Rhetoric and
Performance
in
Julius Caesar
Prisia Ong & Ian Ng
Rome and Rhetoric: Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar
By Garry Wills, Published 2011
Chapters Consulted:
1. Brutus: Rhetoric Verbal and Visual
2. Antony: The Fox Knows Many Things
3. Cassius: Parallel Lives
Presentation Overview
1. Summary of Book’s Thesis (Prisia)
i. Prominence of rhetoric
ii. Play lacks villains
2. Our Response (Ian)
3. Private Selves / Public Personas
i. Caesar (Prisia)
ii. Brutus (Ian)
iii. Antony (Prisia)
4. Brutus’ Ambiguous Legacy: Traitor or Liberator? (Prisia & Ian)
Summary of Book’s Thesis
i. Rhetoric and the desire to persuade dominates the play
“Cassius persuades Brutus that Caesar must die, Brutus persuades himself that Caesar
must die. Calphurnia persuades Caesar not to go to the Senate before Casca persuades
him to go. Portia produces her thigh wound as a persuasive gesture, and Antony produces
the bloody cloak of Caesar as a persuasive gesture.” (Wills 38)
ii. The play has no villains
“This play is distinctive because it has no villains. Although each leading character has his
own self-interest in mind, his own pride (which he thinks of as honor), he also believes he
is acting for Rome and for its fortunes.” (119)
Our Response
i. We agree with Wills’ primary assertion that rhetoric features prominently in the play.
In addition, we assert that the play portrays politics as a deceptive theatrical
performance. Rhetoric and Theatricality are tools used by machiavellian politicians to
create false public personas aimed at securing the support of the Roman populace, and
even the high-minded Brutus resorts to artifice to convince the Romans of the rightness
of his actions.
ii. We disagree that none of the play’s characters are villainous.
All the main characters use cunning performances and rhetoric to deceive others in
order to further their selfish ends–only Brutus acts with pure intentions.
Caesar, the Ambitious Actor (Feast of Lupercal)
Casca: “it was mere foolery...I saw Mark Antony offer him the crown... he put it by
once: but...to my thinking, he would fain have had it. … he was very loath to lay
his fingers off it.” (1.2.235–243)
“ If the tag-rag people did not clap him and hiss him...as they use to do the players
in the theatre, I am no true man.” (1.2.258–261)
“when he perceived the common herd was glad he refused the crown, he pluck’d
me ope his doublet, and offered them his throat to cut” (1.2.263–266)
Prelude to the Murder
Karl Theodor von Piloty, The Murder of Caesar (1865)
Caesar, the Ambitious (Goes to Senate)
His ambition seals his fate:
Decius:
“The Senate have concluded
To give this day a crown to mighty Caesar.
If you shall send them word you will not come,
Their minds may change.
….
... shall they not whisper
‘Lo, Caesar is afraid’?”
(2.2.93–101)
Caesar:
“How foolish do your fears seem now,
Calpurnia!
I am ashamed I did yield to them.
Give me my robe, for I will go.”
(2.2.105-107)
Brutus, the Conflicted Republican
Fears republic is under threat:
“I do fear the people / Choose Caesar for their king.” (1.2.81–82)
“I would not [have him crowned] … yet I love him well.” (1.2.84)
“ …the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.” (2.1.67–69)
Brutus and the (Potential) Tyrant
Exaggerates his paranoia, “fashions” an alternative
“strawman” Caesar (Wills 65):
“It must be by his death: and, for my part,
I know no personal cause to spurn at him,
But for the general. He would be crown’d:
How that might change his nature, there’s the
question:
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder;
And that craves wary walking. Crown him?--that:
And then, I grant, we put a sting in him,
That at his will he may do danger with.
And, since the quarrel
Will bear no color for the thing he is,
Fashion it thus,–that what he is, augmented,
Would run to these and these extremities:
And therefore think him as a serpent’s egg
....
And kill him in the shell”
(2.1.10–17; 28–34)
Brutus, the People’s Champion
Feels it is his civic duty to act on behalf of Rome to kill a deceptive,
power-hungry tyrant:
“ Am I entreated, then,
To speak and strike? O Rome, I make thee promise,
If the redress will follow, thou receivest
Thy full petition at the hand of Brutus!” (2.1.55–58)
Brutus: the Ritual Sacrifice and Artifice
“Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius.
We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar;
And in the spirit of men there is no blood:
O, that we then could come by Caesar’s spirit,
And not dismember Caesar! But, alas,
Caesar must bleed for it!
…
And let our hearts, as subtle masters do,
Stir up their servants to an act of rage,
And after seem to chide ’em. This shall mark
Problematic
Our purpose necessary, and not envious;
Which so appearing to the common eyes,
We shall be call’d purgers, not murderers.
(2.1.166–180)
Brutus’ Funeral Speech
“… believe me for mine honour, and have respect to mine honour, that you may
believe: [antimetabole] (Wills 57)
…
If then that [Caesar’s friends] demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my
answer,
–Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. [antithesis; private vs public]
Had you rather Caesar were living, and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to
live all freemen?” [antithesis and antimetabole]
Brutus’ Funeral Speech
As Caesar loved me, I weep for him;
as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it;
as he was valiant, I honour him;
but, as he was ambitious, I slew him.
[isocolon]
Believes his
rightness is
self-evident, his
speech comes off
overly righteous
as self-absorbed.
Brutus’ Funeral Speech
Failure to conclusively prove Caesar was ambitious. Failure to convince Romans
of the value of Republicanism:
THIRD CITIZEN:
Let him be Caesar.
FOURTH CITIZEN:
Caesar’s better parts
Shall be crown’d in Brutus.
(3.2.50–52)
Antony’s Eulogy
Masterful use of Socratic irony, “a device that reveals the disparity between appearance
and reality” (Wills 83)
On surface, simply affirming Brutus’ own assertion of his honour “Believe me for mine
honour, and have respect for mine honour that you may believe”
Repetition of “Brutus says” (3.2.86, 93, 98) and “Brutus is an honourable man” (L82, 87,
94) → Undermining conceded point while repeating concession (Wills 86)
Draws audience in with questions “Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?” “Was this
ambition?” “Shall I descend?” “Will you give me leave?” → Sharp contrast to Brutus’
imperious demands
Antony’s Eulogy
“I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” (L73)
“Have patience, gentle friends. I must not read it.” (L140) [Paralipsis]
“Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up
To such a sudden flood of mutiny.” (L204–205)
“I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts.
I am no orator, as Brutus is,
But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man” (L210–212)
Antony’s
confirmed lies
Antony’s Eulogy
Re-enacts killing of Caesar to
arouse detestation over it
“ Look, in this place ran Cassius’ dagger through:
...
Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb’d;
And as he pluck’d his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of Caesar follow’d it,-As rushing out of doors, to be resolved
If Brutus so unkindly knock’d, or no;
Subverts killers’ predictions of
re-enactments to celebrate the
deed
“For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors’ arms,
Quite vanquished him. Then burst his mighty
heart,” (3.2.171–183);
“I tell you that which you yourselves
do know,
Show you sweet Caesar’s wounds,
poor poor dumb mouths,
And bid them speak for me.”
(3.2.218–220)
Antony’s Cruel Deeds
“A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;” (3.1.265–267)
“But, Lepidus, go you to Caesar’s house;
Fetch the will hither, and we shall determine
How to cut off some charge in legacies.”
(4.1.9–11)
“He shall not live; look, with a spot I damn him.”
(4.1.6)
Disregard for Roman
people
Messala: That by proscription and bills of
outlawry
Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus
Have put to death an hundred Senators.
(4.2.225–227)
Antony’s Cruel Deeds
“And, though we lay these honors on this man
To ease ourselves of diverse sland’rous loads,
He shall but bear them as the ass bears gold,
To groan and sweat under the business ...
And having brought our treasure where we will,
Then take we down his load and turn him off” (4.1.19–25)
Octavius: You may do your will,
But he’s a tried and valiant soldier.
Antony: So is my horse, Octavius, and for that
I do appoint him store of provender. (4.1.31-34)
“Do not talk of him
But as a property.”
(4.1.44)
Total disregard for
allies
Brutus’ Ambiguous Legacy
Brutus’ Ambiguous Legacy
Antony:
This was the noblest Roman of them all:
All the conspirators, save only he,
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar;
He only, in a general-honest thought
And common good to all, made one of them. (5.5.67–71)
But: If his actions were so righteous, what need for artifice?
Critical Questions
1) How do you interpret Brutus’ legacy? Was he a traitor who
unjustly and cruelly murdered a man he loved, a pompous egotist
who acted against the will of the people by murdering the
popular Caesar, or a noble defender of liberty and republicanism?
2) How does the play complicate the conflict between
Authoritarianism and Republicanism? Is one ideology portrayed
as more “correct” than another? Also, if the Roman people are so
easily manipulated by rhetoric/theatricality, what does this say
about the nature of democracy?
Works Cited
Burton, Gideon. Silva Rhetoricae: The Forest of Rhetoric. Brigham Young University,
http://rhetoric.byu.edu. Accessed 8 Feb. 2015.
Shakespeare, William. “The Tragedy of Julius Caesar”. The Complete Pelican
Shakespeare, edited by Stephen Orgel, A.R. Braunmuller, and William Montgomery,
Penguin Books, 2002, pp. 1302–1336.
Wills, Garry. Rome and Rhetoric: Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Yale University Press,
2011.