespeare Book: a comprehensive guide to
understanding the comedies, tragedies, and sonnets of the Bard . Avon,
MA: Adams Media Corp., 2002. ISBN: 1-58062-591-6