template e note - ecriture.com.au · Title: Microsoft Word - template e note.docx Author: Lucyna...
Transcript of template e note - ecriture.com.au · Title: Microsoft Word - template e note.docx Author: Lucyna...
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e-‐note: HSC Module C Julius Caesar The assassination of Julius Caesar was viewed by commentators from antiquity to
the Renaissance as an act of heroism or villainy, depending on the political
convictions of those commenting. According to critic Katharine Eisaman Maus,
Michelangelo and Milton idealise Brutus as a selfless defender of human liberty,
while Dante sentences him, along with Cassius, to the deepest realms of hell. It is not
surprising, then, that Shakespeare was alive to the dramatic possibilities inherent in
these conflicting perspectives. He stages an incident that has been provoking debate
for more than sixteen hundred years.
For Eisaman Maus, the play raises some interesting questions: what limits can a
community place on those in power? Are citizens allowed to defend the rule of law
against those who breach these limits by using extralegal violence? What happens
when the demands of civic responsibility conflict with those of personal loyalty?
Which ones prevail? Brutus, of course, is our manifestation of these conflicts.
Brutus’s idealism, his ‘love for Rome’ seems admirable within a context that
privileges selfishness, yet this idealism results in committing disastrous tactical
errors. He refuses to see Antony killed alongside Caesar (“Let’s be sacrificers, but not
butchers” 2.1.166), and he permits Antony to speak, unsupervised, at Caesar’s
funeral (“Caesar shall/Have all true rites and lawful ceremonies” 3.1.242-‐243),
consequently losing his political advantage, his own interpretation of the events at
hand. Thus, Brutus eventually destroys the cause, the high political and moral tenets,
he is attempting to serve.
Cassius, however, works as a counterpoint. He has a keen eye on the way the world
works, and is unscrupulous in his agenda (“Let Antony and Caesar fall together”
2.1.161). Antony also emerges as a formidable opponent to Brutus, because of, not
despite, the traits that Brutus only sees as weaknesses: sensual indulgence, a lack of
principle and adherence to immediacy, ‘living in the moment’. Antony exploits
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rhetoric and props, and utilises his passion in order to achieve political astuteness.
Brutus, however, responds directly to group desire, and longs for a reassuring self-‐
control, a longing that costs him his life. This desire for fixity is at odds in a play in
which the characters are complex and mutable, but the complexity serves to
highlight the sharp distinction between the private and public self, a distinction that
is fundamentally human.