Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist / A Popular Illustration of the Principles of Scientific Criticism

by Richard G. Moulton

Why and wherein Cæsar was dangerous.

It is as he feels the sense of innate oratorical power and of the opportunity his enemies have given to that power, that he exaggerates his temporary amity with the men he is about to crush: it is the executioner arranging his victim comfortably on the rack before he proceeds to apply the levers. Already the passion of the drama has fallen under the guidance of Antony. The view of Cæsar as an innocent victim is now allowed full play upon our sympathies when Antony, from 254.left alone with the corpse, can drop the artificial mask and give vent to his love and vengeance. 231-243.The success of the conspiracy had begun to decline as we marked Brutus's ill-timed generosity to Antony in granting him the funeral oration; iii. ii, from 13.it crumbles away through the cold unnatural euphuism of Brutus's speech in its defence; iii. ii, from 78.it is hurried to its ruin when Antony at last exercises his spell upon the Roman people and upon the reader. The speech of Antony, with its mastery of every phase of feeling, is a perfect sonata upon the instrument of the human emotions. iii. ii. 78.Its opening theme is sympathy with bereavement, against which are working as if in conflict anticipations of future themes, doubt and compunction. 95, 109, &c.A distinct change of movement comes with the first introduction of what is to be the final subject, 133.the mention of the will. But when this new movement has worked up from curiosity to impatience, 177.there is a diversion: the mention of the victory over the Nervii turns the emotions in the direction of historic pride, 178.which harmonises well with the opposite emotions roused as the orator fingers hole after hole in Cæsar's mantle made by the daggers of his false friends, 200.and so leads up to a sudden shock when he uncovers the body itself and displays the popular idol and its bloody defacement. 243.Then the finale begins: the forgotten theme of the will is again started, and from a burst of gratitude the passion quickens and intensifies to rage, to fury, to mutiny. The mob won to the Reaction.The mob is won to the Reaction; iii. iii.and the curtain that falls upon the third Act rises for a moment to display the populace tearing a man to pieces simply because he bears the same name as one of the conspirators.

Last stage. Development of an inevitable fate: passion-strain ceases.

The final stage of the action works out the development of an inevitable fate. The emotional strain now ceases, and, as in the first stage, the passion is of the calmer order, the calmness in this case of pity balanced by a sense of justice. From the opening of the fourth Act the decline in the justification of the conspirators is intimated by the logic of events. The first scene exhibits to us the triumvirate that now governs Rome, and shows that in this triumvirate Antony is supreme: Acts iv, v. iv. i.with the man who is the embodiment of the Reaction thus appearing at the head of the world, the fall of the conspirators is seen to be inevitable. iv. ii. 3.The decline of our sympathy with them continues in the following scenes. The Quarrel Scene shows how low the tone of Cassius has fallen since he has dealt with assassination as a political weapon; and even Brutus's moderation has hardened into unpleasing harshness. iv. iii. 148, &c.There is at this point plenty of relief to such unpleasing effects: iv. iii. from 239.there is the exhibition of the tender side of Brutus's character as shown in his relations with his page, iv. iii.and the display of friendship maintained between Brutus and Cassius amid falling fortunes. But such incidents as these have a different effect upon us from that which they would have had at an earlier period; the justification of the conspirators has so far declined that now attractive touches in them serve only to increase the pathos of a fate which, however, our sympathy no longer seeks to resist. iv. iii. 275.We get a supernatural foreshadowing of the end in the appearance to Brutus of Cæsar's Ghost, v. i. 80.and the omen Cassius sees of the eagles that had consorted his army to Philippi giving place to ravens, crows, and kites on the morning of battle: this lends the authority of the invisible world to our sense that the conspirators' cause is doomed. iv. iii. 196-230.And judicial blindness overtakes them as Brutus's authority in council overweighs in point after point the shrewder advice of Cassius. Through the scenes of the fifth Act we see the republican leaders fighting on without hope. Justification entirely vanishes as the conspirators recognise Cæsar's victory.The last remnant of justification for their cause ceases as the conspirators themselves seem to acknowledge their error and fate. Cassius as he feels his death-blow recognises the very weapon with which he had committed the crime:

v. iii. 45.

Cæsar, thou art revenged,

Even with the sword that kill'd thee.

And at last even the firm spirit of Brutus yields:

v. v. 94.

O Julius Cæsar, thou art mighty yet!