julius ceasar and literature poem Flashcards

1
Q

1)What are Flavius and Murellus angry about at the beginning of the play?

A

Flavius and Murellus are initially angry because they see a number of commoners neglecting their work. They learn that the commoners are celebrating Caesar’s defeat of his archrival Pompey. Flavius and Murellus wonder why Pompey’s death should be considered a good thing, considering the people of Rome used to adore him. They are upset that the people turned their affections so quickly to Caesar, and that Caesar is becoming too self-important.

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2
Q

2) Why does Caesar decide to go to the Senate despite his wife’s warnings?

A

Caesar goes to the Senate because his ambition surpasses his desire to comfort his wife. After Calpurnia’s terrifying nightmare that portends Caesar’s assassination, Caesar initially agrees to stay home, despite his belief that nothing can change his fate. Midway through the scene, Decius—one of the conspirators—arrives to escort Caesar to the Senate. Not wanting to lie about the reason he refuses to attend, Caesar informs Decius of Calpurnia’s dream. Knowing that he needs to convince Caesar to come, Decius tells two lies. First, he reinterprets Calpurnia’s vision, insisting that the blood in her dream does not represent death, but instead represents the life and renewal Caesar will bring about for the Romans. Second, Decius says the Senate plans to crown Caesar the first emperor of Rome. Decius’s two lies stoke Caesar’s thirst for power and convince him to go to the Senate despite Calpurnia’s warnings, ultimately leading to Caesar’s doom.

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3
Q

3) Why does Brutus allow Antony to speak at Caesar’s funeral?

A

Brutus allows Antony to speak at Caesar’s funeral in the hopes that doing so will work to the conspirators’ benefit. Brutus plans to make a speech to the Roman people, outlining the reasons for Caesar’s death, and he tells Antony that he can speak afterward. Brutus instructs Antony to speak well of the conspirators:Cassius strongly objects to this plan, pointing out that there’s no way to know . Brutus insists, however, that having Antony speak at Caesar’s funeral will help justify the conspirators’ actions in the eyes of the Roman people. Later, this plan goes awry. Although Brutus’s words temporarily win the crowd’s sympathies, Antony goes on to deliver a moving speech full of masterful rhetoric that quickly turns the Roman people against the conspirators, leading to a riot and, later, war.

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4
Q

4) How does Cassius die?

A

Cassius kills himself with the same sword that killed Caesar because he believes his friend Titinius has been captured by enemy troops. Cassius sends Titinius to ride to a distant camp and determine whether the camp belongs to friends or enemies. Pindarus, Cassius’s servant, reports that a group of men on horseback surround Titinius and take him captive. Aggrieved and ashamed that he should.Cassius decides he too must die. However, Cassius doesn’t take his own life, technically avoiding suicide as he instructs Pindarus to “guide” the sword. The audience learns immediately after Cassius dies that Titinius was never captured and is alive among friends. Cassius thus kills himself for no good reason. Although he appeared politically savvy and cunning throughout the play, Cassius proves in the final act he is not as shrewd as the audience is led to believe.

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5
Q

5)Was assassinating Caesar the right decision?

A

The conspirators justify the assassination of Caesar by claiming that they want to preserve the Roman Republic, in which no one is king and the ruling aristocrats are equals. If Caesar claims absolute power and becomes crowned as king, the Roman Republic will end as they know it. While Julius Caesar does show that the conspirators have some valid reasons to fear Caesar—mainly because Caesar really does regard himself as superior—the play presents this decision as a mistake in several ways.
First, the assassination does not accomplish what the conspirators intended to do—the Republic is never restored, and Antony and Octavius rise up to take Caesar’s place as rulers, with Octavius eventually becoming the first Roman Emperor.
Second, the play presents the decision to assassinate Caesar as ultimately Brutus’s decision, and that decision is portrayed as a fateful mistake, a dark choice with sinister consequences. The audience sees Brutus tempted by Cassius’s lies and stratagems, misleading him into thinking the Roman people want him to kill Caesar. The decision itself is made in sinister circumstances, in the midst of a storm and with the conspirators masked. As with any tragedy, this decision leads to Brutus’s inevitable downfall and death.

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6
Q

6) Why does Cassius hate Caesar?

A

Cassius hates Caesar because he is jealous of Caesar’s power and he believes that Caesar is a weak man and, therefore, undeserving of the power and admiration he has been given by the Roman citizens. To highlight his feelings, Cassius describes to Brutus how he once saved Caesar’s life when the two raced each other across the Tiber River. While he tells the story, he reveals his anger and resentment toward Caesar when he suggests that Caesar “[i]s now become a god, and Cassius is / A wretched creature [who] must bend his body” to him. During this conversation with Brutus, Cassius goes on to spitefully explain Caesar’s epileptic fits as another sign of the would-be emperor’s weakness. Caesar’s physical weakness, in contrast with his overreaching power, leads Cassius to judge Caesar as a danger to Rome and the Republic; he fears that Caesar will become emperor and strip the senators of their power, essentially enslaving them.

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7
Q

7) What is the significance of the comet?

A

The comet’s appearance mainly serves as an omen foreshadowing Julius Caesar’s impending assassination. However, Shakespeare also uses the comet to characterize Caesar’s ego as his tragic flaw. Calpurnia suggests the comet’s purpose when she explains, “When beggars die there are no comets seen. / The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes” (2.2.29–31). Such a description sets the comet up as one of three omens that portend the death of Caesar (the others are the Soothsayer’s prophecy and Calpurnia’s dream). By having Caesar flippantly ignore these three blatant omens, Shakespeare highlights Caesar’s ego as a central factor in his downfall.

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8
Q

8) Why does Caesar refuse the crown when Antony offers it to him?

A

However, it’s more likely that Caesar’s motivations were as Casca implies: Caesar theatrically refused the crown to further secure the hearts and minds of the people, and he fully intended to accept the crown when the senate officially offered it to him.

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9
Q

9) What happens to Murellus and Flavius?

A

Casca explains to Brutus and Cassius that “Murellus and Flavius, for pulling scarfs off Caesar’s images, are put to silence.” Interpretations of this line vary. There is the obvious euphemistic interpretation that silence means death, suggesting Caesar had the two tribunes killed for speaking out against him in public. Yet other theories suggest that the pair may have been stripped of rank and possibly tortured, having their tongues cut out, or that they were simply threatened, stripped of rank, and forced to stop publicly opposing Caesar.

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10
Q

10) Why does Antony shake hands with the conspirators?

A

Antony shakes hands with the conspirators to make them believe that he does not have ill intentions toward them. He ultimately desires to take a brutal revenge against the group, but he is aware that confronting them directly after Caesar’s murder would likely prove fatal for him. Showing great wisdom, inner resolve, and patience, Antony “makes nice” with the conspirators and relies on his unassuming reputation in order to bide his time, turn the people against the conspirators, and raise an army to enact his revenge against them.

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11
Q

11) Why does Caesar’s will have such a powerful impact on the plebeians?

A

It is not the actual contents of Caesar’s will that have a powerful impact on the plebeians, but rather it is Antony’s reading of the will. He essentially uses the will as a rhetorical device that symbolizes Caesar’s love for the plebeians and the betrayal he endured at the conspirators’ hands, which gives the will the power to truly move the plebeians to rise up in mutiny. First, Antony primes the plebeians by telling them exactly what the will represents: Caesar’s love for them and all of Rome. He then states that he “must not read it” and cleverly implies how people should react if they were to hear its contents: “It is not meet you know how Caesar loved you. / You are not wood, you are not stones, but men. / And, being men, hearing the will of Caesar, / It will inflame you, it will make you mad.” Essentially, Antony tells the plebeians that Caesar loved them and suggests that the will is proof of this love.

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12
Q

12) What happens to Portia?

A

Unable to handle Brutus’s absence and all that is happening in Rome, Portia commits suicide. During their dispute in Act 4, scene 3, Brutus informs Cassius that Portia is dead. He explains her despair over the recent events, including “grief that young Octavius with Mark Antony / Have made themselves so strong.” Brutus then explains that when Portia’s servants were not around, she killed herself by swallowing hot coals.

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13
Q

13) How are Octavius and Caesar related?

A

Julius Caesar is Octavius’s great-uncle, as Octavius’s grandfather married one of Caesar’s sisters. However, at some point Caesar adopts Octavius as his son. Caesar’s will states that Octavius is the heir to the empire.

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14
Q

14) Why does Brutus refuse to swear an oath?

A

Brutus refuses to swear an oath because he believes that his doing so will belittle the great enterprise that he and the other conspirators have taken upon themselves. He feels that the righteousness of their intentions is enough to keep them all honest and that if they were to swear an oath, it would suggest that their resolve is weak and would dishonor their purpose, which he believes is to protect Rome from tyranny.

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15
Q

15) Why does Brutus kill himself?

A

In ancient Rome, it was considered more honorable for a Roman leader to commit suicide rather than face the humiliation of capture. If Brutus were taken prisoner, he would have likely been chained and paraded down the streets of Rome as a trophy, and he would ultimately have been executed for his crimes, so Brutus likely chose suicide to avoid such suffering and shame. Also, since Julius Caesar is based on historical events, Shakespeare simply presents this historical fact in his play.

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16
Q

What Does the Ending Mean?

A

The final act of Julius Caesar features a battle between the military forces of Brutus and Cassius and those of Antony and Octavius. When Antony and Octavius gain the upper hand, Cassius chooses to kill himself rather than be captured, and Brutus soon follows suit. After Brutus’s death, Antony and Octavius give short speeches in praise of Brutus. Antony characterizes Brutus as “the noblest Roman of them all,” indicating that he was the only conspirator who acted for the good of Rome. Octavius echoes Antony, concluding that Brutus was indeed an honorable man. Despite their celebration of Brutus’s honor, the two men still implicitly condemn the murder to which Brutus’s commitment to Rome led him. The play’s ending is therefore ambivalent, meaning that it registers mixed feelings about what has come to pass. For anyone who knows Roman history, the ending also proves ironic. Following the events depicted in the play, Octavius goes on to behave dishonorably toward Antony, which leads to a civil war that results in Antony dying and Octavius becoming the first emperor of the Roman Empire. For men who hold honor so highly, it’s ironic that their own honor would fail and bring out the very thing the conspirators had attempted to prevent: the crowning of an emperor.

17
Q

who is brutus?

A

A supporter of the republic who believes strongly in a government guided by the votes of senators. While Brutus loves Caesar as a friend, he opposes the ascension of any single man to the position of dictator, and he fears that Caesar aspires to such power. Brutus’s inflexible sense of honor makes it easy for Caesar’s enemies to manipulate him into believing that Caesar must die in order to preserve the republic. While the other conspirators act out of envy and rivalry, only Brutus truly believes that Caesar’s death will benefit Rome. Unlike Caesar, Brutus is able to separate completely his public life from his private life; by giving priority to matters of state, he epitomizes Roman virtue. Torn between his loyalty to Caesar and his allegiance to the state, Brutus becomes the tragic hero of the play.

18
Q

who is julius caesar?

A

A great Roman general and senator, recently returned to Rome in triumph after a successful military campaign. While his good friend Brutus worries that Caesar may aspire to dictatorship over the Roman republic, Caesar seems to show no such inclination, declining the crown several times. Yet while Caesar may not be unduly power-hungry, he does possess his share of flaws. He is unable to separate his public life from his private life, and, seduced by the populace’s increasing idealization and idolization of his image, he ignores ill omens and threats against his life, believing himself as eternal as the North Star.

19
Q

who is antony?

A

Antony
A friend of Caesar. Antony claims allegiance to Brutus and the conspirators after Caesar’s death in order to save his own life. Later, however, when speaking a funeral oration over Caesar’s body, he spectacularly persuades the audience to withdraw its support of Brutus and instead condemn him as a traitor. With tears on his cheeks and Caesar’s will in his hand, Antony engages masterful rhetoric to stir the crowd to revolt against the conspirators. Antony’s desire to exclude Lepidus from the power that Antony and Octavius intend to share hints at his own ambitious nature.

20
Q

who is cassius?

A

A talented general and longtime acquaintance of Caesar. Cassius dislikes the fact that Caesar has become godlike in the eyes of the Romans. He slyly leads Brutus to believe that Caesar has become too powerful and must die, finally converting Brutus to his cause by sending him forged letters claiming that the Roman people support the death of Caesar. Impulsive and unscrupulous, Cassius harbors no illusions about the way the political world works. A shrewd opportunist, he proves successful but lacks integrity.

21
Q

who is Octavius?

A

Octavius
Caesar’s adopted son and appointed successor. Octavius, who had been traveling abroad, returns after Caesar’s death; he then joins with Antony and sets off to fight Cassius and Brutus. Antony tries to control Octavius’s movements, but Octavius follows his adopted father’s example and emerges as the authoritative figure, paving the way for his eventual seizure of the reins of Roman government.

22
Q

who is casca?

A

Casca
A public figure opposed to Caesar’s rise to power. Casca relates to Cassius and Brutus how Antony offered the crown to Caesar three times and how each time Caesar declined it. He believes, however, that Caesar is the consummate actor, lulling the populace into believing that he has no personal ambition.

23
Q

who is decius?

A

Decius
A member of the conspiracy. Decius convinces Caesar that Calpurnia misinterpreted her dire nightmares and that, in fact, no danger awaits him at the Senate. Decius leads Caesar right into the hands of the conspirators.

24
Q

Who is Murellus?

A

Murellus
Like Flavius, a tribune who condemns the plebeians for their fickleness in cheering Caesar, when once they cheered for Caesar’s enemy Pompey. Murellus and Flavius are punished for removing the decorations from Caesar’s statues during Caesar’s triumphal parade.

25
Q

who is lepidus?

A

Lepidus
The third member of Antony and Octavius’s coalition. Though Antony has a low opinion of Lepidus, Octavius trusts his loyalty.

26
Q

who is cicero?

A

Cicero
A Roman senator renowned for his oratorical skill. Cicero speaks at Caesar’s triumphal parade. He later dies at the order of Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus.

27
Q

who is flavius?

A
Flavius
A tribune (an official elected by the people to protect their rights). Flavius condemns the plebeians for their fickleness in cheering Caesar, when once they cheered for Caesar’s enemy Pompey. Flavius is punished along with Murellus for removing the decorations from Caesar’s statues during Caesar’s triumphal parade.
28
Q

who are portia and calpurina?

A

Calpurnia
Caesar’s wife. Calpurnia invests great authority in omens and portents. She warns Caesar against going to the Senate on the Ides of March, since she has had terrible nightmares and heard reports of many bad omens. Nevertheless, Caesar’s ambition ultimately causes him to disregard her advice.

Portia
Brutus’s wife; the daughter of a noble Roman who took sides against Caesar. Portia, accustomed to being Brutus’s confidante, is upset to find him so reluctant to speak his mind when she finds him troubled. Brutus later hears that Portia has killed herself out of grief that Antony and Octavius have become so powerful.

29
Q

who are possible antagonists in julius caesar?

A

Cassius, Antony, and Caesar himself are all possible antagonists in Julius Caesar

30
Q

who is the protagonist ?

A

brutus

31
Q

summarize what is going on in the poem?

A

The speaker uses violent language throughout this piece to depict the process of killing his younger self. He chokes the young man he used to be, digs out his brains, and makes sure that unlike Christ, he won’t rise again on the third day. The speaker clearly feels as though the presence of this young man in his mind is doing him more harm than good. But, it’s hard to imagine that this is truly the case by the time a reader concludes the piece.

32
Q

what are the themes of the poem?

A

In ‘Rhyme of the Dead Self’ the most important themes the poet
addresses are transformation and perceptions of the self. These two
themes are combined in a violent outburst against the speaker’s
perceived younger self. He’s changed so much (he thinks for the better)
that any bit of his lingering “lily-white” daydreaming younger self is
problematic. This transformation came over time, likely so much time
that he didn’t notice that it was happening. Now, as he looks back over
his life, he’s outraged and angered by who he used to be. It is
impossible to read this poem without wondering what could possibly
have offended him so intensely about his prior self to encourage this
kind of outburst.

33
Q

what is the structure of the poem?

A

Rhyme of the Dead Self’ by A.R.D. Fairburn is a three-stanza poem
that is separated out into quatrains or sets of four lines. These
lines follow a simple rhyme scheme of ABAB, with several
half-rhymes interspersed throughout. For example, “lad” and
“bed” in the first stanza and “day” and “aye” in the final stanza.
A half-rhyme is a rhyme in which only part of the two words align.
This is usually a specific consonant sound, like the “d” in the first
example or a vowel, or assonant, sound such as in the second
example.

34
Q

what are literary devices of the poem?

A

Fairburn makes use of several literary devices in ‘Rhyme of the Dead
Self.’ These include but are not limited to enjambment, imagery,
alliteration. The latter is a type of repetition that’s concerned with the
use and reuse of the same consonant sound at the beginning of multiple
words. For example, “heighho” and “holly” in line two of the second
stanza and “sloughed” and “snakeskin” in line three of the third
stanza.

Enjambment is a common formal device used in poetry when the poet
cuts off a sentence or phrase before it reaches its natural stopping
point. For example, the transition between line one of the first stanza
and line two. The majority of the lines in ‘Rhyme of the Dead Self’ are
enjambed.

Imagery is another interesting literary device that’s incredibly
important to creating memorable and moving poetry. Without
skillful imagery, readers won’t be able to imagine the scene,
event, or ideas at play in a poem. The following lines from the
second stanza are a good example “Then chuckling I dragged out
his foolish brains / that were full of pretty love-tales heighho the
holly.”