Study Guide to Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

Intelligent Education

• Editore: Influence Publishers
• Anno: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781645425670
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Study Aids
• Categoria: Study Guides

A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, one of several plays based on true events from Roman history. As a historical drama of Roman war time, Julius Caesar explores the complicated nature of power and political transitions. Moreover, Shakespeare focuses on the moral struggle between demands of honor, friendship, patriotism, and loyalty. This Bright Notes Study Guide explores the context and history of Shakepeare’s classic work, helping students to thoroughly explore the reasons it has stood the literary test of time. Each Bright Notes Study Guide contains: - Introductions to the Author and the Work
- Character Summaries
- Plot Guides
- Section and Chapter Overviews
- Test Essay and Study Q&As The Bright Notes Study Guide series offers an in-depth tour of more than 275 classic works of literature, exploring characters, critical commentary, historical background, plots, and themes. This set of study guides encourages readers to dig deeper in their understanding by including
essay questions and answers as well as topics for further research.

INTRODUCTION TO WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

 

On April 26, 1564, William Shakespeare, son of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden, was christened in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-on-Avon. His birthday is traditionally placed three days before. He was the eldest of four boys and two girls born to his father, a well-to-do glover and trader, who also held some minor offices in the town government. He probably attended the local free school, where he picked up the “small Latin and less Greek” that Ben Jonson credits him with. (“Small” Latin to that knowledgeable classicist meant considerably more than it does today.) As far as is known, this was the extent of Shakespeare’s formal education. In November of 1582, when he was eighteen, a license was issued for his marriage to Ann Hathaway, a Stratford neighbor eight years older than himself. The following May their child Susanna was christened in the same church as her father. While it may be inferred from this that his marriage was a forced one, such an inference is not necessary; engagement at that time was a legally binding contract and was sometimes construed as allowing conjugal rights. Their union produced two more children, twins Judith and Hamnet, christened in February, 1585. Shortly thereafter Shakespeare left Stratford for a career in London. What he did during these years - until we pick him up, an established playwright, in 1592 - we do not know, as no records exist. It is presumed that he served an apprenticeship in the theatre, perhaps as a provincial trouper, and eventually won himself a place as an actor. By 1594 he was a successful dramatist with the Lord Chamberlain’s company (acting groups had noble protection and patronage), having produced the Comedy of Errors and the Henry VI trilogy, probably in collaboration with older, better established dramatists. When the plague closed the London theatres for many months of 1593-94, he found himself without a livelihood. He promptly turned his hand to poetry (although written in verse, plays were not considered as dignified as poetry), writing two long narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. He dedicated them to the Earl of Southampton, undoubtedly receiving some recompense. The early nineties also saw the first of Shakespeare’s sonnets circulating in manuscript, and later finding their way into print. In his early plays - mostly chronicle histories glorifying England’s past, and light comedies - Shakespeare sought for popular success and achieved it. In 1599 he was able to buy a share in the Globe Theatre, where he acted and where his plays were performed. His ever-increasing financial success enabled him to buy a good deal of real estate in his native Stratford, and by 1605 he was able to retire from acting. Shortly thereafter he began to spend most of his time in Stratford, to which he retired around 1610. Very little is known of his life after he left London. He died on April 23, 1616, in Stratford, and was buried there. In 1623 the First Folio edition of his complete works was published by a group of his friends as a testimonial to his memory. This was a very rare tribute, because at the time plays were generally considered to be inferior literature, not really worthy of publication. These scanty facts, together with some information about the dates of his plays, are all that is definitely known about the greatest writer in the history of English literature. The age in which Shakespeare lived was not as concerned with keeping accurate records as we are, and any further details about Shakespeare’s life have been derived from educated guesses based on knowledge of his time. Shakespeare’s plays fall into three major groups according to the periods in his development when he wrote them:

EARLY COMEDIES AND HISTORIES

The first group consists of romantic comedies such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1593-5), and of strongly patriotic histories such as Henry V (1599). The early comedies are full of farce and slapstick, as well as exuberant poetry. Their plots are complicated and generally revolve around a young love relationship. The histories are typical of the robust, adventurous English patriotism of the Elizabethan era, when England had achieved a position of world dominance and power.

THE GREAT TRAGEDIES

The second period, beginning with Hamlet and ending with Antony and Cleopatra, is the period of the great tragedies: Hamlet (1602); Othello (1604); King Lear (1605); Macbeth (1606); and Antony and Cleopatra (1607-8). Shakespeare seems to have gone through a mental crisis at this time. His vision of the world darkens, and he sees life as an epic battle between the forces of good and evil, between order and chaos within man and in the whole universe. The forces for good win out in the end over evil, which is self-defeating. But the victory of the good is at great cost and often comes at the point of death. It is a moral victory, not a material one. These tragedies center on a great man who, because of some flaw in his makeup, or some error he commits, brings death and destruction down upon himself and those around him. They are generally considered the greatest of Shakespeare’s plays.

THE LATE ROMANCES

In the third period Shakespeare returns to romantic comedy. But such plays as Cymbeline (1609-10), The Winter’s Tale (1610-11), and The Tempest (1611) are very different in point of view and structure from such earlier comedies as Much Ado About Nothing (1599) and Twelfth Night (1600). Each of these late romances has a situation potentially tragic, and there is much bitterness in them. Thus the destructive force of insane jealousy serves as the theme both of the tragedy, Othello, and the comedy, The Winter’s Tale. They are serious comedies, replacing farce and slapstick with rich symbolism and supernatural events. They deal with such themes as sin and redemption, death and rebirth, and the conflict between nature and society, rather than with simple romantic love. In a sense they are deeply religious, although unconnected with any church dogma. In his last play, The Tempest, Shakespeare achieved a more or less serene outlook upon the world after the storm and stress of his great tragedies and the so-called “dark comedies.”

SHAKESPEARE’S THEATRE

Shakespeare’s plays were written for a stage very different from our own. Women, for instance, were not allowed to act; so female parts, even that of Cleopatra, were played by boy actors whose voices had not yet changed. The plays were performed on a long platform surrounded by a circular, unroofed theatre, and were dependent on natural daylight for lighting. There was no curtain separating the stage from the audience, nor were there act divisions. These were added to the plays by later editors. Because the stage jutted right into the audience, Shakespeare was able to achieve a greater intimacy with his spectators than modern playwrights can. The audience in the pit, immediately surrounding the stage, had to stand crowded together throughout the play. Its members tended to be lower class Londoners who would frequently comment aloud on the action of the play and break into fights. Anyone who attended the plays in the pit did so at the risk of having his pockets picked, of catching a disease, or, at best, of being jostled about by the crude “groundlings.” The aristocratic and merchant classes, who watched the plays from seats in the galleries, were spared most of the physical discomforts of the pit.

ITS ADVANTAGES

There were certain advantages, however, to such a theatre. Because complicated scenic, lighting and sound effects were impossible, the playwright had to rely on the power of his words to create scenes in the audience’s imagination. The rapid changes of scene and vast distances involved in Antony and Cleopatra, for instance, although they create a problem for modern producers, did not for Shakespeare. Shakespeare did not rely - as the modern realistic theatre does - on elaborate stage scenery to create atmosphere and locale. For these, as for battle scenes involving large numbers of people, Shakespeare relied on the suggestive power of his poetry to quicken the imagination of his audience. Elizabethan audiences were very lively anyway, and quick to catch any kind of word play. Puns, jokes, and subtle poetic effects made a greater impression on them than on modern audiences, who are less alert to language.

INTRODUCTION TO JULIUS CAESAR

 

BRIEF SUMMARY OF JULIUS CAESAR

As the play opens, the Roman people have turned out to celebrate the triumphal return of Caesar from his victory over Pompey (a member of the first triumvirate and champion of the Republic). Flavius and Marullus, two tribunes (officers appointed to protect the interests of the people from possible injustice at the hands of patrician magistrates) disperse the crowd of commoners, arguing that Caesar’s triumph in civil war is no cause for celebration and that the people had much better weep for Pompey, who they had formerly adored.

Accompanied by fanfare and a large following, Caesar arrives to witness the race traditionally held on the Feast of Lupercal, which is being celebrated on the same day. A soothsayer warns Caesar to beware the ides of March, but Caesar peruses the man’s face and dismisses him as a dreamer. Meanwhile, Cassius tell Brutus of his resentment of Caesar’s growing power. As Caesar emerges from the race, he eyes Cassius and tells Antony that he does not trust men with a lean and hungry look. Casca joins Brutus and Cassius and describes how Caesar has reluctantly refused the crown offered to him three times by Mark Antony. Brutus promises to think over Cassius’s fear that Caesar’s ambition is a danger to the democracy of Rome and agrees to meet him the next day. Casca is invited to join them.

During a violent storm, Casca and Cicero meet and discuss the great wonders that have occurred that night. After Cicero leaves, Cassius arrives, explains the omens of the storm and discusses a conspiracy against Caesar. They both plot how they might win Brutus over to their side completely, for he is already inclined against Caesar.

Alone in his garden, Brutus debates with himself over the threat that Caesar poses to the Republic. At last he decides that Caesar must be killed because he might become a tyrant. The conspirators, Cassius, Casca, Decius, Brutus, Cinna, Metellus Cimber, and Trebonius arrive at this point, and Brutus sanctions the decision to kill Caesar the next day when he is to receive the crown of king. They decide that only Caesar is to die. Portia, Brutus’ wife, enters after the conspirators have left. She entreats Brutus to tell her what is happening, but as he is about to reveal the conspiracy to her, another conspirator, Ligarius, arrives and takes Brutus away.

Caesar, meanwhile, spends a restless night. His wife, Calpurnia, begs him not to go to the Senate meeting that day because she has dreamed that she saw a statue of him, spouting blood like a fountain, and because of the ominous events which have occurred during the storm. Caesar sends his servant to the seers to make a sacrifice and to determine what the gods are trying to say. The augurers tell Caesar to stay at home, and Caesar decides to comply, especially since his wife has urged him so strongly. However, one of the conspirators, Caesar’s good friend, Decius Brutus, persuades him to go to the Senate by pointing out how ridiculous he would seem to heed his wife’s superstitions.

The same morning, Artemidorus, a teacher of rhetoric, prepares a letter for Caesar, warning him of the conspiracy. The Soothsayer also prepares to stop Caesar outside the Capitol to warn him of harm, and Portia, who now knows Brutus’ plan, anxiously anticipates its outcome.

Caesar is given two warnings; he ignores them both, goes into the Senate, and after a speech in which he arrogantly praises himself, he is stabbed by the conspirators.

Mark Antony, who has been lured out of the Senate by Trebonius, returns after the murder and pretends to join the conspirators. When left alone with the body of Caesar, however, Antony vows to avenge the murder, even if he has to throw all Italy into civil war to do it. Meanwhile, Octavius, Caesar’s heir, arrives near Rome. Antony and a servant carry Caesar’s body out to the Forum. Brutus addresses the crowd first, telling them that Caesar was killed because he was too ambitious. The crowd reacts favorably to Brutus and is ready to make him a second Caesar, but Brutus orders them to listen to Antony’s funeral oration for Caesar.

In a brilliantly ironic speech, Antony inflames the crowd against the conspirators. The crowd runs wildly through the streets, determined to burn the houses of the conspirators. The mob comes upon Cinna the poet who happens to have the same name as one of the conspirators, and for the sake of destruction, they tear him to pieces. Brutus and Cassius flee from Rome. Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus unite forces, calling themselves the second triumvirate. They prepare to put to death those whom they suspect will be hostile to their cause.

Brutus and Cassius, meanwhile, have gathered their forces in Sardis in Asia Minor. Their destruction is forecast when the Republican leaders begin to quarrel with each other. Brutus rebukes Cassius because the latter has permitted an officer to take bribes and because he has not been sending money to Brutus, who has ben unable to raise his own funds. His anger spent, Brutus apologizes for his ill-temper and informs Cassius that Portia has killed herself. By the time official word is brought that Portia is dead, Brutus accepted the news with quiet resignation. During the night, Brutus sees the ghost of Caesar, who says that they will meet again at Philippi.

Cassius and Bruius then march to Philippi in Greece to meet the armies of Antony and Octavius. The generals meet and exchange insults before the battle begins. In the first engagement, Antony overcomes Cassius, while Brutus overcomes Octavius’ wing. Cassius retires to a nearby hill, and when he mistakes approaching horsemen for enemies, he runs upon a sword held by his servant, Pindarus. Brutus and not the enemy arrives, finds Cassius’ body, and sends it away for burial. There is another skirmish and Brutus’ forces are defeated completely. Unwilling to endure the dishonor of capture, Brutus commits suicide with the aid of his servant, Strato. Antony and Octavius find Brutus’ body, over which Antony states, “This was the noblest Roman of them all.” Octavius declares that Brutus will receive burial befitting his virtue, and calls an end to battle as the play concludes.

JULIUS CAESAR

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

ACT I

ACT I: SCENE I

The play opens in a street in Rome. Two tribunes, Flavius and Marullus, are dispersing the crowds that have gathered there. The tribunes have trouble extracting an explanation from a cobbler who appears to be leading the mob, for the cobbler gives equivocal answers to the direct questions of the officials. He claims to be a “mender of bad soles,” “a surgeon to old shoes,” and one who lives by the “awl.” Finally, he admits that the workingmen have left their shops and have assembled “to see Caesar and to rejoice in his triumph.”

Comment

Although the scene is Rome, the atmosphere is Elizabethan, and the workers here behave like pert Tudor craftsmen. In his portrayal of crowds and of workingmen, Shakespeare freque...