Synopsis
Julius Caesar is a tale of honor and betrayal. Pompey, a beloved Roman leader, is defeated in civil war with Caesar. A small brotherhood, let by Marcus Brutus, is still devoted to him after his death, and wants nothing less than the assassination of their new leader. I had expected Caesar's death ("Et tu, Bruté? Then fall Caesar.") to be near the end of the book. However, it turned out to be within the third of five acts. The rest of the book is devoted to the attempts by Brutus's followers and Marc Antony (a dear friend of Caesar, and Brutus's enemy) to get the populace to believe in and follow that person's views, and turn them against the other people's ideals. Marc Antony, an orator with the ability to, in essence, brainwash an entire city with a short speech ("Friends, Romans, Countrymen, / Lend me your ears!"), convinces Rome to turn on Brutus's brotherhood. How their conflict is settled is, by far, the most captivating and entrancing parts of the play.
With the plot discussed, I will move on to what makes this a challenging read: dialogue. Being a work from the Elizabethan Era, I (naively) expected words such as "forsooth" and manye more wordse endinge ine "e". As it turned out, this was not the case. There were archaic words that would elicit cocked heads of confusion from the average person. My saviour from the confusion turned out to be the footnotes in one of the versions I read. The phrase "They fall their crests, and like deceitful jades / Sink in the trial" becomes "They let their necks droop and, like weary nags, fail the test" (Brutus, A4 S2, L26/27). One is forced to scrutinise every single word, in order to receive a complete understanding of the goings-on.
The unabridged version of Julius Caesar is definitely not a piece one reads in one's free time; rather, it should be considered a serious task. Once you put the book down, you transform from reader to philosopher.
Les informations fournies dans la section « Synopsis » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.
