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SEPTEMBER,
SHAKESPEARE'S
I896.
JULIUS
OzASAR.
1.-THE1 CESARDIFFICULTY.
now and again a feeling comes over me that we make
of Shakespeare;
that in national generosity we are
perhaps overdoing our attempt to atone for past national neglect;
or maybe
that, when we see the Germans
piling up his praises to
EVERY
too much
the thought
rant as well
as thou."
like
in our minds,
And
yet, whenever
occasion
I'll
leads me back
his
master;
enchanter
his wand,
I will be
has me
nndwith Ariel
c-orrespondent
to command,
some
handfuls
from my
own
cleaning,
I here venture
I anmgoing
to maintain
to
present.
Yet
VOL. XXIV.
No.
279
with
33
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450
somethat
is crude, or of a Raphael
a plot
It is Hazlitt
in criticism.
thinks
he
I take up is this,-that
I do not
know
as i.n this.
I cannot
find a weak
any
play
over his
drama.
dramatic
action
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Julius
Shakespeare's
451
Cwsar.
he wanted
to do;
impress
us more
may
begin
our study
at the original
as many
critics
say
it should
been;
and
yet why the play itself is called Julius Casar after all, and not
Brutus.
For some forty years after the date 70 B. C., Roman history
is told in the four names,
Pompey,
Coesar, Antony,
and Octavius.
During that time the world-wide Republic died, and the world
wide Empire was born. Pompey was the darling of the people;
he had
gained
a triumph
" when
only
for it.
The
light
of Caosar waxed
and
the
light
of
Pompey waned; and the strife between them ended with that
scene so tempting to a dramatist, when Fompey's head was brought
in and Cuesarwept over it a victor's tears. But (Cesar'sturn came
at length; the aristocracy raised their hands in the name of the
Republic, and for that now empty name COesardied. Mark
Antony picked up the torch of empire from his fallen hands, and
might perhaps have been Rome's first emperor,had he not been
lured into effeminate inactivity by the wiles of the Egyptian
sorceress Cleopatra; so that Mark Antony the "masker and
reveller
aside by
boy,"
and
it was
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452
The IrnchMonthly.
and Octavius
of
is this
prejudice that even still there arepeople who think that Shakespeaxe
blundered in not making Caesar's assassination the end of his play.
However, rememberour principle that it ismore than a thousand
to one on Shakespeare against his critics; and Shakespeare,while
he tookAntony and Octavius for his second play, certainly took
the rise and fall of themurderers of Casar for his first. Let us
seewhy.
What
is it that is wanted
for a dramatic
plot ?
Obviously
we
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Julius
Skakespeare's
453
(cemsar.
of the human race is a tragedy which rose to its climax on the hill
of Calvary and will sink to its close in the vale of Josaphat.
Now,
a Pompey-Casar
assassination
we have
play would
seen, the
and waning
now we have
Whereas
have
cannot
the whole
story
in the
As
ino tangible climax.
and the light of Pompey
of Ccesar waxed
light
and waxing
waned;
be expressed
gradually
in a scene.
rising up to the
of history
and
then
tags a moral
on to it.
If the tale
itself does not tell its ownmoral, it will not do for him. What
would
if the play
be the moral
ended with
Casar's
death ?
At
and our
intellectual
and moral
sense would
have
been
the very
essence
of the grandeur
of the
scope.
Upon
play.
of Universal
This world
Law:
of ours is the
attempt
it down.
The Greeks
in their picturesque
it the embodiment of
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454
the artistic
in life we
see these
bond between
two shadowy
And
as
as
they
in his
of life, loves to weave them together
comes
the Nemesis
stealing up with the cat-like
dramas.
tread of
a beast of prey, and you feel its approach in hints and suggestions,
in rumours and presentiments, until it is all gathered up together
for its final spring: sometimes it swoops down on its victim like
the eagle from the skies. Sometimes, linkedwith Fate, it mtakes
itself known by oracle and prophecy and warning; and then
borrowing themockery of Fate, itmakes these oracles andwarnings
the very means of their own accoumplishment. The dramatic
presentation thereforeof Nemesis is heightened by presentiment,
by rumour,by oracle, by warning, by irony, by the hybris or
infatuated confidence of the victim, and by the swiftness or the
terror of the blow. See the dreadNemesis that gathered slowly
round the crimesofMacbeth. Look at the play Richard III, where
the hero is the most colossa-lvillain that even Shakespeare ever
portrayed: it is a perfect sonata of Nemesis, several themes of it
running into one another and forming the undertone of the great
Retribution which gradually crushesRichard himself.
In Julius Cwesarwe have a grand symmetrv of Nemesis. The
play
is a great Nemesis
of Reaction,
and
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Shiakespeare'sJulius Ocesar.
455
arranged
Brutus
advantageous,
it was
also
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456
The
Irish Monthly.
as it were
should
dazzle
the eyes
of Art.
So Shakespeare
display
of dramatic
power.
He
invented
a new status in
the drama, and we shall see how he maintains it. Brutus is the
hero, but Cesar is the Centre. All the actionmoves with Brutus,
but it is action
is Cisar.
at which
about
"We
will
and
the Act
hesitating
arrived,
and
the mob
is rushing
to burn
the house of Brutus; at the end of the 4th we find Brutus march
ing to Philippi; and then of course the whole play closeswith the
praise uttered by Antony and Octavius over the body of Brutus.
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Shakespeare'sJulius Cesar.
457
to him
like
slave,
calls
my
lord,"
and
the mob
for him,
shouting
angry
on Casar's
consequence:
" Brought
Casca, and, when the latter relates the awful events of the night,
he brushes him aside with a sceptical "Men may construe things
after their fashion clean from the purpose of the things them
selves,"
to the Capitol
to-morrow
? " To Cicero
because
he
sees in it an
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The IrishMontthly.
468
the play
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459
which
is the mainspring
of the play.
But
(To be continued).
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