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The Shakespearean play, Julius Caesar, tells of the dramatic assassination of the most powerful man in the Roman Empire and the wave of chaos that followed. Though this literary work is not an epic poem, it shares many structural similarities with epic poetry. These structural features are found in Tragedies throughout literature and are present in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Tragedies feature characteristics such as unity of action, catharsis, tragedy, scene of suffering, hamartia in the protagonist, hubris, peripteia, and anagnorisis. These features define what tragedy is and allow for the poetic art to have an internal framework. The poetic art was described by Aristotle as a spiritual moment represented in concrete artistic form. That poetry attempts to take abstract and intangible concepts, and force them into a physical state that allows for interpretation and thought concerning these ideas. Through analysis of the structural features of the story, we do not simply gain a much deeper understanding of the plot. We also gain the ability to look closely and derive the themes that are hidden; puzzled together by the plot itself and the relationships of the characters in the story.
Unity of action makes Julius Caesar a clear story where you are never taken back and forth through time and places. The action in the story is ordered, one thing happens at a time and the cause is usually easily identified. The action is also continuous, there is always something happening that is moving the story to the climax and after that point, toward the restoration of the natural order. There is a clear beginning, the conspirators winning over Brutus and then killing Caesar; a middle, Brutus speaking to the people, Antony infuriating the Romans against the conspirators, and the fleeing of Brutus and Cassius; and an end, the fighting of Brutus and Cassius as well as the final battle between Antony and Octavius against Brutus and Cassius. In addition to unity of action is catharsis which deals with how the events of the story inspire pity and terror in the viewers. This is done through vicarious participation, even though the tragic events of the story are not happening to the viewers, the viewers begin to develop emotions for the characters and find sympathy for them in their suffering. The viewers for instance may feel pity for Brutus in his defeat and death; for he was a valiant Roman and strived to do what he thought would be best for his country. But this vicarious participation also allows the viewers to learn a lesson without themselves having to suffer through any misfortune. In the case of Julius Caesar, the viewers learn to think carefully of the consequences of your actions and to not have so much confidence in the character of your potential enemies.
Julius Caesar is indeed a tragedy and therefore it contains the aspects that make a literary work a tragedy. Firstly there are prosperous and renowned protagonists who undergo a reversal of fortune and a fall from greatness. In Julius Caesar, these prosperous protagonists are the conspirators and chief among them, Cassius and Brutus. Their reversal of fortune and fall from greatness occurred from the point at which Brutus had the people calling on him to be the next Caesar. A few moments later Mark Antony has the Romans enraged and searching out to find and kill all the conspirators. Later after Brutus and Cassius flee from Rome they are then defeated soundly in battle by Octavius and Mark Antony. The scene of tragedy in Julius Caesar is the scene where Caesar is killed. It is from that scene on that a wave of chaos begins to determine the plot for the rest of the play.
Cassius and Brutus’ fall from power brings us to hamartia which belongs to Brutus in the form of trusting those who may be his enemies. In the story his fatal flaw was in trusting Antony. The other conspirators were weary of him, but Brutus did not seek a river of blood and therefore spared Antony’s life. It is because of this that Antony was able to enrage the Romans against the conspirators and to drive Brutus and Cassius out of Rome. Hubris, in this play lies equally throughout all of the conspirators. They thought that they could get away scot-free messing up the natural order by killing the man at the top. Peripteia is definitely present in the play after Antony gives his speech to the Romans and the conspirators are no longer in control. Their lives progressively got worse from the moment they lost control of the situation. In the end they met with death to complete their fall from power. Lastly there is anagnorisis. Brutus and Cassius both realize in the final battle the true nature of their situation. They realize that there is no chance they will find their way back into power or back into Rome. It is this realization that drives both of them to suicide. They finally acknowledged their fatal flaw, and that the mistake that brought peripteia upon them was already made, and that events could no longer be reversed. They accepted their fate and departed from the living.
Whether or not Shakespeare intended Julius Caesar to have the many qualities and structural aspects of tragic poetry they are present throughout this work. Julius Caesar is one of Shakespeare’s tragic plays, and his tragedies and tragic poetry share many similarities. Unity of action, catharsis, tragedy, and a scene of suffering are all found in Julius Caesar. Identifying these properties in the story allows us to unlock the purpose of each turn in the plot and what attitudes or emotions Shakespeare was trying to give his audience. Whatever the reasons it is quite clear that the vicarious experience of reading the play presents us with the lesson to always be cautious and be careful of who we trust.
Edited by Temerity, 01 July 2009 - 09:08 PM.
