– B R U T U S –

“ ET TU, CAESARE”

Submitted to

Dr. William Halstead

In partial fulfillment of theRequirements for English 608

by

George P. Khouri, A.B., LL.B.

University of Miami

January 28, 1960.

1.

In organizing any paper on Shakespeare, many unique

difficulties immediately arise. The first and most difficult to

overcome is the sheer physical mass of material which confronts

one, combined with an almost uncontrollable desire in the reader to

pursue every new and novel turn of scholarship as it arises. It

does appear that everyone who ever aspired to be an English major

has at some time delivered himself of paper on Shakespeare at

varying levels of intelligence, profundity and academic merit. It

becomes a weighty task in itself to sift the chaff from the grain.

Thus, this paper started out in the grandiloquent design

of A Study of Corruption in Shakespeare’s Noble Characters – with

particular reference to Brutus, Macbeth, and Othello. As time and

research progressed, it was deemed more judicious to narrow the paper

to a study of the perversion of Brutus and Macbeth, contrasting Brutus

as a totally good man led astray with Macbeth as a good man, albeit

possessing an innate spark of evil, who is also led astray. As the

material for this paper also grew to unwieldy proportions, it became

evident that the scope an aim should be trimmed still further. Thus,

abjuring all pretensions to increasing the number of papers written on

Shakespeare, but aspiring to a modicum of scholarship and academic

merit, this paper is offered as a study of Brutus in Shakespeare’s

Julius Caesar.

The purpose here is to trace Brutus’ character as we find

him – noble, honorable, patriotic, virtuous, rigid. This rigid virtue

will be shown as his fatal flaw, leading to a typical Aristotelian

2.

Peripatie1 where Brutus suffers a complete change of fortune which

ensues as a natural consequence of his temper and conduct. Where

The comparison is strong and clear, reference will be made to the same

process of corruption and perversion in Shakespeare’s other great

tragic hero, Macbeth.

Some historical and critical background is useful to set

Brutus and the play Julius Caesar in perspective and to suggest

something of Shakespeare’s dramatic maturity and theatrical aims in

this play.

There is some dispute about the date of the play Julius

Caesar – some authorities putting it as early as 1598, while others

put it as late as 1607, notably Malone, Drake, Skottowe, Fleay and

Knight. In fact, Professor Wilson argues that the date of any

Shakespearean play could be of secondary importance to the question of

how Shakespeare wrote each of his plays because of the fact that

Shakespeare was so versatile in his compositions and also that his art

did not progress or develop chronologically2. From an examination of

the internal and external evidence available, however, the date 1600

appears as the most authentic: -

1. Julius Caesar does not appear in the Quarto editions of

the 15 plays which were printed in Shakespeare’s

lifetime. But it does appear among the 21 plays which

were printed posthumously in Folio form – the most

1Aristotle, on the Poetics, Criticism, edited by W. J. Bate,

Harcourt, Brace and Co, (New York, 1952)2Harold S. Wilson, On the Design of Shakespearean Tragedy ,

University of Toronto Press, 1957) p.4.

3.

notable folio appearing in 1623 in the style known as

Early Bedford and measuring 12-7/8 in. by 8-3/8 in.3

2. Julius Caesar does not appear in Mere’s List of

Shakespeare’s Plays published in 1598.3

3. Hamlet, which Shakespeare wrote in 1601-2 does contain

speeches by Polonius (Act. III, Scene 2) and by Horatio

(Act. I, Sc. 2) in which Shakespeare seems to allude to

his own play of Julius Caesar.

4. In tone of thought, in style and versification, Julius

Caesar closely resembles the other plays of the period

1601-1603 viz. Twelfth Night (1601), All’s Well That

End’s Well (1601-2), Hamlet (1602-3), and Measure for

Measure (1603).3

Actually, Julius Caesar is most closely related to

Hamlet in both plot and character:

a) Both are tragedies of thought and

character, rather than action.

b) both Brutus and Hamlet felt they faced a

great duty, discordant with their natures,

in which they fail because of excessive

idealism, in Brutus, and excessive

introspection, in Hamlet

3

Stanley Wood and A. Syms-Wood, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar,George Gill & Sons Ltd. (London, 1901) p.VI.

4.

c) in both plays there is a regicide where the

spirit of the murdered man determines the

theme of Revenge and Destiny.

Thus, Shakespeare wrote Julius Caesar when he was at the advanced

stage of his career, assured of a favorable audience for his works and

conscious of his responsibility as a leading playwright to produce

works not only of merit but also of significance. It has been

suggested that at the time Shakespeare wrote his Julius Caesar there

was growing concern in England regarding the political question of the

General Succession on the death of the Virgin Queen Elizabeth, who had

no apparently acceptable heir, and that Shakespeare in his play sought

to forewarn the English people of the chaos and anarchy which can rush

in to fill the vacuum of a vacant throne, with the threat of the

inconclusive inter-necine strife inherent in such a situation.34

While

this is possible, it seems much more remarkable that this play of

Shakespeare’s almost provides the blue-print for a truly lurid period

in English history beginning with the regicide of King Charles I and

continuing with the civil war and the struggle for power during the

Cromwellian Protectorate until the restoration of King Charles II in

1660. Both in the play and in the history, there is a regicide. The

civil war in Rome between the Imperialist party and the Republican

party had its counterpart in England in the civil war between the

Republican Parliamentary Party of Cromwell’s Roundheads and the

Imperialist Royalist Party of King Charles’ Cavaliers.

4O. J. Stevenson, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Copp Clark Publishers

Co. Ltd. (Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, 1916 p. XXVII.

5.

Finally, there is the dramatic element of order restored when Caesar’s

son, Octavius, becomes Emperor in Rome and Charles’ son, Charles II,

becomes King of England. Indeed, a study of Julius Caesar compared

with the political events in England between 1603, when Elizabeth

died, and 1660 might open an entirely new field of scholarship under

the heading of Shakespeare’s Prescience. This point however arose at

too late a stage in this research to give it the thorough study it

deserves. Thus, no further discussion of Shakespeare’s politics will

be introduced beyond the remark here that in his treatment of politics

in Julius Caesar, Shakespeare showed himself unbiased and free from

prejudice, maintaining his independence of view in all questions of a

social, political, and religious nature.

The maturity of Shakespeare’s genius is also evidenced in

two more critical appraisals of his play. The structure of Julius

Caesar is precisely balanced and clearly divided into five prinicipal

movements:45

1. the opening, which takes is in medias res, into the heart

of the conflict between rising imperialism (Caesar) and

restless Republicanism (Cassius),

2. the growth, of the conspiracy to Caesar’s death,

3. the climax in Caesaar’s death,

4. the fall, which covers the events between the Ides of

March and the Battle of Philippi,

5. the catastrophe which befalls Brutus and Cassius as a

direct, natural and probable consequence of their crime.

5Wood and Wood, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, op. Cit. P.XV-XVIII.

6.

Shakespeare’s adherence to the fundamental rules of

characterization also marks Julius Caesar as a product of his supreme

genius, particularly in these four categories:5

1. Distinctiveness: the distinctive features of characters

who will influence the whole of the action must be drawn

early and clearly, e.g. Brutus’ patriotism, Caesar’s

ambition, Cassius’ envy.

2. Contrast: e.g. the character of Cassius is developed as a

foil to Brutus, of Antony as a foil to Octavius.

3. Consistency: the characters must be self consistent and

natural.

4. Effectiveness: the prinicipal characters should control

the action of the drama which itself should seem to

spring spontaneously from the natures of the chief

characters.

Thus, in these crucial aspects, it is seen that Shakespeare

has in fact produced in Julius Caesar one of his most important plays

and in Brutus one of his most impressive tragic characters.

As further background to the understanding of Brutus, it

must be noted that Julius Caesar belongs to the group of Historical

Tragedies by Shakespeare. Professor Wilson6places four of these plays,

Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth in the Christian Order,

where a Divine influence over the action is directly acknowledged.

The other six tragedies, Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, Trolius and

Cressida, Timon of Athens, Antony and Cleopatra, and King Lear,

5 6Harold S. Wilson, op. Cit. p.9.

7.

Professor Wilson places in the Natural Order, where the mood is

definitely fatalistic and the pagan concept of Destiny controls the

deeds and the fate of men. This concept of Destiny, according to the

ancient Greeks, comprised three qualities:

1. ate, the mad folly that comes upon proud men,

2. hybris, (arrogance), and

3. nemesis, the inescapable consequence of ate and hybris.7

In making this distinction between the Christian and Natural Orders,

Wilson agreed the Professor Bradley8who pointed out that Elizabethean

drama was almost wholly secular and this is how Shakespeare wrote,

without the wish to enforce and opinion of his own, though it must be

assumed that if he personally had religious faith, it did not

contradict his concepts of the tragic view. The interesting reason

for this position, as Bradley indicates, is that Drama had to be

secular: at that time the theater was regarded as the work-shop of the

devil and it would have been sacreligious, and dangerous, for anyone

in the theater to presume to preach or teach morality.

For the historical facts in his play, Shakespeare drew on the

English translation by Sir Thomas North of Plutarch’s Lives whose

title page appears as follows:9

T H E L I V E SOF THE NOBLE GRE-

CIANS AND ROMANES COMPAREDTOGETHER BY THAT GRAVE LEARNED

PHILOSOPHER AND HISTORIOGRAHERPLUTARKE OF CHAERONEA

translated out of the Greeke into French by IamesAmiot, Abbot of Bellozane, Bishop of Auxerre,one of the King’s privie counsell, and great Am-ner of France, and out of French into English, by

THOMAS NORTH

Imprinted at London by Richard Field forBonham Norton

1595

7Harold S. Wilson, op. Cit. p.88

8A.C. Bradley , Shakespearean Tragedy, MacMillan Co. (London

1905) p. 1349

Wood and Wood, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, op. cit. p. X

8.

To this historical account, Shakespeare adhered with remarkable

fidelity as to events and characters. In fact, in many instances,

Shakespeare literally cast the prose of North into metrical verse and

thus fashioned his dialogue. Where Shakespeare did adapt the histori-

cal record, he did so with complete justification for the sake of

dramatic cohesion and intensity, and to conform more closely to the

unities of Aristotle.

Through the ages, critics have found matter worthy of praise and

of reproof in this play. The earliest known review of Julius Caesar is

in the Library of Literary Criticism (V.I. 680 — 1638 ed. by Charles

Wells Moulton, N.Y., Peter Smith, 1935) as follows:

The many—headed multitude were drawneBy Brutus’ speech, that Caesar was ambitious;When eloquent Mark Antonie had showneHis vertues, who but Brutus then was vicious!Man’s memorie, with new, forgets the old,

One tale is good, untill another’s told.10

In 1693, Thomas Rymer11

expressed his judgement that

“Shakespeare’s genius lay for comedy and humour. In tragedy he appears

quite out of his element.”

Samuel Johnson, in 1768, held mixed opinions about the play:

Of this tragedy, many particular passages deserve regard, and theQuarrel Scene is universally celebrated, but I have never beenstrongly agitated in perusing it and think it somewhat cold and

unaffecting...12

As time progressed, the critics clearly advanced in their

understanding and appreciation of the play. Coleridge in 1818 wrote:

_______________

10 John Weever, The Mirror of Martyrs (1601) S.4

11 Thomas Rymer, A Short View of the Tragedy of the Last Age, inLibrary of Literary Criticism, op. cit.

12 Samuel Johnson, General Observations on Shakespeare’s Plays,(1768) in Library of Literary Criticism, op. cit.

9.

I know of no part of Shakespeare that more impresses on me thebelief of his genius being superhuman than this scene between

Brutus and Cassius.13

In 1875, Edward Dowden wrote:

In Julius Caesar, Shakespeare makes a complete imaginativestudy of the case of a man predestined to failure. Brutusis an idealist.........moral ideas and principles are moreto him than concrete realities, he is studious of self—

perfection.14

A contemporary of Dowden, a German scholar, rendered thisjudgement:

Of all Shakespeare’s works, none has greater purity ofverse or transparent fluency..... Nothing perhaps in thewhole roll of dramatic poetry equals the tenderness givenby Shakespeare to Brutus, that tenderness of a strongnature which the force of contrast renders so touching and

so beautiful.15

In the 20th Century, these criticisms are in point. Mabie in 1900

wrote thus:

Brutus is one of the noblest and most consistent ofShakespeare’s creations, a man far above all self—seekingand capable of the loftiest patriotism, in whose wholebearing, as in his deepest nature, virtue wears his noblestaspect. But Brutus is an idealist, with a touch of thedoctrinaire; his purposes are of the highest, but the meanshe employs to give those purposes effect are utterlyinadequate; in a lofty spirit, he embarks on an enterprisedoomed to failure by the very pressure and temper of theage. Julius Caesar is the tragedy of the conflict between agreat nature denied the sense of reality, and the world—spirit. Brutus is not only crushed, but recognizes that

there was no other issue of his untimely endeavour.16

_______________________

13 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lectures and Notes onShakespeare, ed. Ashe, p. 315, in Library of Literary Criticism,op. cit.

14 Edward Dowden, Shakespeare: A Critical Study of His Mind andArt, 1875 —1880, p.249, in Library of Literary Criticism, op. cit.

15 Paul Stapfer, Shakespeare and Classical Antiquity, 1880,trans. Carey, p.317, 342, in Library of Literary Criticism, op. cit.

16 Hamilton Wright Mabie, William Shakespeare, Poet, Dramatistand Man, 1900, p. 298, in Library of Literary Criticism, op. cit.

10.

And in 1949, Professor George Wilson Knight discusses Julius

Caesar in terms of “crystal lucidity......even flow ...... brilliant

imagery of style.....keen spiritual faith and vision. "17

In another

work, Professor Knight writes:

The style of Julius Caesar is extraordinarily simple andnaive (in point of metaphor) yet.......the wholeimaginative vision is extremely rich, ablaze with a

vitality not found in previous plays.18

Modern critics view the play from two aspects.19a

The first view

regards Julius Caesar as a political play whose central idea is the

decay of republicanism in Rome and the rise of Caesarism. Thus

Professor H. B. Charlton writes, "Brutus is no more significant in the

play than is Hotspur in Henry IV” which is an unequivocal history

drama.19b

The second view regards it as a tragedy of character whose

central theme is that good cannot come out of evil. “Brutus is noble,

wise, valiant and honest,” but he ruined his life by one great error.

He committed a crime to prevent, as he thought, a greater crime and by

so doing he brought upon himself and his country greater evils than

those he had sought to avert. Thus, Professor L. C. Knights defines

the main issue as purely moral, not political; it consists in “the

conflicting claims of the world of personal relations and that of

politics” and the tragedy lies in that “personal loyalties are always

sacrificed to political ideals.”19c

This paper will in fact be con-

cerned primarily with the tragedy of Brutus’ character.

______________________

17 George Wilson Knight, The Wheel of Fire, Methuen & Co.Ltd.,(London, 1949): Brutus and Macbeth, p. 124.

18 George Wilson Knight, The Imperial Theme; Methuen & Co. Ltd.(London, 1951) p.35

l9a Wood and Wood, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, op. cit. p. XIV

19b H. B. Charlton, Shakespeare, Politics and Politicians,English Asscn. Pamphlets, No. 72, p. 19

19c L. C. Knights, Shakespeare and Political Wisdom, SewaneeReview 61: 43 - 55 1953)

11.

Historically, Brutus was the son of a noble Roman by the name,

and of Servilia, sister of Cato of Utica. His grand—father, M. Janius,

in whose honor the Romans had erected a statue in the Capitol,

belonged to the legendary age of the Tarquin kings. It was he who

roused the Romans to expel the Tarquins and abolish the Kingship, and

later became the first Consul in Rome.

My ancestors did from the streets of RomeThe Tarquin drive, when he was called a king.

(Act. II, Sc. 1, L.53—4)

Brutus must have inherited his stern patriotism from this ancestor who

executed two of his own sons for attempting to restore the Tarquins.20

As a youth, Brutus was a scholar and philosopher but unfortunately

none of his correspondence with Cicero survived. His earliest

instincts were republican and he had espoused the cause of Pompey

against Caesar. After his victory over Pompey at Pharsalia in 48 B.C.,

Caesar forgave Brutus because, it is said, Caesar loved Servilia,

Brutus’ mother, and Brutus was actually the illegitimate son of

Caesar. In his history of the assassination, the Roman Suetonius

states that Caesar addressed Brutus in Greek: “Kai Tu Teknon” - “And

thou, my sonne?21

Caesar in fact made Brutus Governor of Cisalpine

Gaul and he filled this and other posts with honor until he was

recalled to Rome in 44 B.C. as City Praetor on the promise that Caesar

would next appoint him Governor of Macedonia. Plutarch wrote of him as

follows:

______________________

20 Wood and Wood, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. op. cit. p. 143

21 Suetonius, ibid P. 103 and P. XXXIV. Also II Henry VI, act.IV, Sc. 2, 1. l36-7.

12.

......he was a marvellous lowly and gentle person,nobleminded, and would never be in any rage, nor carriedaway with pleasure and covetousness...., and would neveryield to any wrong or injustice: ······ for they were all

persuaded that his intent was good.22

For dramatic effect, Shakespeare altered two major historical

facts about Brutus. Cicero noted that Brutus was “slow in decision,

amazingly obstinate, and in his financial dealings with the

provincials both extortionate and cruel.”23

Nor was Brutus as close to

Caesar as Shakespeare pictures him. But obviously in these two

adaptations Shakespeare was seeking to emphasize the idealistic side

of Brutus’ character so that the audience may be impressed with his

internal struggle and with the triumph of idealism and abstract right

over the feelings that sway ordinary men.

This is the whole theme of the characterization of Brutus as

conceived by Shakespeare. The battle—ground is Brutus’ heart, mind and

soul. The conflict is searing. The issues, over—simplified perhaps,

are between what Brutus wants to do and what he thinks he should do;

between reason and emotion; between intellect and passion. How can he

save Rome from the dread fate of tyranny under an absolute monarch —

yet accomplish this with a minimum of internal upheaval, of rending

and tearing? And above all, with Honour!

0, that we then could come by Caesar’s spirit,And not dismember Caesar!

(Act. II, Sc. 1, L. 169)

__________________

22 Plutarch, Plutarch’s Lives, ed. Skeat p. 129

23 Cicero and Att. VI, 1, 7 in Enclopedia Brittanica V. 4.

13.

This inner turmoil, this deep—rooted anarchy within Brutus the

audience watches in fascinated, mesmerized horror, sympathizing fully

with the universality of the struggle, because Brutus here is showing

what every person endures in comparable contests between the ‘I must’

and the ‘I want’ in man. Professor Knight described this soul torment

vividly as:24

an inner state of disintegration, disharmony and fear, fromwhich is born an act of crime and destruction............Its signs are 1oneliness, a sense of unreality, a sicklyvision of nightmare forms. It contemplates murder andanarchy to symbolize outwardly its own inner anarchy.

A former Attorney—General of Denmark discussed this quirk of

Brutus which seeks to express an inner sense of subjective order by

outward crime.25

Dr. August Goll decides that the political criminals

in Shakespeare are of a special type — and that Brutus is typical of

those who strike only for an unselfish Ideal, for the general good Dr.

Goll determined that Brutus was truly altruistic in deciding between

his genuine love for Caesar and his high sense of duty to Rome. To

resolve this division, Brutus resorts to mis—directed logic and

reason, which he vainly hopes will convince others too but which in

fact serves mainly to develop a strong guilt complex in him. This

guilt is satisfied only when Caesar’s ghost condemns him for the

murder of Caesar and sentences him to death at Philippi, with all his

ideals shattered.

The fundamental tragedy of Brutus however is best discussed by

Professor G. Wilson Knight, particularly in his comparison with the

same problem which confronts Macbeth. Both characters are shown to

________________

24 George Wilson Knight, The Wheel of Fire, Methuen & Co. Ltd.

(London 1949), Brutus and Macbeth p. 121

25 August Goll, “Criminal Types in Shakespeare”, Journal of

Criminal Law and Criminology 28, p. 503 (1933)

14.

be destructive, not creative, in opposing the established ordered for

basically selfish ends.

Both Brutus and Macbeth study their dilemma in almost identical

words. Brutus says:

Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar, I have notslept. Between the acting of a dreadful thing And the firstmotion...................the state of man..........................suffers then The nature of an

insurrection.26

And Macbeth deliberates in these words:

This supernatural solicitingCannot be ill, cannot be good......My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,Shakes so my single state of man that functionIs smothered in surmise and nothing is

But what is not.27

Both characters here strike a note of repugnant horror at the

crimes they contemplate and it is remarkable how they seek resolution

in the universal concept of their manhood — their state of man.

Macbeth’s speech here may be more vivid, powerful and tense because he

is more emotional than Brutus, but the issue is the same. The three

realities of their problem are intertwined; the chaos in their state

of man; the act of murder itself; and the resulting chaos which they

know must ensue in the state.

When the crime is first broached to them, both plead for time to

consider: Brutus:

.........for this present,I would not, so with love I might entreat you,

Be any further moved.......28

___________________

26 Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act. II, Sc. 1, L. 61-69.

27 Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act. I. Sc. 3, L. 131 — 143.

28 Shakespeare. Julius Caesar Act. I, Sc. 2, L. 164 f.

15.

And Macbeth: “We will speak further.”29

And both meditate in soliloquy:

Brutus:

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 crowned.How that might change his nature, there’sthe question...............................................So Caesar may.Then lest he may, prevent. (Act. II, Sc. 1, L.l0-30)

And Macbeth:

If it were done when tis done, then ‘twere wellIt were done quickly..............................................that but this blowMight be the be-all and the end-all here.........................Besides this DuncanHath borne his faculties so meek, hath beenSo clear in his great office, that his virtuesWill plead like angels trumpet—tongued againstThe deep damnation of his taking off. (Act.I, Sc.7, L.l-20)

Here appears in stark horror the fatal flaw in the character of

both; the self—delusion, deliberate and willful, that leads both to go

against their instinctive horror of the crime they contemplate and to

perform their “appalling duty.” 30

Brutus does see a possible danger to Rome if Caesar becomes King

but immediately has to recall that he himself has no real grievances

against Caesar. Macbeth tries to convince himself that he is a cold-

blooded villain who only fears actual and personal punishment - but

immediately has to confess that on at least three scores of kinship,

fealty and hospitality Duncan deserves better than death at his hands.

Professor Knight concludes that neither in fact seems quite convinced

although Brutus does seem calmer, more firmly resolved than Macbeth.

_____________________

29 Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act. I, Sc. 5, L. 72.

30 A. C. Bradley. Shakespearean Tragedy. op. cit. p. 214.

16.

The reason for this seems to balance the scales slightly in Brutus’

favour because his motive comes through as primarily patriotic (to

save Rome)- and secondarily selfish (to preserve the family honor.) On

the other hand, Macbeth’s motive seems primarily selfish (to become

King) and secondarily patriotic (Scotland needs a strong King to

protect her from internal divisions and foreign invaders.)

Pride is the next flaw in their characters which commits them

irrevocably to murder. Brutus’ pride is stirred by the forged missives

Cassius has been laying about for him. Lady Macbeth does the same for

Macbeth. And the assent of both comes with dramatic intensity and

sudden finality.

Brutus:

................O Rome, I make thee promise;If the redress will follow, thou receiv’stThy full petition at the hand of Brutus! (Act.II, Sc.l, L.56—58.)

Macbeth:

I am settled, and bend upEach corporal agent to this terrible feat. (Act.I, Sc.7, L.79—80)

Both know that their crimes are against everything in their

natures, in their social orders and in their universe — and this

tremendous shattering of order is reflected vividly and almost

literally in the vast upheavals of nature consequent on both murders

which “emphasize the essentially chaotic and destructive nature of the

murders.”31

This division between purpose and instinct, between heart and

mind, continues in both even after the murders.

It is, in fact, a powerful psychological study...here (Shakespeare) unveils the process by whichthe thought of crime penetrates a virtuous soul,

the destruction it causes.....32

______________________

31 G. Wilson Knight, Wheel of Fire, op. cit. p. 128

32 A. Mézieres, Shakespeare, Ses Oeuvres et Ses Critiques, 1860.

in Library of Literary Criticism, op. cit.

17.

Macbeth does not progress from the murder of Duncan to

consolidate his throne. He remains on the defensive. He vacillates,

suspects, probes, investigates (he still sees the witches) and finally

embarks on a course of several unnecessary murders. In the same way,

Brutus refuses to kill Antony, allows Antony’s oration, rushes

precipitately into battle - in every way giving the impression of

wishing to undo what he has done. Thus, while they vacillate between

murderous resolution and nagging conscience, both approach their

disillusionment and doom. Before the end, both lose those near and

dear, to them. Brutus loses Portia and Cassius; Macbeth loses Lady

Macbeth. Professor Knight feels both receive these losses callously33

but it may be that this apparent callousness is no more than an

indication of their growing despair and awareness of impending doom

for themselves also.

There is one more striking point of similarity between Brutus and

Macbeth in the way in which numbing, killing, disillusionment comes to

them both. At his meeting with the witches, who show him Banquo’s line

of heirs to the throne he occupies, Macbeth realizes that despite

every human intervention he can devise — including murder — to thwart

the prophesy, he is doomed to hold a barren sceptre. To him, this

proves that "the future takes its natural course irrespective of human

acts.....(that the other prophesy of the witches would have come true

and) that he would in truth have been King of Scotland ‘without my

stir’.”34

(Act. i. Sc.3, L.144) Thus, he need never have murdered

Duncan! He need never have brought down this unearthly ‘disjoint’ on

himself , on his country, on nature itself! And now the Witches

_____________________

33 G. Wilson Knight, Wheel of Fire, op. cit. p. 129

34 G. Wilson Knight, Macbeth and the Metaphysics of Evil,Methuen & Co. Ltd. (London,1949) p. 155.

18.

who, in the beginning had been his three Parcae, foretelling his

future, have now become his Erinyes “avengers of murder, symbols of

his tormented soul.”34

A very similar experience comes to Brutus in the Quarrel Scene,

Act. IV, Sc. 3. Professor Bradley has criticized this scene as

“episodic and dramatically dispensable.”35

Professor Elias Schwartz

prefers Coleridge’s view, however, that this scene does provide one of

the highlights of English dramatic literature.36

His reasons are:

1. this scene graphically depicts Brutus’ disillusion and 2. it

defines the moral issue at the root of the tragedy between the private

claims of friendship and the public claims of res publica. Brutus

would rather die than dishonor Rome or himself — “I love the name of

honour more than I fear death.” (Act. I, Sc.2, L.89), while Cassius

would rather die without Brutus’ love — “For Cassius is aweary of the

world, hated by one he loves.” (Act. IV, Sc. 3, L.94). These passages

externalize the divided loyalties in Brutus to the res publica (which

he thinks requires Caesar’s death) and to private good (his friendship

with Caesar.)

Professor Schwartz sees Brutus as an “anomalous combination in a

single soul of rigid, moral idealism and intellectual mediocrity,

great nobility and dullness of wit.” And the Quarrel Scene he sees as

one of poignant, pathetic irony. When Cassius said, “I did not know

you could be so angry,” he expressed the amazement of all who read or

see the play performed — even of Brutus himself. The reason for this

unwonted anger was in itself a new experience for Brutus because it

was stirred up not by Cassius’ fecklessness, not by the pressing need

_________________

34 G. Wilson Knight, Macbeth and the Metaphysics of Evil, Methuen& Co. Ltd.,(London, 1949) p. 155

35 A. C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy, op. cit. p. 119.

36 Elias Schwartz, “Quarrel Scene in Julius Caesar”, English 19(1957—1958) p. 168

19.

of money, not even by death. But deep down, unconsciously gnawing at

his very soul, Brutus was beginning to sense that all was futile. His

noble-minded fellow-patriots were turning out to be crass, mercenary

opportunists. His exalted ideals of preserving Rome’s liberty were

devolving into a campaign of pillage and plunder among his armies. In

Rome itself there was now such a cynical, pragmatic tyranny imposed by

the Triumvirate of Octavius, Antony and Lepidus as the worst of Caesar

never could have contrived. Brutus has killed his best friend and —

horror of horrors — Rome’s best friend; he has disordered his beloved

Rome, destroyed his family and his friends in the holocaust of

proscription then enveloping Rome — all for NOTHING! Brutus is

tortured with the ghost, symbolically and literally, of an irrevoc-

able, irremediable wrong done on all he loved and treasured in life.

Subconsciously, the words of the quarrel rub on the raw nerve endings

of this disillusionment:

Remember March, the ides of March, remember.Did not great Julius bleed for justice sake?What villain touched his body, that did stab,And not for justice? (Act. IV, Sc. 3, L. 18—21).

There is the acknowledgement of the greatness of Caesar. Amidst

talk of bribery and corruption, there is the recollection of the

nobility of the original cause, justice. There is the self—

recrimination, the confession of guilt in the word villain.

Cassius tells Brutus, “a friend should bear his friend’s

infirmities” — and Brutus must recall with searing agony how Cassius

seduced him precisely by harping on the infirmities of his friend — he

did not bear Caesar’s infirmities! The parallel is explicitly stated

at last: “Strike as thou dids’t at Caesar!” and Brutus replies,

“Sheathe your dagger”, and the quarrel ends. Brutus cannot bear it, he

is drained and empty as the assassination is relived in his mind:-

20.

the motive — “If that thou be’est a Roman” (L. 102)

the manner — “.... and here my naked breast....” (L. 100)

the contrast— “...........for, I know,

When thou didst hate him worst, thoulovedst him betterThan ever thou lovedst Cassius” (L.l08—109)

Thus, to Brutus, as to Macbeth, came the damming realization of

failure, of betrayal of his highest ideals of patriotism, of honor and

of friendship. Now there remained for Brutus nothing but foreboding

expectation of damnation. For the audience, it is heart—rending to see

a strong man suddenly lose the inner fire that made him strong. But

there is a compensation: the inner, inarticulate suffering has

softened his hard, egotistical core, made him realize his own scanted

humanity. To Lucius, when the commanders depart, he is soft, tender,

solicitous as he never has been before to anyone — he feels “the

claims of the heart whose neglect has cost him so dearly.” All is

lost. Brutus’ longing for peace, for death, is expressed in the Ghost

who promises him just that, ‘At Philippi.’ Never, after this scene, is

Brutus so self-righteous, so haughty, so intolerant, so inviolate.

Professor Hudson, in his study of Shakespeare’s Art, Life and Char-

acter, has an excellent comment on this scene:

And what a rare significance attaches to the brief scene ofBrutus and his drowsy boy Lucius in camp a little beforethe catastrophe There, in the deep of the night, long afterall the rest have lost themselves in sleep, and when theanxieties of the issue are crowding upon him — there wehave the earnest, thoughtful Brutus hungering intensely forthe repasts of treasured thought:

“Look, Lucius, here’s the book I sought for so,I put it in the pocket of my gown.”

What the man is, and where he ought to be, is allsignified in these two lines. And do we not taste a dash ofbenignant irony in the implied repugnancebetween the spirit of the man and the stuff of his

21.

present undertaking? The idea of a book—worm riding the

whirl—wind of war!37

On the night before the crucial battle, Brutus was

working on an abridgement of the Roman poet, Pausanias!37

Part of the fixation on abstract, philosophical honor which

is the guiding star of Brutus’ life is the ritualistic

order with which he approaches every project. In fact

Professor Brents Stirling38

has made a very interesting

enumeration of the theme of incantation and ritual which

runs through the whole play, a few of which are

1. the ceremonial procession for the Feast o.f the Lupercal —

“Set on, and leave no ceremony out.” (Act. I, Sc.2, L.ll)

2. the ritual procession of Caesar to the Senate —“Go, bid the

priests do present sacrifice” (Act.II, Sc.2, L.11)

3. the ritual of touching the barren Calpurnia in the chariotraces, so that she may bear Caesar an heir

“The barren, touched in this holy chase, shake off theirsterile curse.” (Act. I, Sc. 2, L.8)

Brutus avidly seized upon this theme of ritual and ceremony as

the context for his conspiracy. No doubt this was necessary for him to

elevate and sublimate his crime for this was the only basis on which

he would join the conspiracy. Thus, in restraining the conspirators

from killing Antony with Caesar he insists:

Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius Let’s carvehim as a dish fit for the gods, Not hew him as a carcassfit for hounds. (Act.II, Sc.l, L.165,173—4)

____________________

37 Wood and Wood, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, op. cit. p. 113.

38 Brents Stirling, “Or Else This Were a Savage Spectacle”,PMLA 66: 765—774 (1951)

22.

And this is how Brutus conducts the assassination itself, as a

ritual offering of Caesar to the gods for Rome’s protection, with all

the conspirators kneeling around Caesar in prayer, and afterwards

washing their hands in his blood.

But it is this very addiction to ceremonial that keeps Brutus

“ever out of touch with practical affairs, which is natural in a man

so devoted to an ethical abstraction, ‘honour’.”39

And this exaggerated

sense of honour leads to the two major errors which wreck the

conspiracy, the sparing of Antony and granting Antony leave to speak

in the ceremonies of Caesar’s funeral.

As to Brutus’ own part in the funeral ceremonies, there seems to

be a conflict of opinion among the critics. Professor Knight40

feels

that Brutus bases his oration on cold reason, and stark logic, just as

he bases his quarrel with the emotional Cassius. Brutus commands the

mob’s respect for his ‘honour’, which it does not understand, and

appeals to its reason, of which it has none. This makes his arguments

remote and aloof from the emotions of the mob, which Antony by

contrast knows well how to inflame. Professor Knight goes further and

says that Brutus’ sense of honour sets him apart from everybody. This

precisely is what made his participation in the plot essential because

Cassius shrewdly understood that only Brutus’ leadership could

possibly hope to justify the assassination to the mob and rally

support to his plot. Cassius’ estimate of Brutus’ appeal was correct

because at the time of the assassination, the membership of the

‘faction’ numbered 60, perhaps 80, and included such leaders as

Decimus Brutus, Publius Casca, Tillius, Cimber and Caius Trebonius —

____________________

39 G. Wilson Knight, “The Eroticism of Julius Caesar”, TheImperial Theme, op. cit. p. 72

40 G. Wilson Knight, “The Eroticism of Julius Caesar”, TheImperial Theme, Methuen & Co. Ltd. (London 1951) p. 74

23.

all of whom had received honours and promotion from Caesar himself.41

But this sense of honour also isolates Brutus from “contact with the

rich, warm reality of life,” and stops up his normal human emotions.

For example, Knight says, Brutus desecrates love when he unbends to

enjoy the solace of love with Lucius and his music, his ‘Evil Spirit’

(Caesar’s Ghost) prevents him, just as Banquo’s Ghost interrupts

Macbeth when Macbeth desecrates hospitality. Thus, Knight concludes:42

His ethic is no ethic; rather, a projection of himself. Itis a selfishness. Like Macbeth, he projects his mental pain(guilty conscience) on his country.

And at the end, Brutus finds honour not enough: At last he

recognizes the worth of friendship, of loyalty, of friends:

My heart doth joy that yet in all my life I found no manbut he was true to me. (Act. V, Sc.5, L.33—34)

When all else is lost, Brutus has finally learned the meaning of

warm, intimate, human love and from this he “would take what crumbs he

can to solace him in the darkness.”

This exposition by Knight presents the traditional critique of

Brutus’ sense of honour, as supported by his funeral oration.

Professor Ernest Schanzer43

claims however that far from showing

himself a bumbling,inept, unimaginative, idealistic dreamer, Brutus in

fact demonstrates political shrewdness and practical wisdom of the

highest order. Schanzer documents this claim by pointing to the strict

conditions Brutus lays down for the funeral orations:

________________

41 Wood and Wood, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, op. cit. p.59.

42 ibid, p. 81

43 Ernest Schanzer, “The Tragedy of Shakespeare’s Brutus”,Journal of English Literary History 22: p. 1—15 (1955)

24.

Mark Antony, ................You shall not in your funeral speech blame us,But speak......................of Caesar.And say you do’t by our permission;................and you shall speakIn the same pulpit whereto I am going,After my speech is ended. (Act. III, Sc.l, L. 245—251)

To a person of Brutus’ sincerity and conviction in the justice of

his cause nothing but good could come from this arrangement.

Our reasons are so full of good regard,That were you, Antony, the son of CaesarYou should be satisfied. (Act. III, Sc. 1, L.224—227)

Professor Schanzer insists that here Brutus shows himself shrewd

and realistic. The very idea of having Antony, the well-beloved of

Caesar, speak at the funeral, so obviously under the aegis of Brutus

himself, was a master—stroke, well calculated to appease the most

skeptical among the citizenry.

Brutus’ oration itself, Schanzer sees as ‘shrewd, highly ef—

fective oratory” which would have been complete adequate against

anybody else but Antony. Brutus speaks calmly, matter-of-factly, in

complete charge of the situation with everything in a new order, as

Shakespeare shows by putting Brutus’ oration in prose. Brutus flatters

his hearers:

Censure me in your wisdom; and awake yoursenses that you may the better judge. (Act. III, Sc.2, L.16-18)

He brings a vague, general charge of ambition against Caesar, on

which he does not dwell lest the atmosphere of a ‘fait-accompli’ be

dispelled; and in his series of rhetorical questions he subtly imparts

the suggestion of ‘better days ahead’. In all, Brutus does give an

impression of nobility, fairness and patriotism — with just enough

emotional tinge in the pledge of his own life ‘for the good of Rome.’

Brutus here is no book—worm, no ivory—tower dreamer, but a shrewd,

practical, realistic politician. His fault here was not excessive

idealism but merely the ordinary human error of underestimating an

25.

adversary. Likewise, his reasons for abandoning the 'high grounds’ of

Sardis and ‘marching on Philippi’ for the final battle made sound

military sense and might have succeeded but for his human impatience

to put the issue to the test, which led him to “give the word (for

battle) too early.”(Act.V, Sc.3, L.6). As Professor Stirling44

points

out, it is incidents like these, like Brutus’ scene with Portia alive

and like the scene in which he desperately hopes Messala ‘has later

news contradicting the earlier report of her death (Act. IV, Sc.3,

L.181-192) — these incidents afford the humanistic glimpses of Brutus

the man, which soften the marble image of the cold, unmoveable Stoic.

These opposing views of Brutus held by Knight and Schanzer, are.

sufficiently crystallized to merit the label of Schools of Thought.45

Knight seems to lean to the Medieval View that Caesar was good and

noble; the conspirators committed a dastardly crime and got exactly

what they deserved . Or, as Professor Dewer concludes, "Caesar’s death

is murder most foul — not only futile, but criminal”.46

The spokesmen

for this school are Sir Mark Hunter47

and W. W. Fowler. Schanzer, on

the other hand, seems to lean to the Renaissance View, whose cry seems

to be, “Down with Caesar, the Tyrant; Up, the Noble Conspirators!”

Between these two extremes, Shakespeare seems to have adopted the

XVI Century English view that Caesar was less than a tyrant, Brutus

___________________

44 Brents Stirling, “Brutus and Death of Portia”, ShakespeareQuarterly X :211(1959)

45 Ernest Schanzer, “The Problem of Julius Caesar”, ShakespeareQuarterly 6 : P. 297 (1955)

46 D. S. Dewer, “Brutus’ Crime”, Review of English Studies N.S.351 (1952)

47 Mark Hunter, "Politics and Character of Shakespeare’s JuliusCaesar”, trans. Royal Society Lit. Vol X., (1931)

26.

less than an angel. This view conforms better with the Roman

historians Plutarch, Appian and Suetonius who recognize that Caesar

had weaknesses but acknowledge also great strengths and good in him,

as also in Brutus and Cassius. Thus Shakespeare presents Caesar as

strong in spirit and daring, actively participating in his own

deification48, even to erecting a statue to himself, wearing a crown,

in the Capitol; and with all this, Shakesspeare recognized the

physical infirmities in Caesar which in fact accentuate the valor of

his spirit, not negate it as Cassius thinks.

This double vision, Brutus could not accept because it was the

source of his own internal division, the disorder in his own mind.

Brutus, the man, loved Caesar, the man; but his honour and patriotism

made him hate Caesar, the Imperial Ruler who aspired to be King and

thus may destroy Rome. If Brutus had been single—minded, as Antony was

in his love for Caesar, or as Cassius was in his contempt for Caesar,

there would have been either no plot at all or a plot wholly

successful. But the divisions in Brutus’ nature vis—a—vis ‘Caesar’s

Spirit’ and Caesar himself prevented him from committing himself

whole—heartedly and unequivocally to anything. For this reason, he

failed and doomed his fellow conspirators to fail with him as the

ruins of his ideals shattered on his proud head.

What is Shakespeare trying to say in Brutus? Can the message be

that the heart is a truer guide than the mind? Is the meaning of

Brutus that it is better to love, as Antony loved Caesar, than to

judge, as Brutus judged Caesar? That human emotions of the heart are

truer motives than idealized abstractions of philosophy? It does

appear so. And thus it is fitting that the final eulogies are not to

______________

48 John Palmer, Shakespeare’s Political Characters, MacmillanCo.. (London) p. 37.

27.

Caesar, or to Rome or to any philosophic concepts vindicated. Rather,

the final eulogy by Antony is to Brutus the Man, pure and simple; not

to Brutus the Stoic, the philosopher, the would—be liberator, the

judge of righteousness or its avenger, as he thought.

And Brutus, from the Eternal shades, with the ruins of his broken

ideals around him and stripped of all the pretensions which he assumed

in life to make him more than a man, will greet his nemesis, his first

divided Ideal, “Et Tu, Caesare!".

28.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bradley, Andrew Cecil. Shakespearean Tragedy. London, MacMillan Company, 1905. Bush, Geoffrey Douglas. Shakespeare and The Natural Condition. Cambridge,

Massachusetts, 1956. Harvard University Press. Campbell, Lily B. Shakespeare�s Histories. Huntington Library, San Marino,

California, 1947. Draper, John William. Humors & Shakespeare�s Characters. Durham, North Carolina,

Duke University Press, 1945. Fluchere, Henri. Shakespeare and Elizabetheans. Hill and Wang, New York. Granville�Barker, Harley. Prefaces to Shakespeare. Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton

University Press: 1946-7. Knight, George Wilson. The Imperial Theme. Methuen & Company Limited,

London,1951 Knight, George Wilson. The Wheel of Fire. Methuen & Company Limited, London,1949 Palmer, John. Political Characters in Shakespeare. MacMillan Company, London. Paul, Henry Neil. The Royal Play of Macbeth, New York, 1950. MacMillan Company. Shakespeare William. Julius Caesar Edited by J. Dover Wilson Cambridge University

Press, 1949. Stoll, Elmer Edgar. Shakespeare Studies . G.E. Strechert & Company,New York 1942

The Criminals Wilson, Harold S. On the Design of Shakespearian Tragedy University of Toronto Press,

1957/.

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PERIODICALS Barnet, Sylvan. �Co1eridge on Shakespeare�s Villains�. Shakespeare QuarterlyVII: 9-20.

Brewer, D. �Brutus� Crime�. Review of English Studies 3:51-54 January 1952.

Ellehange, M. �Sources in Julius Caesar� English Studies 65:197�210.

Firkins, 0. �Character of Macbeth� Sewanee Review 18:414-430. Foakes, R. �An Approach to Julius Caesar� Shakespeare Quarterly V: 259-270. Frye, Roland Mushat. �Rhetoric & Poetry in Julius Caesar� Quarterly Journal of Speech XXXVII: 41-8. Gray, H. �Chronology of Shakespeare�s Plays�. Modern Language Notes 46:147-150. Hendrickson, G. �Ciceros Correspondence with Brutus and Calvus on Oratorical Style� . American Journal of Philogy 47:254-258. James, J. �Religion in Shakespeare� London Quarterly Review 155: 239�249. Kirschbaum, L. �Shakespeare�s Good and Bad�. Review of English Studies 21:136-142 April 1945. Knight, George Wilson. �Brutus: An Essay in Poetic Interpretation� Church Quarterly Review 110: 40-71. Knights, L.C. �Shakespeare & Political Wisdom� Sewanee Review 61:43�55 January 1953 Maxwell, J. �Montaigne & Macbeth� Modern Language Review 45:77 January 1948. Moritzen, J. �Criminal Types in Shakespeare� Brutus & Cassius Journal of Criminal Law 29: 505-516. Macbeth Journal of Criminal Law 29: 645�667. Ribner, Irvin. �Political Issues in Julius Caesar�. Journal English & German Philol. LVI: 10-22. Schanzer, E. �Four Notes on Macbeth� Modern Language Review 52:223-227 April Schanzer, Ernest. �The Problem of Julius Caesar� Shakespeare Quarterly VI:297-308. Schanzer, E. �Tragedy of Shakespeare�s Brutus� English Literary History 22:1-15 March 1955. Schwartz, Elias �Quarrel Scene in Julius Caesar� College English XIX:168�170. Stewart, J. �Julius Caesar and Macbeth� Shakespearian Technique Modern Language Review. 40: 166-173 July 1945. Stirling, B. �Brutus and The Death of Portia� Shakespeare Quarterly 10:211-217 September 1959. Stirling, Brents. �Or Else This Were a Savage Spectacle� PMLA LXVI: 765-774. Stirling, B. �Motives of Brutus� PMLA 66:765�774 September 1951.

30.

PERIODICALS � CONT�D Stoll, E. �Source & Motive in Macbeth & Othello� Review of English Studies 19: 25-32 January 1943.

Storr, E. �Shakespeare�s Brutus� London Quarterly Review 160: 322�330. Waith, E. �Manhood & Valor in Two Shakespeare Tragedies� English Literary History 17: 262-273 December 1950. Walker, R. �Look Upon Caesar� 20th Century 154:469-474 December 1953. Way, A. �Quarrel Scene in Julius Caesar� London Quarterly Review 151: 50-58.