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ENGL 348: Julius Caesar (Full Notes)
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English Julius Caesar Questions and answers
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Julius Caesar Play 2023
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Unit 1: Julius CaesarJanuary 13th, 2023
Some Biography for Shakespeare
One of the disputes: Shakespeare’s parents being illiterate (only evidence is that Shakespeare’s
father signed his name with a cross and that his mother, a woman, would intuitively be illiterate)
● Avoid such large jumps that scholars often really like to make.
Shakespeare’s birth upon Avon is an established fact (probably born April 22nd or 23rd, 1564)
● The fact that he survived being born makes him rare (the infant mortality rate is
incredibly high during this time – very poor sanitation, high infection, medicine was in its
infancy, a limited number of midwives, etc.)
● The cause of Shakespeare’s death is unknown – he lived almost all of his professional life
in London (he lead two lives: his wife and children)
Shakespeare writes with much affection for nature and local folklore (perhaps inspired by his
own close relationships with rural lifestyles).
● Shakespeare would’ve read Plutarch, Horace, Julius Caesar, and Cicero, at 9 or 10.
When we are reading Shakespeare’s plays, we need to consider that Shakespeare’s baby was
born as a result of pre-marital sex, which might soften his attitude towards pre-marital sex.
● He wrote Hamlet three years after his son, Hamnet, died.
Julius Caesar Backgrounder
While these people are not actually fathers and brothers, in Rome, they are fathers and brothers.
● Julius Caesar is about patricide and fratricide.
1.1: Pompey has been slain by Julius Caesar (he comes back to Rome and offers Pompey’s blood
– people in this play kill their doubles to supersede them and to take their place in society)
● The Romans are more interested in war than civilization, the Greeks are more interested
in civilization than war.
○ One half of Rome, the Aenean half, wants to be civilized. The other half wants to
be in war and in blood.
● Julius Caesar is investigating double-consciousness – you cannot justify evil means to a
good end (the evil means will distort and destroy the good end).
○ If the conspirators are striving to save the republic from descending into
despotism, they choose the wrong tools (they choose empire building!)
● The business of god-making, the thing that Cassius keeps protesting, is closely linked to
the business of empire-building – if you’re willing to kill a human for an idea, the idea is
vicious.
Civil war at the beginning (Caesar vs. Pompey) and civil war at the end (the conspirators versus
Octavius Caesar and Mark Antony) – there is symmetry.
● There is nothing neutral and selfless going on in this play.
● Moving from republic to empire is the historical basis for the play – there is also a crisis
over the role of common people in government.
○ Flavius and Marullus are contentious of their people (they were elected to voice
the ideas of the people to the senate) and republican in nature.
● Casca looks down on the people – in order to be an republican in this play is not the
same as safeguarding the interests of the people.
, ○ To be a republican is to believe in the senate, the absence of a monarch, and
keeping the people where they are.
○ This kind of attitude leads to Antony triumphing over Brutus – what he offers the
people implicitly is something that nobody else has thought of: power.
■ If there are enough common people to make the Tiber banks rise with their
tears, then the senators are greatly outnumbered.
We see the people’s power for good and for chaos throughout the play: everything that the
people do is a result of their social betters.
● It is Antony who wills chaos, bloodshed, mob violence, and the descent of Dionysus
upon Rome to avenge Caesar, to wipe senators, and to make way for the next regime.
● Antony is genuinely grieved by Caesar’s death. He is also gruesome in his harnessing of
rhetoric to manipulate the crowd.
○ People aren’t that simple in this play.
What is Julius Caesar a tragedy of?
● Caesar’s tragedy → is it a tragedy of ambition? Pride?
○ When it comes to ambition, Caesar rejects the crown three times. When he hears
that it was possible to accept it again, it feels more like Caesar believing too much
in the idea of Caesar.
○ He plays so much into this image of pride.
○ If the crime is ambition, then which of the central characters has less of it than
Caesar? To be a Roman is to be ambitious.
○ Identifying too naively or too closely with the mask of Roman greatness?
○ Brutus has an ambition – to be thought of as a prideful Roman who sacrificed
himself for his country; Cassius is ambitious to be bowed down to.
● Brutus’s tragedy → loss of honour.
○ Brutus’ desperate attempt to retrieve his honour in letting Antony live.
■ The irony is agonizing! One of the things that is difficult about Brutus is
that he is initially very composed and Aenean (it is hard to feel with him)
■ We may respect Brutus, but who is passionate? Cassius is!
● In a curious way, as antagonist, this is Cassius’ play too, with the
relationship that he has with the audience!
● He resents being made to feel small.
● Cassius is telling us that don’t even occur to Brutus.
● Rome’s tragedy → division!
January 16th, 2023
Julius Caesar
This play, like a lot of other Shakespeare plays, has two climaxes (the first being the
assassination of Caesar, and the second being Antony’s speech)
● After this absolute disorder, isn’t it clear that Rome needs a unified government? Antony
fabricates the grounds, necessitating monarchy in the next political generation of Rome.
● Does this mean Antony has no emotion? No! He puts his emotions on display to stir up
the emotions in other people.
○ Antony understands that there’s a continuum with how emotions connect. If you
can get your crowd to feel sorrow, you have a way into their souls.
Double-wheel (used in histories and tragedies): wheels of fortune and of audience sympathy.
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