the army. In 27 B.C. Antony took the name of Augustus and became the
first Roman Emperor. Shakespeare portrays him principally as a
soldier, yet during his reign he became more interested in peace
than in war, and his rule became known as the golden age of Roman
literature and architecture.)
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PORTIA
There are two ways to view Portia. Let’s look at them.
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1. Portia is often seen today as a champion of women’s rights- a
feminist living nearly four centuries ahead of her time.
According to this view, Portia is a woman who demands equality
with her husband. She insists on being treated as an individual, not
as an object or an idea. She speaks of herself and Brutus as “one”
(Act II, Scene i, lines 261-278), and of Brutus himself as “your self,
your half.” She demands to know his secret, however painful it may be.
She will not be condescended to; she will not be treated as a child.
This Portia is strong-willed but modest, dignified but tender. She
is one of the few characters in the play who uses language to
communicate the truth rather than to hide from it. She has an innate
sense of wisdom that lets her see through words to the very heart of
things. (When Brutus attributes his moodiness to bad health, for
instance, Portia immediately knows he is lying to protect her.) Though
Portia is high-minded and independent, she is also a loving and
devoted wife, who kills herself rather than live alone.
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2. That is one view of Portia- there is another.
According to this less flattering view, Portia makes the mistake
of trying to be more than a woman, fails miserably, and brings about
her own destruction.
Portia points proudly to her self-inflicted wound (Act II, Scene
i, lines 299-302) to prove to Brutus just how capable she is of
functioning in a world of men. She also prides herself on being the
daughter of Cato, a man famous for his integrity, who took his own
life rather than be taken prisoner (in the civil war between Caesar
and Pompey). Says Portia:
Think you I am no stronger than my sex,
Being so fathered and so husbanded?
Act II, Scene i, lines 296-297
Brutus takes her at her word, confides his secret to her, and what
happens? Portia goes mad with grief, and eventually takes her own
life.
Portia’s mistake is to confuse her private self with her public
image as Cato’s daughter. Like Brutus and Caesar, she tries to live up
to her name and be someone she is not- with disastrous results. In her
death- as in Brutus’ and Caesar’s- we see the danger of wearing a
public mask, and forgetting whom we are underneath.
Note that Portia wants to be Brutus’ equal only so that she can be
more a part of his life; nowhere does she suggest that she expects him
to be part of hers. The very fact of losing him drives her mad. Portia
thus sums herself up best:
Ay me, how weak a thing
The heart of woman is!
Act II, Scene iv, lines 39-40
Is this Shakespeare’s unhappy view of women, and the final word on
Portia? Or are the other critics right- the ones who see her as the
ideal, modern woman, who dies for love?
Either interpretation can be correct- depending on how you choose to
view her.
CALPURNIA
Caesar’s wife speaks only 26 lines, so we never get to know her very
well.
There are at least two ways to view her- one of them more flattering
than the other.
On one hand, she is undignified, nervous, and weak. She is also
superstitious and haunted by unreasonable fears, and Caesar cannot
be blamed for treating her like a child.
On the other hand, Calpurnia is a devoted wife- as concerned about
Caesar’s well-being as Portia is about Brutus’. True, she has
strange dreams, but all of them come true. Perhaps in her intuitive,
female way she is closer to the truth than Caesar.
Whichever way you view Calpurnia, you will have to admit that her
relationship with Caesar is less than ideal.
Calpurnia’s talk with Caesar follows closely on Portia’s meeting
with Brutus, as if Shakespeare were drawing attention to the
differences between the two relationships.
Portia greets her husband with respect as “my lord” (Act II, Scene
i, line 234). She may be flattering him to get what she wants, but she
at least follows the forms of courtesy. Brutus is as concerned about
her health as she is about his.
How does Calpurnia greet Caesar? With an order:
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Think you to walk forth?
You shall not stir out of your house today.
Act II, Scene i, lines 8-9
And Caesar replies:
Caesar shall forth.
Calpurnia is foolish enough to turn her request into a battle of
wills. She makes the mistake of treating her husband in public as
the mortal he is; and Caesar, to preserve his public image, has to
take a stand against her.
Caesar, of course, has been equally tactless or unfeeling-
announcing to all the world (Act I, Scene ii, lines 6-9) that his wife
is sterile.
Can you blame a wife for treating her husband as a mortal and not as
a god? The fact that she can see the man behind the mask points up her
strength- or her weakness.
SETTING
All scenes through Act IV, Scene i are set in Rome. Act IV, Scenes
ii and iii, take place near Sardis in Asia Minor. All of Act V is
set near the plains of Philippi in Greece. The play begins on February
15, 44 B.C., on the Feast of Lupercal; continues through the
assassination of Caesar a month later; and concludes with the Battle
of Philippi in 42 B.C., when Brutus and Cassius commit suicide and
Caesar’s heir, Octavius, assumes power. Shakespeare, of course, was
a dramatist, not a playwright, and in order to preserve the dramatic
unity of the action he telescoped a period of three years into six
days.
THEMES
Here is a list of the major themes of Julius Caesar. They will be
studied in depth in the scene-by-scene discussion of the play.
Notice that some themes contradict each other- since critics disagree,
it’s up to you to decide which ones are true. This book will help
you find evidence to support your position.
1. A PORTRAIT OF CAESAR OR OF BRUTUS
Caesar
The play is a portrait of Caesar- why else would Shakespeare name
the play after him? Though Caesar is killed in the third act, his
spirit- what he stands for- dominates the action of the play until
Brutus’ death, and then is reborn in the person of Octavius.
Brutus
The play is a portrait of Brutus- why else would Shakespeare end the
play with Brutus’ death, and with the opposition’s tributes to him?
Brutus is studied in greater depth than any other character, and the
action of the play revolves around his role in the assassination.
Shakespeare called his play Julius Caesar only because he was
writing about the period in Roman history when Caesar reigned.
2. FRIENDSHIP
Friendship is at the center of Shakespeare’s vision of an ordered,
harmonious world. Disloyalty and distrust cause this world to crumble.
Relationships suffer when people put their principles ahead of their
affections, and when they let their roles as public officials
interfere with their private lives. As death approaches, characters
forget their worldly ambitions, and speak about the loyalty of
friends.
3. LANGUAGE
We think of language as a way of sharing our thoughts and
feelings, and of communicating the truth; but in Julius Caesar
people use language to disguise their thoughts and feelings, and to
distort the truth. Language is used to humiliate and flatter. Words
are powerful weapons that turn evil into good and throw an entire
country into civil war.
4. A STUDY OF HISTORY
Shakespeare is dramatizing an important period in Roman history,
when Rome developed from a republic (with a representative form of
government) to a monarchy (with a single ruler). He is not blaming
or praising anyone, but objectively portraying the major factors
that contributed to this development: Caesar’s ambition; the
frustrations of a weakened and divided Senate; and the needs and
wishes of the Roman people.
5. THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PUBLIC FIGURES
We like to think that our political heroes are free from ordinary
human weaknesses. Shakespeare reminds us that behind their masks of
fame are mortals like the rest of us- with the same prejudices,
physical handicaps, hopes, and fears. When these public figures try to
live up to their own self-images, they bring destruction on
themselves, and on the world.
6. FATE AND THE SUPERNATURAL
A sense of fate hangs over the events in Julius Caesar- a sense that
the assassination is inevitable and that the fortunes of the
characters have been determined in advance. The characters are foolish
to ignore prophecies and omens, which invariably come true; yet they
are free to act as though the future were unknown. They are the
playthings of powers they can neither understand nor control, yet they
are held accountable for everything they do.
7. PRAGMATISTS AND MEN OF PRINCIPLE
Shakespeare is comparing two types of people: the man of fixed moral
standards, who expects others to be as honorable as himself; and the
pragmatist, who accepts the world for what it is and does everything
necessary to achieve his goals. The pragmatist is less admirable,
but more effective. Shakespeare is either (a) pointing out the
uselessness of morals and principles in a corrupt world, or (b)
dramatizing the tragedy of a noble man destroyed by a world less
perfect than he is.
8. THE ASSASSINATION
The Murder Is Just
A ruler forfeits his right to rule when he oversteps the
heaven-appointed limits to his power. Caesar deserves to die on two
counts: first, he considers himself an equal to the gods; and
second, he threatens to underline hundreds of years of republican
(representative) rule. Brutus sacrifices his life to preserve the
freedom of the people, and to save his country from the clutches of
a tyrant.
The Murder Is Unjust
Shakespeare’s contemporaries respected strong rulers, who could
check the dangerous impulses of the masses and protect their country
from civil war. They believed that order and stability were worth
preserving at any price. Shakespeare’s play may therefore be a warning
against the use of violence to overthrow authority. The
assassination destroys nothing but the conspirators themselves,
since Caesar’s spirit lives on in the hearts of the people.
STYLE
There’s not much poetry in Julius Caesar. Perhaps because the action
takes place in Rome, the characters all seem to speak like orators. On
the battlefield, or even with friends, they’re always making speeches!
Read some of the longer ones aloud; you’ll see how alike everyone
sounds, how everyone speaks clearly and simply and says exactly what
he thinks. The men in Shakespeare’s play are politicians who avoid
flowery language and metaphor; they express themselves often in
one-syllable words strung together in simple, declarative sentences.
This is the language of people who are- or who try to be- in control
of their emotions, and who use words not to create beauty, but to
manipulate each other and to get things done. Shakespeare may be using
language to mirror the restrained and formal mood of classical Rome.
Perhaps, too, he wants to show how people use language to mask their
feelings from themselves and from others. As readers, we have to
look beneath these masks and ask ourselves: who are these people? what
do they really think, and what are they really saying?
SOURCES
Shakespeare found his basic material for Julius Caesar in The
Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, written by a Greek named
Plutarch in the first century after Christ. Plutarch, like
Shakespeare, wrote history as a guide for his contemporaries. It’s not
surprising that Shakespeare was attracted to Plutarch, for Plutarch
was more a biographer than an historian, and his tales are full of
wonderful dramatic touches.
Shakespeare did not read Plutarch in Greek. The Lives was translated
into French by Jacques Amyet in 1559 and then from French into English
by Sir Thomas North in 1579. That was 20 years before the first
production of Julius Caesar.
Plutarch wrote separate biographies of Julius Caesar, Brutus, and
Antony, and often gives three different accounts of the same events.
It’s fun to read these biographies today to see which accounts
Shakespeare followed, which he ignored, and which he transformed for
his own dramatic purposes. At times Shakespeare lifted material
directly from Plutarch. Shakespeare’s Caesar, for example, says:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look,
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
Act I, Scene ii, lines 194-195
Notice how close that is to Plutarch’s version:
Caesar also had Cassius in great jealousy and suspected him much,
whereupon he said on a time to his friends: “What will Cassius do,
think ye? I like not his pale looks.”
Plutarch’s Brutus can do nothing wrong. Some of you will want to
argue that Shakespeare thought less of Brutus; others will want to
quote Plutarch to prove that Shakespeare’s Brutus was indeed a noble
man.
As for Caesar, Plutarch’s portrait is close to Shakespeare’s: a
ruler guilty of great pride and ambition, but also a benefactor of the
people.
Shakespeare’s portrait of Caesar may also have been influenced by
Elizabethan attitudes toward him. Some saw Caesar as a hero; others,
as a tyrant and a traitor. Shakespeare may have enjoyed exploiting
these differences, playing them against each other without ever
resolving them. Shakespeare may also have drawn Caesar’s portrait from
the vain and boastful heroes (such as Tamburlaine) brought to life
on stage during his lifetime.
AN HISTORICAL NOTE
When you think of Senators, you naturally think of elected
representatives of the people. But in ancient Rome the Senate was made
up of wealthy aristocrats and conservatives who sought to defend their
ancient privileges. Caesar was a reformer who wanted to reduce the
power of the Senate, and to share their lands and privileges with
the common people.
Both Senators and reformers looked to the generals for support.
Pompey represented the interests of the Senators,- Caesar defended the
reformers. In 47 B.C. Caesar crossed the Rubican and defeated
Pompey; two years later he defeated Pompey’s sons in Egypt. No
wonder the Roman officers Flavius and Marullus (Act I, Scene i) are
upset by Caesar’s triumphant return from battle! And no wonder the
common people are overjoyed! Caesar may have wanted to be king or
dictator, but it was he, not the Senators, who had the interests of
the people at heart. Perhaps that’s why in Shakespeare’s play we never
see Caesar depriving the Romans of their civil liberties, or the
Senators discussing what they’ll do for the people of Rome once Caesar
is destroyed.
ELIZABETHAN ENGLISH
All languages change. Differences in pronunciation and word choice
are apparent even between parents and their children. If language
differences can appear in one generation, it is only to be expected
that the English used by Shakespeare four hundred years ago will
diverge markedly from the English used today. The following
information on Shakespeare’s language will help a modern reader to a
fuller understanding of Julius Caesar.
MOBILITY OF WORD CLASSES
Adjectives, nouns and verbs were less rigidly confined to particular
classes in Shakespeare’s day. Verbs were often used as nouns. In Act
II, Scene ii, line 16 ‘watch’ is used to mean ‘watchmen’:
There is one within…
Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch.
Nouns could be used as adjectives as when cross is used to mean
crossed or forked:
And when the cross blue lightning seemed to open
The breast of heaven… (I, iii, 50)
and as verbs as when ‘joy’ is used to mean ‘rejoice’:
My heart doth joy (V, v, 34).
Adjectives could be used as adverbs:
…thou couldst not die more honourable (V, i, 60),
as nouns:
I’ll about
And drive away the vulgar from the streets (I, i, 72)
‘Vulgar’ is the equivalent of ‘common people’.
CHANGES IN WORD MEANING
The meanings of words undergo changes, a process that can be
illustrated by the fact that ‘chip’ extended its meaning from a
small piece of wood to a small piece of silicon. Many of the words
in Shakespeare still exist today but their meanings have changed.
The change may be small, as in the case of ‘modestly’ meaning ‘without
exaggeration’ in:
I your glass
Will modestly discover to yourself… (I, ii, 68-69)
or more fundamental, so that ‘naughty’ meant ‘worthless’ (I, i, 15),
‘tributaries’ meant ‘conquered rulers who paid tribute’ (I, i, 35),
’shadow’ meant ‘reflection’ (I, ii, 58), ’speed’ meant ‘prosper’ (I,
ii, 88), ‘temper’ meant ‘constitution’ (I, ii, 129) and ’sad’ meant
’serious’:
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…Casca, tell us what hath chanced today
That Caesar looks so sad. (I, ii, 217)
VOCABULARY LOSS
Words not only change their meanings, but are frequently discarded
from the language. In the past, ‘leman’ meant ’sweetheart’, ‘regiment’
meant ‘government’, and ‘fond’ meant ‘foolish’. The following words
used in Julius Caesar are no longer current in English but their
meanings can usually be gauged from the contexts in which they occur.
FAIN