Terms for “Julius Caesar”
Tragedy
• A play, novel or other narrative
that depicts serious and
important events in which the
main character(s) comes to an
unhappy end.
Anachronism
• Event or detail that is
inappropriate for the time period.
• Example:
“…he plucked me ope his doublet and
offered them his throat to cut”
Casca to Brutus & Cassius about Caesar (I.ii.265)
Elizabethans wore doublets (a tight, short jacket) while
Caesar probably would have been wearing a toga or
robe.
Apostrophe
• A technique by which a writer addresses
an inanimate object, an idea, or a person
who is either dead or absent.
Examples: Antony addresses Caesar's corpse immediately
following the assassination in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar:
O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
—Shakespeare, Julius Caesar 3.1.254-257
Blank Verse
• Poetry written in unrhymed
iambic pentameter.
-Iambic pentameter- a line of
poetry that contains 5 metric
feet (iambs) consisting of an
unaccented syllable followed
by an accented syllable.
Iambic Pentameter
Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o’ nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much, such men are dangerous.
(I. ii. 192-195)
Dialogue
• Conversation between
two or more characters.
Aside
A quiet remark to the audience or
another character that no one else on
stage is supposed to hear.
Example:
CAESAR: Good friends, go in, and taste some wine with me;
And we, like friends, will straightway go together.
BRUTUS: [Aside] That every like is not the same, O Caesar,
The heart of Brutus yearns to think upon!
(II. ii. 125-130)
Soliloquy
• A long speech given by a
character alone on stage to
reveal his or her private
thoughts.
Example:
Antony’s speech over Caesar's dead body
in Act 3 scene 1.
Monologue
• An extended speech
presented by an actor in
a drama or narrative.
Example:
Antony’s funeral speech to the Roman
crowds in Act 3 scene 2.
Shakespearian Speeches
Rhetorical Devices are used to make speech
appeal to a person’s emotions and to make
speech more convincing and memorable.
(Antony’s funeral speech is full of rhetorical devices and
appeals.)
• Repetition: the repeated use of words and
sounds “Honorable men”
• Parallelism: repeated grammatical structures
(pharses, clauses, compound parts) (EX: “Veni, vidi,
vici “(I came, I saw, I conquered)- a comment reportedly written by
the real Julius Caesar.
• Rhetorical Questions: questions that need no
answer. “Did this in Caesar seam ambitious?”
•Irony- Contrast or
discrepancy between
expectation and
reality.
3 Types of Irony
• Verbal- Discrepancy between what is said and
what is meant. (EX: “But Brutus is an honorable man/So are they
all, all honorable men " (Said with verbal irony since the audience knows
only what has been told them, but Antony knows of the conspiracy.)
• Situational- Contrast between what would seem
appropriate and what really happens, or when
there is a contradiction between what we expect
to happen and what really takes place. (EX: Caesar
is going to stay home on his assination day but Decius changes
Caesar’s mind.)
• Dramatic- When the audience or reader knows
something that a character in a narrative does
not know.
( EX: The audience, knowing that Caesar will be assassinated watches him set
out on the Ides of March.)
Extended Metaphor
• A comparison made over
many lines.
Example:
“But ‘tis a common proof, That lowliness is young
ambition’s ladder, Whereto the climber upward turns
his face; But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back, Looks in the
clouds, scourning the base degrees By which he did
ascend.” (II, i, 21-27)
Brutus uses of an extended metaphor when comparing
Caesar's rise to power to someone climbing a ladder.
Foreshadowing
• The use of clues to hint at
events that will occur later in a
plot.
• The soothsayer warns Caesar about the Ides of March,
but he ignores the seer.
• Marullus remarks that Caesar keep the Romans in
"servile fearfulness foreshadowing danger to Caesar.
• Caesar notices that Cassius "has a lean and hungry
look such men are dangerous” (I,ii,194-195).
Pun
• Play on the multiple meanings of a
word.
Example:
In Act 1, Scene 1, Marullus mentions Pompey. Julius Caesar defeated
Pompey, which led to JC's sole rule of Rome
A pun is the humorous use of a word or phrase so as to emphasize or
suggest its different meanings or applications, or the use of words that are
alike or nearly alike in sound but different in meaning; a play on words.
Second Commoner:
A trade, sir, that, I hope, I may use with a safe
conscience; which is, indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles.
(Lines 13-14)
**bad soles (bottom of your shoes), bad souls (a person in a poor moral state)