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IV

"Censuring Rome"

Julius Caesar seems to know no other medium than the public stage, as critics have long demonstrated by pointing out its preference for the rhetorical mode over the lyrical, for public declamation and customary proverbs over private reflection and soliloquy.⁴⁶ As Brutus responds when asked if one can ever properly know one's self: "No, Cassius, for the eye sees not itself / But by reflection, by some other thing" (1.2.52-53). Frequently, this "other thing" proves to be the speculum of theater itself. In a marketplace reeking of the commoners' breath, Caesar is clapped and hissed for his political dumbshow "according as he pleas'd and displeas'd" his plebein audience, "as they use to do the players in the theatre" (1.3.259-61). Brutus urges his fellow conspirators to dissemble their purpose by bearing the staid countenance of "our Roman actors" (2.1.226). And Antony, the lover of plays who most successfully exploits...

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1. Introduction
2. Ii
3. Iii
4. Iv
5. V
6. Copyright