Julius CaesarWilliam Shakespeare

(1599)

The plot:• First act.

• Second act.

• Third act.

• Fourth act.

• Fifth act.

Julius Caesar was first performed at The Globe Theatre in 1599.

First act

Set in a Roman street

February 44 B.C.

Julius Caesar became the most powerful man of Rome.

Casca, Cassius and Cinna plot against Caesar

draw Brutus in their conspiracy

Second act:

Brutus’s republican ideologies

emerge

Brutus decides to kill Caesar

Bust of Brutus

Third act

Caesar is assassinated

Antony

Brutus tries to justify Ceasar’s killing

gives is funeral oration in the market place.

organizes a mutiny against brutus

Bust of Mark Antony

Fourth act

Military dictatorship composed by:

Lepidus Antony Octavius

Draws up a list of cospirators to kill

Fifth act

Cospirators are defeated at Philippi by the army of the

second triumvirate

Brutus and Cassius commit suicide

Antony honours Brutus’s corpse

Julius Caesar:

• Is the protagonist and the title character of the play;

• Embodies an anytesis

causes his downfall

Causes all the action

Even when he is absent

Brutus Can be considered the protagonist

Is most complex characer in his psyche

A tragic flaw His sence of principles and nobility

man of Renaissance

“If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: - not that I loved Ceasar less, but that I loved Rome more -”

Act III, Scene II, lines 20-22

Antony- charming- pratical- with a subtle political mentality

the power of words

turns the crowd against the cospirators

praises Brutus as “an honourable man”

Attacks and defeats Brutus and Cassius at Philippi

“ Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.”

Act III, Scene II, line 70

The rhetoric of politics

The maker of history

Two microcosms

irony rhetoric form

make a macrocosm the play

What are virtues in the public man?

• Ambition

• Clever

Antony embodies these virtues

Brutus is unable to judge people

Is too honest and good

Are honesty and goodness virtues in public men?

Julius Caesar The mirror of the Elizabethan order

Universe

ruled by God

the opposition to the king is an opposition to God

causes a disorder in the system

The king’s right to rule came from himself

based on the chain of being

Julius Caesar

Historical playPolitical assassination

Reflection:Is it right

To kill a powerful ruler?

Very popular during the Age of Discovery:

- teaching function- mirror of Elizabethan reality

like Caesar orElizabeth I

Shakespeare

No against strong rulers

Message of “Julius Caesar”:

Only the benevolent ruler

warranty of order and unity

Elizabeth I