The analogy is, of course, an imperfect one, for the problem of rendering the solid on the flat is not on all fours with the problem of converting Plutarch’s Lives to modern plays. But it applies to this extent, that in both cases the task is to interpret a subject, that has received one kind of treatment, by a treatment that is quite dissimilar. And the difference between William Alexander and William Shakespeare is very much the difference between the conscientious draughtsman and the inspired artist.
CHAPTER III
THE TITULAR HERO OF THE PLAY
The modification of Brutus’ character typifies and involves the modification of the whole story, because the tragic interest is focussed in his career. This must be remembered, if we would avoid misconception. It has sometimes been said that the play suffers from lack of unity, that the titular hero is disposed of when it is half through, and that thereafter attention is diverted to the murderer. But this criticism is beside the point. Really, from beginning to end, Brutus is the prominent figure, and if the prominent figure should supply the name, then, as Voltaire pointed out, the drama ought properly to be called Marcus Brutus. If we look at it in this way, there is no lack of unity, though possibly there is a misnomer. Throughout the piece it is the personality of Brutus that attracts our chief sympathy and concern. If he is dismissed to a subordinate place, the result is as absurd as it would be were Hamlet thus treated in the companion tragedy; while, his position, once recognised, everything becomes coherent and clear.
But when this is the case, why should Shakespeare not say so? Why, above all, should he use a false designation to mix the trail?
It has been answered that he was wholly indifferent to labels and nomenclature, that he gives his plays somewhat irrelevant titles, such as Twelfth Night, or lets people christen them at their fancy, What You Will, or As You Like It. Just in the same way, as a shrewd theatrical manager with his eye on the audience, he may have turned to account the prevalent curiosity about Caesar, without inquiring too curiously whether placard and performance tallied in every respect.
And doubtless such considerations were not unknown to him. Shakespeare, as is shown by the topical allusions in which his works abound, by no means disdained the maxim that the playwright must appeal to the current interests of his public, even to those that are adventitious and superficial. At the same time, it is only his comedies, in which his whole method is less severe, that have insignificant or arbitrary titles. There is no instance of a tragedy being misnamed. On the contrary, the chief person or persons are always indicated, and in this way Shakespeare has protested in advance against the mistake of viewing King Lear as a whole with reference to Cordelia, or Macbeth as a whole with reference to Lady Macbeth.
But in the second place, Julius Caesar, both in its chronological position and in its essential character, comes as near to the Histories as to the Tragedies; and the Histories are all named after the sovereign in whose reign most of the events occurred. He may not have the chief role, which, for example, belongs in King John to the Bastard, and in Henry IV. to Prince Hal. He may even drop out in the course of the story, which, for example, in the latter play is continued for an entire act after the King’s death: but he serves, as it were, for a landmark, to date and localise the action. It is not improbable that this was the light in which Shakespeare regarded Caesar. In those days people did not make fine distinctions. He was generally viewed as first in the regular succession of Emperors, and in so far could be considered to have held the same sort of position in Rome, as any of those who had sat on the throne of England.
But this is not all. Though it is manifest that Brutus is the principal character, the protagonist, the chief representative of the action, the central figure among the living agents, the interest of his career lies in its mistaken and futile opposition to Julius, to the idea of Caesarism, to what again and again, in the course of the play, is called “the spirit of Caesar.” The expression is often repeated. Brutus declares the purpose of the conspirators:
We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar;
And in the spirit of men there is no blood: