'Remember March, the Ides of March remember' - Moral and political ambiguities of the assassination of Julius Caesar

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Seminar paper from the year 2001 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1 (A), LMU Munich (Institute for English Philology), course: Hauptseminar zur Exkursion: Shakespeare: Hamlet, King John, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, language: English, abstract: The assassination of Julius Caesar was probably one of those few moments thatliterally changed the course of history. Many historians agree that Caesar mighthave been just another military dictator such as the generals Sulla and Marius, whoare, in comparison with Caesar, unknown; a successful general, but incompetent atreforming the Roman res publica1 .The assassination of the title character is also the central moment in Shakespearesdrama Julius Caesar. His death causes the change of scene (away from Rome)and the change from a relatively stable res publica to civil war. The play presentsthe major protagonists of these events: Casca, Cassius, Brutus, Caesar, MarcAntony and, to a lesser degree, the Roman public.The Roman people are a background before which the main characters act and bywhomthey (i.e. the people) are manipulated more or less successfully. The reasonsthe assassins and their antagonists have, pretend to have or do not have for whatthey do become apparent in what they tell the man-in-the-street. Occasionally,when we hear them talk to a close friend or to themselves, we find matters are notas simple as the public is made to believe. Brutus has doubts about the attack,Cassius aim is not the welfare of the res publica, Marc Antony fakes friendshipwith the conspirators.We see that there are certain political as well as moral ambiguities in theassassination of Julius Caesar as Shakespeare presents it. In this paper, we will firstlook at the Roman people as the background, then examine the character andmotives of Casca, Cassius and finally Brutus. [...]1 I use the expression res publica because its English equivalent, the common-wealth, hasother connotations; I also tried to avoid the word state.

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