...Caesar’s role in politics leads Brutus to actions that affected many people. In the play, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, shows that relationships between multiple people can be affected both negatively and positively when politics becomes involved, politics has a great deal of power that can strain...
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... probably from the theater company’s official promptbook rather than from Shakespeare’s manuscript publisher · Edward Blount and William Jaggard headed the group of five men who undertook the publication of Shakespeare’s First Folio narrator · None climax · Cassius’s death (V.iii), upon ordering his servant, Pindarus, to stab him, marks the point at which it becomes clear that the murdered Caesar has been avenged, and that Cassius, Brutus, and the other conspirators have lost in their attempt to keep Rome a republic rather than an empire. Ironically, the conspirators’ defeat is not yet as certain as Cassius believes, but his death helps bring about defeat for his side. protagonists · Brutus and Cassius antagonists · Antony and Octavius setting (time) · 44 b.c. setting (place) · Ancient Rome, toward the end of the Roman republic point of view · The play sustains no single point of view; however, the audience acquires the most insight into Brutus’s mind over the course of the action falling action · Titinius’ realization that Cassius has died wrongly assuming defeat; Titinius’ suicide; Brutus’s discovery of the two corpses; the final struggle between Brutus’s men and the troops of Antony and Octavius; Brutus’s self-impalement on his sword upon recognizing that his side is doomed; the discovery of Brutus’s body by Antony and Octavius tense · Present foreshadowing · The play is full of omens, including lightning and thunder, the walking dead, and lions stalking...
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...In Julius Caesar, Brutus is a tragic hero. His tragic flaws are honor, poor judgment, and idealism Cassius and the other conspirators take advantage of Brutus’ honor. The conspirators wrote Brutus fake letters from the public to get him to join them. Once he joined the conspirators, they used him to bring good to killing Caesar. This idea worked until Antony showed up. That’s when Brutus’ second flaw showed itself. The second flaw is Brutus’ poor judgment. His judgment is taken advantage of by Antony. The first sign of this is when Antony talks Brutus into letting him speak at Caesar’s funeral. Another example of Brutus’ poor judgment is how Brutus thinks that Antony could cause no harm to the conspirators and their plan. The judgment Brutus made when he let Antony speak at the funeral was the turning point of the play and it led to the conspirator’s downfall. Brutus’ final act of poor judgment was when he decided to attack Antony and Octavius at Philippi. These decisions lead too many deaths including his. Brutus’ final flaw is his idealism. His idealism leads him to believe everything that everybody tells him. His idealism causes him to believe in Antony and Cassius. Cassius uses Brutus’ idealism by getting him to believe that they are killing Caesar for the betterment of Rome. Antony uses the idealism to get to talk to the com Brutus’ tragic flaws are part of what makes him a tragic hero. In Julius Caesar, Brutus is a great example of a tragic hero. His tragic flaws are...
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...found in the play were fortune-tellers. Before Caesar goes to Senate House, he asked soothsayers and fortune-tellers about it, and they advised him not to go out on that day (Act II scene ii). This is what they said: “Opening up the innards of a sacrifice, they couldn’t find a heart inside the beast.” From these warnings, and assassination of Caesar, we conclude that Caesar was proud of himself, believing himself as eternal as the North Star. Through the play, we find out that he is unable to separate his public image from his private image, which lead to his death. Also, He ignores all warnings and threats against his life, because of his ambition and seduction by the people’s increasing idealization and idolization of his image. Brutus was one of the most complex characters in this story, and his strong...
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...friend, plots his revenge and incites a riot, causing the exile of the conspirators and their impending defeat. The tragic hero with a tragic flaw can be found in the character of Julius Caesar, an example of this being Caesar’s prominence in society as well as his fatal flaw of hubris. Another example is Caesar’s recognition of his fatal flaw following his betrayal and downfall. A third example is Caesar’s redemption, when his death is fully grasped by Marcus Brutus, who was once Caesar’s friend but betrayed him. The tragic hero is Julius Caesar because of his fatal flaw of hubris, his recognition of his flaw in his...
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...way to heaven is to follow him. Dante follows, and the majority of the poem is a very descriptive narrative of what Dante sees and encounters. Throughout his journey, Dante sees and encounters people he had known or read about in life. These are all people who had sinned in life and now in death, are punished eternally. Dante's version of hell is that people will have their sin turned against them. In many instances, Dante points out what the sin of the person was, and describes in detail, how they are being punished in hell. In Canto III, The Vestibule of Hell, Dante talks about the Opportunists. Souls who in life never took a side, but instead were on the side where they themselves would gain the most. Among these souls was Pope Celestine V. In life Celestine allowed the church to become corrupted because he feared for his own safety. The pope, who watched out for him, doesn't have a place in hell. He is neither in hell, nor out of it, as in life he was neither for good nor evil. The poem talks about a lot of people and what their place in hell is, and why they are in hell. By doing this, Dante has almost written a history book. He mentions many of the great leaders, empire builders, and church patrons. For example, in Canto XIX he mentions Pope Nicholas III. Dante and Virgil are crossing over the third bolgia. Dante looks down and sees that this is where the...
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...In William Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”, Brutus is initially a logic and reason dependent individual who becomes more emotionally volatile and reactive as the play progresses. Early in the play Brutus carefully examines every angle of Caesar’s rise to power and eventually his death to come to the most reasonable and logical solution or explanation. Early in the play when Brutus is presented the argument that Caesar must die, he wrestles with the idea of killing a friend and countryman, but after careful consideration he says “It must be by his death, and for my part/… He would be crowned/ How that might change his nature, there’s the question” (II, i, 10-15). In saying this, he not only states why this decision is a logical means of protecting general public from oppression, but...
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...since Shakespeare deliberately left Caesar’s actions and intentions ambiguous, making him into a less obvious tyrannical figure compared to Plutarch’s representation of Caesar. In addition, Shakespeare does not solidify Caesar as a tyrant in the same way he does with Macbeth and Richard III in their respective plays. On the other hand, it is difficult to reason that Caesar is a just King because he came into power by usurpation. “In antiquity the term [“tyrant”] referred to a ruler who came to power by usurpation, without constitutional warrant.” Based on insight from several sources and my own interpretation of Julius Caesar, I have concluded that Shakespeare left Caesar’s objectives unknown in order to focus on the moral dilemma faced by Brutus, but Shakespeare still intended to depict Caesar as a tyrant who deserved to be deposed because of his unconstitutional usurpation of power. In order to prove this I will evaluate the political turmoil during the Elizabethan era in an attempt to understand Shakespeare’s perspective on the concept of tyranny and tyrannicide, which is influential to his work, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. In doing so, I will compare the ruling styles of Queen Elizabeth I, who was considered a tyrant queen during her time, and the ruling styles of Julius Caesar in order to characterize Caesar as...
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...settle in Italy. * 753 BC - The city is allegedly founded in this year by Romulus and Remus. * 750 BC - Tarpeia besieges cities, and hands it over to the Sabines * 700 BC - Near Rome, the Etruscan civilization more or less begins. * 659 BC - The enemy city of Alba Longa is destroyed by the Romans. * 616 BC - The first Etruscan king of Rome, Tarquinius Priscus establishes a Forum and a Circus Maximus. * c.600 BC - Cloaca Maxima is probably first built around this year. * 578 BC - Servius Tullius becomes the next Etruscan king of Rome * 565 BC - Servian Walls are built. * 534 BC - King Servius is assassinated. * 510 BC - Temple of Jupiter on the Capitol is completed and consecrated. * 509 BC - Lucius Brutus founds the republic and expels the Etruscans and Tarquin the Proud from Rome. * 508 BC - A Treaty is made between Rome and Carthage. * 507 BC - The famous war against the Etruscans begins, featuring hero Horatio. Republic * 499 BC - A battle against foreign tribes commences, including the construction of the Temple of Castor and Pollux. * 396 BC - The Etruscan city of Veio is defeated by the Romans * 390 BC - Rome is sacked by the Gauls after the Battle of the Allia * 380 BC - The once destroyed Servian Wall is reconstructed. * 312 BC - The Via Appia and Aqua Appia are constructed. * 264 - 241 BC - First Punic War * 220 BC - Via Flamina is constructed. * 218 - 202 BC - Second Punic War * 168...
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...Chapter II: literature of the renaissance (End of the 15th - beginning of the 17th century) In the 15th - 16th centuries capitalist relation began to develop in Europe. The former townspeople became the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie fought against feudalism because it held back the development of capitalism. The decay of feudalism and the development of capitalist relation were followed by a great rise in the cultural life of Europe. There was an attempt at creating a new culture which would be free from the limitation of the feudal ideology of the Middle Ages. The epoch was characterized by a thirst for knowledge and discoveries, by a powerful development of individuality. It was then that great geographical discoveries of Columbus, Magellan and other travelers as well as astronomical discoveries of Copernicus, Bruno, Galilei were made. The invention of the printing press (Fyodorov in Russia, Guttenberg in Germany, Caxton in England) contributed to the development of culture in all European countries. Universities stopped being citadels of religious learning and turned into centers of humanist study. There was a revival of interest in the ancient culture of Greece and Rome ("Renaissance" is French for "rebirth"). The study of the works of ancient philosophers, writers, and artists helped the people to widen their outlook, to know the world and man's nature. On the basis of both the ancient culture and the most progressive elements of the culture of the...
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...Olivia Blankenship Dr. Lawrence Introduction to Humanities 7 July 2014 Cleopatra Hardly any personalities from the Hellenistic period (323 BC – 31 BC) are as renowned as Cleopatra VII (69 BC – 30 BC), the Egyptian queen. The focus of a wide array of Western historical texts, music, poems, literature, and arts, Cleopatra has been widely portrayed as a Queen who ruled her subjects and her Roman lovers through sex and gender. Despite such portrayals, very little is known about Cleopatra and there are doubts among historians that such accounts are an inaccurate depiction of Cleopatra. This paper will research studies on Cleopatra to determine whether the accounts of her ruling through sexual liaisons are accurate or they are propaganda developed to tarnish her impeccable reputation. The argument among scholars is that most of the accounts that currently depict Cleopatra VII as a Queen who used sex and gender to rule are erroneous. Roller argues that those accounts are the consequence of a perverse male-dominated historiography out to depict her as an extension of men in her life (2). According to Roller, modern and ancient male-dominated historiographies betray their chauvinistic attitudes towards Cleopatra in the manner in which they portray her primary accomplishments as the destruction of her male lovers (2). Such portrayals were necessary because of their effectiveness in discrediting Cleopatra’s achievements. Roller and Salisbury’s studies...
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...guardian of the Second Circle in Hell. The lustful sinners inhabit the second circle. Minos’s role is to determine which circle that newly damned sinners shall enter. He determines the circle by the number of times he coil’s his tail. Dante’s description of Minos is as follows, “There stands Minos, snarling, terrible. He examines each offender at the entrance, judges and dispatches as he coils himself.” (Inf. V 4-6). Dante’s account of Minos already differs from Charon. Minos’ character is less human than Charon. Charon is described as an old man with a white beard but Minos is said to be a man with a tail. The demons become less human the further down in Hell that they live. Additionally, Minos is described in less of a horrific way. He explains Minos’ duty but does not classify his actions in the same definitive and intimidating way that he described Charon’s job. Dante had begun to see the demons in a different light. Minos yells at Dante and states, “'O you who come to this abode of pain,' … 'beware how you come in and whom you trust. Don't let the easy entrance fool you.'” (Inf. V 16-20). Even the way that Minos spoke to Dante is dissimilar to how Charon had addressed him. Not only did Minos ignore Dante’s human-form, but he gave a word of advice to Virgil and Dante about their future travels. Although the brutality of the demons has lessened, Dante continues to rely on Virgil to guide him through their journey. The next demon who stands as a barrier to entry for Dante and Virgil...
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...The Divine Comedy represents the mature Dante’s solution to the poet’s task annunciated in The New Life. Its three canticles (the Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso) display a nearly limitless wealth of references to historical particulars of the late Middle Ages and to Dante’s life. Even so, its allegorical form allows these to function as symbols. The Pilgrim’s journey through Hell to Heaven thus becomes an emblem of all human experience and a recognition of life’s circularity. The “Comedy” of its title is, therefore, the situation of life and the accumulation of experience that attends it. Correspondingly, however, chronological placement of the narrative from Good Friday through Easter Sunday, 1300, particularizes the experience even as it implies the death and rebirth that attends a critical stage of any person’s life. The poet tells his readers in the first line of the Inferno that he is midway through life, and indeed Dante would have been thirty-five years of age in 1300. Though he maintains present tense throughout the poem, he is, however, actually writing in the years that follow the events that he describes. This extraordinary method allows the Poet to place what amounts to prophetic utterance in the mouth of the Pilgrim. Dante thus maintains and further develops the thesis of The New Life, that the progress of the Pilgrim corresponds directly to the progress of the Poet. The literal journey that the Pilgrim undertakes toward the Beatific Vision succeeds only...
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...How Much Do Lady Macbeth and Ophelia Have in Common? Although obvious polar opposites, Lady Macbeth and Ophelia are connected, their descent into insanity and eventual demise are their one liking variable. Lady Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s most famously frightening and powerful female characters. At the start of the play, she is a loving wife to her husband but at the same time very ambitious, as shown by her immediate determination for Macbeth to be king. This outcome will benefit her and her husband equally. She immediately concludes that "the fastest way" for Macbeth to become king is by murdering King Duncan. Furthermore, Lady Macbeth knows her husband well. She thinks he may be too kind in order to murder King Duncan. At first Macbeth agrees but later wavers in his decision, but Lady Macbeth assures him that being king is what he really wants and that this is the best for both of them. So, in response to Macbeth's uncertainty, Lady Macbeth manipulates him by questioning his manhood and his love for her. She is successful because regardless of his own conscience, Macbeth carries out their plan of murder, by himself. The almost superhuman strength Lady Macbeth gains for the occasion and her cunning ability are shown through her meticulous attention to detail regarding the murder. However, though Lady Macbeth seems strong in her initial pursuits, she proves her weakness when she is unable to commit the act herself or deal with the consequences of her actions. Lady Macbeth's...
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...most recent scholarship. Vol. I. ISBN 978-0-674-99684-7 LCL TRANSLATED BY E. C. MARCHANT O. J. TODD REVISED BY JEFFREY HENDERSON This volume collects Xenophon’s (c. 430 to c. 354 BC) portrayals of his associate, Socrates. In Memorabilia (or Memoirs of Socrates) and in Oeconomicus, a dialogue about household management, we see the philosopher through Xenophon’s eyes. Here, as in the accompanying Symposium, we also obtain insight on life in Athens. The volume concludes with Xenophon’s Apology, an interesting complement to Plato’s account of Socrates’ defense at his trial. All volumes in the Loeb Xenophon Vol. I. ISBN 978-0-674-99098-2 Vol. II. ISBN 978-0-674-99099-9 Vol. III. ISBN 978-0-674-99101-9 Vol. IV. ISBN 978-0-674-99695-3 Vol. V. ISBN 978-0-674-99057-9 Vol. VI. ISBN 978-0-674-99058-6 Vol. VII. ISBN...
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