NOTE: In class, I said to read Acts 2-3, which you are more than welcome to do, but since we're still just starting the play, I think we'll need the entire class to discuss Act 2. We'll deal with Acts 3-4 next week (since we won't have class on Thursday, and that will give you extra time to read two acts as well).
ALSO: If you get a chance, take a look at this review of the RSC production from 2012 that we started to watch in class. It talks about why they chose this setting and lens to examine Julius Caesar, and whether or not the critic feels they succeeded: https://gerryco23.wordpress.com/2012/07/01/the-rscs-african-julius-caesar-not-stones-but-men/
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 (according to Poole)?
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