1. William Shakespeare
Julius Caesar
(1599)

2. The plot:
• First act.
• Second act.
• Third act.
• Fourth act.
• Fifth act.
Julius Caesar was
first performed at
The Globe Theatre in
1599.

3. Julius Caesar became the most
powerful man of Rome. February 44
B.C.
First act
Set in a
Roman street
Casca, Cassius and Cinna plot
against Caesar
draw Brutus in their
conspiracy

4. Second act:
Brutus’s republican ideologies Brutus decides to kill Caesar
emerge
Bust of Brutus

5. Third act
Caesar is assassinated
Antony
Brutus tries to justify Bust of Mark Antony
organizes a mutiny
Ceasar’s killing
against brutus
gives is funeral oration in the
market place.

6. Fourth act
Draws up a list Military dictatorship composed
of cospirators to by:
kill
Antony Octavius
Lepidus

7. Fifth act
Brutus and Cassius commit Cospirators are defeated at
suicide Philippi by the army of the
second triumvirate
Antony honours
Brutus’s corpse

8. Julius Caesar:
• Is the protagonist and the Even when
title character of the play; he is absent
• Embodies an anytesis
Causes all the
action
causes his downfall

9. Can be considered the
Brutus protagonist
Is most complex
characer in his psyche
man of Renaissance
A tragic flaw His sence of
“If then that friend demand why
principles and
Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my nobility
answer: - not that I loved Ceasar less,
but that I loved Rome more -”
Act III, Scene II, lines 20-22

10. - charming
Antony - pratical
- with a subtle
political mentality
turns the crowd
against the cospirators
the power of words
praises Brutus as
Attacks and defeats “an honourable
Brutus and Cassius at man”
Philippi
“ Friends, Romans,
countrymen, lend me your
ears.”
Act III, Scene II, line 70

11. The rhetoric of politics
The maker of history
Two microcosms
irony rhetoric form
make a macrocosm the play

12. What are virtues in the public man?
• Ambition
• Clever Brutus is unable to
judge people
Antony embodies these
virtues Is too honest and good
Are honesty and
goodness virtues in
public men?

13. Julius Caesar The mirror of the Elizabethan
order
based on the chain Universe
of being
ruled by God
The king’s right
to rule came from
himself
the opposition to the
king is an opposition to
God
causes a disorder in the
system

14. Reflection:
Julius Caesar Is it right
Political
Historical play assassination
Very popular during
the Age of Discovery: To kill a powerful
ruler?
like Caesar or
- teaching function
Elizabeth I
- mirror of Elizabethan reality

15. Message of “Julius Only the benevolent
Caesar”: ruler
warranty of
order and
Shakespeare unity
No against strong Elizabeth I
rulers