Julius Caesar

Alexander Moore

Prof. McDuffie

College Writing I: Julius Caesar, Mark Antony’s speech

07/04/17

In the play, Julius Caesar, this speech takes place directly after Caesar was killed by senators of Rome, including his friend Brutus. To woe the crowd into believing Caesar was dangerous for Rome and not fit to lead it, Brutus convinced the crowd that he did not want to but had to for the good of Rome. However, when Mark Antony had come out carrying Caesar’s body, he decided to try and make the crowd mourn for Caesar, considering the people of Rome all loved him so much.

The poet who wrote Julius Caesar is William Shakespeare, who gives the reader a good understanding of how people so often believe what is told to them and always jump to conclusions without looking at the facts. The speaker in the poem is Mark Antony, one of Caesar’s closest friends and advisors. He walked in on the senators murdering Caesar and  knew that it was a wrong thing.

Antony’s emotion towards the people of Rome was harsh, angry, and confused as to way they automatically believe that their hero, Caesar, was an evil man. He did not have the task of woing the crowd easily either because he was very disturbed from witnessing his friend’s murder and Brutus had already won the hearts of the crowd. Antony wanted vengeance for the death of his friend and did it with the people of Rome.

The form that the speech/poem is written in is stanza’s and iambic pentameter. Shakespeare, had it set up for different people groups spoke differently than others. For example, he used blank verse and unrhymed iambic pentameter for the nobles and he used prose for the peasants of Rome. Shakespeare had his poem set this way so the reader could establish who was noble and who was not.

The patterns in the speech is the way Antony repeats how “Brutus is a noble man and says that Caesar was ambitious” and Antony said, “Did this seem ambitious?” in the speech. The way he uses this to crowd shows them that he still “respects” them as honorable men of Rome. He even says that “He is not here to disprove what Brutus has spoken” but to at least have the people mourn for him. These rhetorical questions that Antony speaks helps the crowd understand that Brutus is not noble and that Caesar was not an ambitious man.