Julius Caesar (Vol. 63) - Robert F. Willson, Jr. (essay date 1990)
Robert F. Willson, Jr. (essay date 1990)
SOURCE: “Julius Caesar: The Forum Scene as Historic Play-within,” in Shakespeare Yearbook, Vol. 1, Spring, 1990, pp. 14-27.
[In the following essay, Willson analyzes Act 3, scene 1 of Julius Caesar—in which Brutus and Antony give their funeral orations to Caesar—and examines Shakespeare's use of metadramatic allusions to the theater and the play's theme of ‘destructive passion.’]
That Brutus, Cassius, and the other conspirators see themselves as actors in a precedent-setting, historical drama is revealed in Cassius' exclamation following the assassination:
How many ages hence Shall this our lofty scene be acted over In states unborn and accents yet unknown.
(3.1.111-3)1
To amplify Cassius' prophetic claim, Brutus echoes the sentiment in a characteristically philosophical observation:
How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport,...
[The entire page is 5421 words long]
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