For Friday: Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 2

NOTE: Try not to worry too much about the history surrounding this play, since Shakespeare's Rome isn't really Rome, and he plays loose with some of the characters and events in the story. However, one thing to note is that the great Republic which Cassius, Brutus, and others fear will be destroyed by Caesar is something of a myth. Rome had always been a tenuous republic, its democratic ideals shaken by one general after another who seized power and assassinated his rivals. Pompey, who held power before Caesar, was the de facto king of Rome, given great powers by the Senate to fight encroaching pirates and other threats on Rome's borders. But as he became too powerful, Caesar defeated him and that's where our play begins. So it seems that, like today, people like to re-write history and create a myth of the "founding fathers" to justify their own political beliefs, however little those fathers would have understood or agreed with their brand of politics. 

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: In Tragedy: A Very Short Introduction, Poole reminds us that "But there is a more political aspect to the living dead…they embody values, ideas, and ethics that challenge the present and obstruct the future. The living dead are by nature conservative, if not reactionary…they insist that the world remain as it was for them" (Chapter 3). How does this play show us that Rome is haunted by the ghosts of the dead, which limits the actions and decisions of those still living? Who in the play might be considered the "living dead," numbly rehearsing the myths of their forefathers?

Q2: When Portia confronts her husband after the meeting of conspirators, she exclaims "No, my Brutus,/You have some sick offense within your mind,.Which by the right and virtue of my place/I ought to know of" (69). Do you think Brutus has been poisoned and manipualted by Cassius and company? Are they maniuplating his thoughts and ambitions? Or is the "fate" he was destined to walk all along? How much is he acting of his own free will?

Q3: In Act 1, Cassius bemoans modern-day Romans, since they "are governed with our mother' spirits/Our yoke and sufferance shows us womanish" (39). Even Portia echoes this lament, saying "how weak a thing/The heart of woman is!" (89). Yet how does Shakespeare characterize the few women in the play so far--Portia and Calpurnia (both wives of the rival men). Are they stereotypical portraits of feminine weakness? Do they emasculate their men just as Rome is (according to Cassius) emasculated by womanish values?

Q4: Though Brutus is more than willing to strike down Caesar, where does he draw the line? Why does he feel this line is ethical and important? Do the others agree with him? Do we agree that though willing to murder a rival, he does so for the right reasons? Or is this another instance of right vs. right?