Julius Caesar

Roman Political Structure
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Rome had a 500-year-old Republic
 A form of government in which the head of state is an elected president rather than a monarch (King or Queen)
This head of state works for the people directly or through elected representatives called senators

Roman political structure
Caesar Head of state
Senators Elected representatives (aristocrats)
Tribunes Elected officials to protect the rights of commoners (from aristocrats)

Key terms for Julius Caesar
 Tragic hero – a character who falls from greatness due to one critical flaw in personality
 Hubris – excessive pride, selfassurance

 Pun playing with the sound or double meaning of a word
Example: A photographer was great at botany because he knew photo synthesis.
 Pathos sympathy felt for a character

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Nemesis just reward or punishment, just retribution
Soliloquy a speech given by a character sometimes alone on stage, meant to reveal the inner thoughts of that character; gives audience insight into the character’s motivations

Caesar’s Rome

Shakespeare on friendship
"Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.“
What other wise words have you heard on friendship?

Friendship constitution
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Groups of four will form subcommittees on friendship before the final summit to form the Friendship constitution.
We will refer to this often throughout our study of Julius Caesar.

Act I Key Passage
 Cassius compares Caesar to the night himself, who
“like this dreadful night,
. . . thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars
As doth the lion in the Capitol.”
(I.iii.72
–74)

Act I Key passage – Casca
Are you not moved, when all the sway of the earth
Shakes, like a thing unfirm? O Cicero,
I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
Have rived the knotty oaks, and I have seen
The ambitious ocean swell, and rage, and foam,
To be exalted with the threatning clouds,
But never till tonight, never till now,
Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.
Either there is a civil strife in heaven,
Or else the world, too saucy with the gods,
Incenses them to send destruction.
(I. iii. 3-13)

Key Quotation
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“Beware the ides of March.”

Omens in Act I
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Several omens and portents in this act
Raise questions about the force of fate versus free will
Function and meaning of omens is puzzling and seemingly contradictory
 as announcements of an event or events to come
– appear to prove the existence of some overarching plan for the future
 as warnings of impending events – suggest that human beings have the power to alter that destiny if provided with the correct information in advance

Do you believe in fate, or free will?