SHAKESPodosphEARE

3.2 and 3.3 Dramatic Reading of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

October 14, 2006

3.2 and 3.3, if daigrammed, might look like this:

Brutus speaks to and wins support of Plebeians --> Antony speaks to and wins support of Plebeians --> Plebeians show their maniacal support for Antony's "good" cause by attacking an innocent poet . . .

3.2 is an interesting scene in many ways. I am always interested in the structure of dramatic works and how� a writer chooses to present information, action, dialogue in patterns. 3.2 begins with Brutus speaking to the masses (Plebeians). He convinces them that Casesar's death was necessary, and they offer to crown Brutus (which is a reason Brutus wanted Caesar dead--to preserve the Republic and prevent one man from becoming too powerful). Is Brutus simply bad at "reading" the�Roman citizens, or does�he not "hear" them. Perhaps he is too much of an idealist to recognize the fervor in the crowd to have one man be crowned king in Rome. Hmmmmmm?

After Brutus speaks, Antony delivers his famous "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" speech. The crowds are incited to near hysteria and then in 3.3, the results of this mob mentality are shown in the attack on Cinna the poet.�

Some questions for meditation and discussion:

1) Is Antony a well-versed rhetorician? Is he a better speaker than Brutus? Or, is the crowd so fickle that they will believe whoever spoke more recently? (The attack on Cinna the poet in the following scene seems to bear this out, showing that the whole�second half of the act was as much an examination of mob mentality and the inevitability of monarchy/empire as of leadership or communication skills! The crowd is quite active/vocal in these scenes (and recall how the play opens!!). Add to this the oddness of some of our original expectations of the play when we hear the title (that it will be a play about Julius Caesar, not Brutus, Cassius, Antony, et al, but in point of fact, it really is not about Caesar--he's conspicuously absent.).�The next "logical" question is to ask again about the genre of JC--is it a tragedy (hard when the title character is dead before the middle of the play)? Is it a history? Perhaps it is less a history in the way H5 is (verging on a biased dramatic biography of sorts), and more in the way�1 and 2H4 are--pastiche stories which paint a broad picture of life in Rome (or Merry Old England), using men like JC and H4 to title the play, but then populating the�stage/page with more dramatically�interesting men like Cassius, Brutus,�Hal and Falstaff.��

2) If the second half of the third act is not primarily an investigation of the mob, you might consider the possibility that Shakespeare was using the mob as touchstone which helps the audience see (in yet another way)�Brutus and Antony for who they really are.

3) How much does the shouting of the crowd add to the tension that is brewing in these scenes?

4) How do we speak as a crowd (good or bad) today? Are we heard? When? Where? Why?

Keep thinking about how Shakespeare uses parallel plots and action lines to help the audience get a clear picture of the whole dramatic spectrum (events and characters).

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