Julius Caesar resources
Shakespeare
Folger’s curriculum http://www.simonsays.com/assets/series/859/CG9_859.pdf
9 page study guide for students, with questions for each scene: http://www.thewritingtutor.biz/teachers_resources/JCstudyguide.pdf
Signet complete teacher’s guide: http://us.penguingroup.com/static/pdf/teachersguides/caesar.pdf
Globe Theater PDF: http://www.argo217.k12.il.us/departs/english/blettiere/globe.pdf
Julius Caesar overview http://library.thinkquest.org/19539/juliusc.htm
Streaming Video introducing Globe Theater http://video.csupomona.edu/shakespeare/globe-245.asx
Streaming Video staging Shakespeare http://video.csupomona.edu/shakespeare/staging-245.asx
Soldier’s Dilemma http://www.thewritingtutor.biz/teachers_resources/soldiersdilemma.php#Scenario
Historical Introduction (essay)
Study guide by act, with quote quiz
Figures of Speech
Julius Caesar ranks among Shakespeare’s finest plays, in part because of its highly effective imagery. Among the many and varied figures of speech in the play are the following:
Anaphora With Metaphor, Alliteration, and Hyperbole
You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!
Marullus to commoners, Act I, Scene I
.
Anaphora: repetition of you
Metaphor: comparison of spectators to inanimate objects
Alliteration: stones, senseless
Hyperbole: exaggeration saying that the spectators have less sense than senseless things
Simile With Hyperbole and Alliteration
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
֖Cassius to Brutus, Act I, Scene II
.
Simile: Likening Caesar to a colossus (giant)
Hyperbole: exaggeration of Caesar’s size
Alliteration: we, walk; his, huge
Metaphors
I know he would not be a wolf,
But that he sees the Romans are but sheep:
He were no lion, were not Romans hinds
Casca to Cassius and Brutus, Act I, Scene III
.
Comparison of Caesar to a wolf and a lion
Comparison of the Romans to sheep, hinds.
Metaphor
Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar,
I have not slept.
֖Brutus, alone, Act II, Scene I
.
Brutus compares himself to a knife that Cassius has sharpened (did whet)
Apostrophe, Personification, Alliteration, Hyperbole
.............................................. O conspiracy,
Shamest thou to show thy dangerous brow by night,
When evils are most free? O, then by day
Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough
To mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none, conspiracy;
Hide it in smiles and affability:
For if thou path, thy native semblance on,
Not Erebus itself were dim enough
To hide thee from prevention.
Brutus, alone, Act II, Scene I
.
Apostrophe and Personification: Addressing conspiracy as if it were a person
Alliteration: thou, thy; where, wilt; mask, monstrous
Allusion: Erebus, a reference to the Greek god who personified darkness; also, the dark passage through which the souls of the dead pass from earth to Hades
Hyperbole: exaggeration saying that not even the darkest of places, Erebus, would not be dim enough to hide the conspiracy unless appropriate measures are taken to conceal it
Irony in the Funeral Oration
Mark Antony’s funeral oration in Act III, Scene II֖beginning with “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your earsis ironic throughout. Though Antony says that he comes to bury Caesar, not to praise him, he praises Caesar for swelling the treasuries of Rome, sympathizing with the poor, and three times refusing the crown Antony offered him. At the same time, Antony praises Brutus֖one of Caesar’s assassinsas an honourable man even though the tenor of his speech implies otherwise. Near the end of the speech, Antony says, “O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, / And men have lost their reason.” The word brutish occurs after Antony has mentioned Brutus by name nine times. It seems brutish is a not-so-oblique reference to Brutus.
Questions for Discussion: (1) A soothsayer tells Caesar to beware of the ides of March [March 15]. What is a soothsayer? Does the soothsayer really know the future? Or is he merely a good political analyst (or psychologist) who can see trouble coming? (2) Is Antony motivated more by personal ambition or love for Caesar? (3) Who is the villain in the play? Is there a hero? (4) If you had lived in 44 B.C., Caesar’s last year in power, would you have sided with Caesar or Brutus? (5) If Antony were to give his funeral oration in this technological age, where would he deliver it? (6) Do you believe assassination of a head of state can ever be justified? (7) What was the role and status of women in Caesar’s time? (8) What was everyday life like for an ordinary citizen of Rome? (8) Give examples of 20th Century leaders killed by assassins. Explain why these leaders were targets of assassins. (9) Oratoryespecially Antony’s funeral oration֖plays an important role in this play. How important for a politician in ancient Rome was the ability to speak skillfully in public? Did young Roman nobles receive special training in oratory?
Argumentative-Essay Topic: Was Brutus a villain or a hero? Even though he led the conspiracy against Julius Caesar, Marcus Junius Brutus (84-42 B.C.) enjoyed a reputation in his day among Roman republicans as a noble and fair-minded statesman. However, his opponentsnotably supporters of Caesar֖regarded him as a traitor. First, Brutus sided with Pompey the Great against Caesar when the Roman Civil War started in 49 B.C. After Caesar defeated Pompey at Pharsalus, Greece, in 48 B.C., he pardoned Brutus and appointed him governor of Cisalpine Gaul in 46 B.C. and a praetor of Rome in 44 B.C. But Brutus turned against Caesar a second time, helping to organize and lead the conspiracy that led to Caesars assassination in 44 B.C. Brutus believed the action was necessary to prevent Caesar from becoming dictator-for-life, meaning that all power would reside in Caesar and not in the delegates representing the people. Was Brutus a traitorous villain or selfless hero? In an argumentative essay, take a stand on this question. Use the facts of historyҖas well as interpretations of these facts, including Shakespeares depiction of BrutusҖto support the thesis.
More Essay Topics: (1) Compare and contrast the common people of ancient Rome with the common people of modern America, Britain, or another country. (2) Compare and contrast Cassius and Brutus. (3) Omens and the whims of fate play a role in Julius Caesar. Write an expository (informative) essay that explains the attitude of the typical ancient Roman toward charms, omens, gods, the whims of fate, and the supernatural in general. (4) Write an argumentative essay based on one of the questions for discussion (above).
Famous quotes:
1.
Beware the ides of March.
(1.2.23), Soothsayer
2.
Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar!
(3.1.77), Csar
3.
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Csar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar.
(3.2.79-83), Antony
4.
It was Greek to me.
(1.2.289), Casca
5.
Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
(2.2.34), C榦sar
6.
This was the noblest Roman of them all.
(5.5.75), Antony
7.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
(1.2.146-8), Cassius
8.
This was the most unkindest cut of all.
(3.2.193), Antony
9.
Lets carve him as a dish fit for the gods.
(2.1.173), Brutus
10.
Not that I loved CҦsar less, but that I loved Rome more.
(3.2.23), Brutus