Saturday, November 21, 2015

My Name is James Bond! Smell ROT Within!Let me kiss and Ensure the safety of the Prime Minister first,Bond censored in India! #Julius Caesar#Brutas# Greek tagedy # RSS #Shakespeare#Bajrangi Brigade# #Sovereignty#Democracy#Integrity#Unity#Indira Gandhi#1984#Plight of the Sikhs#Rajiv Gandhi #Srilanka #Mujib #Benzir#Sadat#Lincoln#Kennedy#Hinduta#Durga#Toharaia#Mahanta#Sadhwi #Babri Mosque# Advani# Rama #Riots #Godhra#Bhopal#Guajarat#Assam Palash Biswas

https://youtu.be/wS97K_GXnoY

My Name is James Bond! Smell ROT Within!Let me kiss and Ensure the safety of the Prime Minister first,Bond censored in India!
#Julius Caesar#Brutas# Greek tagedy # RSS #Shakespeare#Bajrangi Brigade# #Sovereignty#Democracy#Integrity#Unity#Indira Gandhi#1984#Plight of the Sikhs#Rajiv Gandhi #Srilanka #Mujib #Benzir#Sadat#Lincoln#Kennedy#Hinduta#Durga#Toharaia#Mahanta#Sadhwi #Babri Mosque# Advani# Rama #Riots #Godhra#Bhopal#Guajarat#Assam
Palash Biswas
Indian Express reports:

We must reform to transform: PM Narendra Modi at ASEAN Summit

We must reform to transform: PM Narendra Modi at ASEAN Summit

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I am afraid it might be yet another fantasy that loved so much in Nainital!Nainital celebrated its Birthday recently,where I landed having passed High School from a resettled partition victim refugee colony in the Terai! My father was the leader of Dhimri Block Peasant uprising near Lalquan Junction.He had been tried for ten years and had to visit Nainital Often.
While reading in class two,in 1963 I accompanied my father and I was in love with the beautiful lake at first sight.Moreover,my father and his comrades lost the case in the session court while I was present in the court and of course,they were bailed out immediately.
Thereafter,my BABA got me right into DSB college and it proved to decide my life as I decided to study there.
I visited Nainital yet again in 1970 and 1971 while I was representing Dineshpur High School and Shaktifarm High School for debate in the District School and College Rally.
Family friend Freedom fighter Basant Kumar Banerjee from the famous Martyr Manindra Nath Banerjee wanted me to get admission in BHU as I passed High School from UP Board and ensured  place in the merit list.
But I decided to pursue my childhood fantasy and landed in Nainital at the age of 15.
I was in love and would dream in sequel so habitual I had been,so romantic!
I wrote my first short story on Free Market Economy, Udan SE Thik Pahle ka Kshan with an encounter with the Madonna face to face in fantasy. The story was a fantasy in which Sexi and beautiful Madonna posed NUDE as the brand ambassador of the Free Market Blitz and wanted all the children to be marketing agent.
Finally,I got rid of all dreams and fantasies as the Free Market was the social political economic and religious realism in India and I based in Kolkata in 1991.
But you never recover from your instinct as Nainital remains a fantasy for me these days and I dare not touch the water in its deepest soul physically yet again and the love is intact as Nainital celebrated BirthDay.
It had been yet another Fantasy while I was sleeping sound at home having returned home late in the night from office.Someone was screaming in my ears! I thought it might be the Porter of the Hell losing!
No,it was not.
Someone cried within,My Name is Bond!James Bond!
My eyes remained wide open as he cried,Let me Kiss and kissing remains my branding.I dare not Kiss in India!I am CENSORED!But I smell rot within!Please ensure the safety of your Prime Minister!
I am sorry that I had no way to warn our dearest prime minister Mrs Indira Gandhi nor I could warn Rajiv Gandhi.What happened to Shastri,we may not know even now! I would not like this Prime Minister to continue a day but the nation may not afford that he should become a soft target as it would kill the nation!
But Bond quoted from Julius Caesar!Exposed the conspiracy yet again after Shakespeare and it was alarming that he related it to India!
Bond repeated again and again,I smell the Rot within!
You ban me loving and Kissing! First ensure safety of your Prime Minister!
It was almost morning and I could not sleep!

Julius Caesar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (Classical Latin: [ˈɡaː.i.ʊs ˈjuː.li.ʊs ˈkae̯.sar]; 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman statesman, general and notable ...

Julius Caesar (play) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Caesar_(play)
  1. Julius Caesar
  2. Former Roman dictator
  3. Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman statesman, general and notable author of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire. Wikipedia
  4. Previous office: Roman dictator (49 BC–44 BC)
  6. Resigned: March 15, 44 BC


Thus,I am very sorry to shock you in our most troubled times.but a citizen of India I have to discuss the risk.
Since we as a nation stand with the developed world to fight terror,we must ensure safety at home.We have to defend India,its citizens and its leadership.We may have differences but Indian Prime Minister should be safe and it is in the best interest for Indian nation and its citizens!
I was shocked as Bond spelt Indira Gandhi,Mujib,Rajiv Gandhi,Benzir,Anwar sadat,Lincoln and Kennedy one by one and even he quoted the mysteries of netaji Missing!Syama Prasad Mukherjee died,Shastri died in Russia!Deen Dayal Upadhyay!
We are aware of the recent History!But Modi is facing the same rot within as Lincoln faced,Because Lincoln failed to reign in his political companions,he was assassinated.I happened in every case of political assassination worldwide since Julius Caesar!
As Bond warned and rather it might not end in a fantasy at all,I may afraid!My sixth sense of a professional journalist says the Our Prime Minister should be safe because it is mandatory for sovereignty,democracy,unity and integrity of the nation,peace,law and order,inherent tolerance and pluralism.
If something happens most unexpected,I am afraid ,it would be too late the correct ourselves.
Please allow me to share my concern for Indian Prime Minister because I am afraid to say that Our partnership in American War against terror has Indian leadership most unsafe because history tells,we had been always soft targets and our leaders had fallen in the trap in the recent past.
I believe that the Prime Minister should remap his foreign tour and skip some most sensitive destination to lessen the risk.Better he should not go abroad so often.The Minister of foreign affairs might represent India as well and the PM should opt for it.
I do not know who writes his speech but the linguistics should be redesigned skipping politics and it should always be diplomatic in national interest,specifically while he represents India and Indian people at global forum.His recent speeches abroad had not been diplomatic and whenever he speaks,it is always political!
it is rather very very dangerous.




I have warned my country about the origin and funding of ISIS and Russian Prime Minister confirmed that no less than forty nations including G20 nations help to grow the menace.
I would not repeat that and I would add some clipping from Mali and elsewhere where terror inflicted after Paris.I would also add some update from Paris where the Prime Minister plans to visit despite security risk.I would add some clipping from past which are available.
I am afraid that the war against terror has made indian Prime Minister most unsafe and the politics made it worse.Because unilateral hate campaign and intolerance practiced by his party men and women has made him the target,most unwanted.It is truth.
As it happened earlier in Bangladesh with the assassination of Mujib,we had to witness that holocaust in India after Indira demise,it was Sikh Genocide and the reactions still remain unabated,mind you.
I happened again while India intervened in Srilanka, Rajiv gandhi was killed in a suicide Bomb blast.
There was a political conspiracy in Dhaka,we know but Mujib could have averted or aborted the tragedy.
It again happened in Pakistan as Benzir Bhuttto was killed.Not even Kennedy and Abraham Lincon were spared.Anwar sadat was killed during an army parade and Indira was killed by her own body guards.
We should learn from the past.
I quote from Wikipedia:
Abraham Lincoln suffered from "melancholy", a condition which now is referred to as clinical depression!
An exceptionally astute politician deeply involved with power issues in each state, Lincoln reached out to the War Democrats and managed his own re-election campaign in the 1864 presidential election. Anticipating the war's conclusion, Lincoln pushed a moderate view of Reconstruction, seeking to reunite the nation speedily through a policy of generous reconciliation in the face of lingering and bitter divisiveness. On April 14, 1865, five days after the April 9th surrender of Confederate commanding general Robert E. Lee, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer.

In 1860, Lincoln secured the Republican Party presidential nomination as a moderate from a swing state. With very little support in the slaveholding states of the South, he swept the North and was elected president in 1860. His victory prompted seven southern slave states to form the Confederate States of America before he moved into the White House - no compromise or reconciliation was found regarding slavery and secession. Subsequently, on April 12, 1861, a Confederate attack on Fort Sumter inspired the North to enthusiastically rally behind the Union in a declaration of war. As the leader of the moderate faction of the Republican Party, Lincoln confronted Radical Republicans, who demanded harsher treatment of the South, War Democrats, who called for more compromise, anti-war Democrats (called Copperheads), who despised him, and irreconcilable secessionists, who plotted his assassination. Politically, Lincoln fought back by pitting his opponents against each other, by carefully planned political patronage, and by appealing to the American people with his powers of oratory.[3] His Gettysburg Address became an iconic endorsement of the principles of nationalism, republicanism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy.
Lincoln initially concentrated on the military and political dimensions of the war. His primary goal was to reunite the nation. He suspended habeas corpus, leading to the controversial ex parte Merryman decision, and he averted potential British intervention in the war by defusing the Trent Affair in late 1861. Lincoln closely supervised the war effort, especially the selection of top generals, including his most successful general, Ulysses S. Grant. He also made major decisions on Union war strategy, including a naval blockade that shut down the South's normal trade, moves to take control of Kentucky and Tennessee, and using gunboats to gain control of the southern river system. Lincoln tried repeatedly to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond; each time a general failed, Lincoln substituted another, until finally Grant succeeded. As the war progressed, his complex moves toward ending slavery began with the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863; subsequently, Lincoln used the U.S. Army to protect escaped slaves, encouraged the border statesto outlaw slavery, and pushed through Congress the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which permanently outlawed slavery.
Modi identifies himself as Chaiwala and shares his Man Ki Baaten from that very background.please have a look in Linoln Childhood! Ia again quote from Wikipedia:

Early life and family ancestry

Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, the second child of Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, in a one-room log cabin on the Sinking Spring Farm in Hardin County, Kentucky[6] (now LaRue County). He is a descendant of Samuel Lincoln, who migrated from Norfolk, England to Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1638. Samuel's grandson and great-grandson began the family's western migration, which passed through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.[7][8] Lincoln's paternal grandfather and namesake, Captain Abraham Lincoln, moved the family from Virginia to Jefferson County, Kentucky in the 1780s.[9] Captain Lincoln was killed in an Indian raid in 1786. His children, including six-year-old Thomas, the future president's father, witnessed the attack.[10][11] After his father's murder, Thomas was left to make his own way on the frontier, working at odd jobs in Kentucky and in Tennessee, before settling with members of his family in Hardin County, Kentucky, in the early 1800s.[12][13]
Lincoln's mother, Nancy, was the daughter of Lucy Shipley Hanks, and was born in what is now Mineral County, West Virginia, then part of Virginia. The identity of Lincoln's maternal grandfather is unclear.[14] According to William Ensign Lincoln's book The Ancestry of Abraham Lincoln, Nancy was the daughter of Joseph Hanks;[15] however, the debate continues over whether she was born out of wedlock. Lucy Hanks migrated to Kentucky with her daughter, Nancy. The two women resided with relatives in Washington County, Kentucky.[14][16]
Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks were married on June 12, 1806, in Washington County, and moved to Elizabethtown, Kentucky, following their marriage.[17] They became the parents of three children: Sarah, born on February 10, 1807; Abraham, on February 12, 1809; and another son, Thomas, who died in infancy.[18] Thomas Lincoln bought or leased several farms in Kentucky, including the Sinking Spring farm, where Abraham was born; however, a land title dispute soon forced the Lincolns to move.[19][20] In 1811 the family relocated eight miles north, to Knob Creek Farm, where Thomas acquired title to 230 acres (93 ha) of land. In 1815 a claimant in another land dispute sought to eject the family from the farm.[20] Of the 816.5 acres that Thomas held in Kentucky, he lost all but 200 acres (81 ha) of his land in court disputes over property titles.[21] Frustrated over the lack of security provided by Kentucky courts, Thomas sold the remaining land he held in Kentucky in 1814, and began planning a move to Indiana, where the land survey process was more reliable and the ability for an individual to retain land titles was more secure.[22]
In 1816 the family moved north across the Ohio River to Indiana, a free, non-slaveholding territory, where they settled in an "unbroken forest"[23] in Hurricane Township, Perry County. (Their land in southern Indiana became part of Spencer County, Indiana, when the county was established in 1818.)[24][25] The farm is preserved as part of the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial. In 1860 Lincoln noted that the family's move to Indiana was "partly on account of slavery"; but mainly due to land title difficulties in Kentucky.[21][26] During the family's years in Kentucky and Indiana, Thomas Lincoln worked as a farmer, cabinetmaker, and carpenter.[27] He owned farms, several town lots and livestock, paid taxes, sat on juries, appraised estates, served on country slave patrols, and guarded prisoners. Thomas and Nancy Lincoln were also members of aSeparate Baptists church, which had restrictive moral standards and opposed alcohol, dancing, and slavery.[28] Within a year of the family's arrival in Indiana, Thomas claimed title to 160 acres (65 ha) of Indiana land. Despite some financial challenges he eventually obtained clear title to 80 acres (32 ha) of land in what became known as the Little Pigeon Creek Community in Spencer County.[29] Prior to the family's move to Illinois in 1830, Thomas had acquired an additional twenty acres of land adjacent to his property.[30]
A statue of young Lincoln sitting on a stump, holding a book open on his lap
The young Lincoln in sculpture at Senn Park, Chicago.
Several significant family events took place during Lincoln's youth in Indiana. On October 5, 1818, Nancy Lincoln died of milk sickness, leaving eleven-year-old Sarah in charge of a household that included her father, nine-year-old Abraham, and Dennis Hanks, Nancy's nineteen-year-old orphaned cousin.[31]On December 2, 1819, Lincoln's father married Sarah "Sally" Bush Johnston, a widow from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, with three children of her own.[32]Abraham became very close to his stepmother, whom he referred to as "Mother".[33][34] Those who knew Lincoln as a teenager later recalled him being very distraught over his sister Sarah's death on January 20, 1828, while giving birth to a stillborn son.[35][36]
As a youth, Lincoln disliked the hard labor associated with frontier life. Some of his neighbors and family members thought for a time that he was lazy for all his "reading, scribbling, writing, ciphering, writing Poetry, etc.",[37][38][39] and must have done it to avoid manual labor. His stepmother also acknowledged he did not enjoy "physical labor", but loved to read.[40] Lincoln was largely self-educated. His formal schooling from several itinerant teachers was intermittent, the aggregate of which may have amounted to less than a year; however, he was an avid reader and retained a lifelong interest in learning.[41][42] Family, neighbors, and schoolmates of Lincoln's youth recalled that he read and reread the King James Bible, Aesop's Fables,Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Weems's The Life of Washington, and Franklin'sAutobiography, among others.[43][44][45][46]
As he grew into his teens, Lincoln took responsibility for the chores expected of him as one of the boys in the household. He also complied with the customary obligation of a son giving his father all earnings from work done outside the home until the age of twenty-one.[47] Abraham became adept at using an axe. Tall for his age, Lincoln was also strong and athletic.[48] He attained a reputation for brawn and audacity after a very competitive wrestling match with the renowned leader of a group of ruffians known as "the Clary's Grove boys".[49]
In early March 1830, fearing a milk sickness outbreak along the Ohio River, the Lincoln family moved west to Illinois, a non-slaveholding state. They settled on a site in Macon County, Illinois, 10 miles (16 km) west of Decatur.[50][51] Historians disagree on who initiated the move.[52] After the family relocated to Illinois, Abraham became increasingly distant from his father,[53] in part because of his father's lack of education, and occasionally lent him money.[54] In 1831, as Thomas and other members of the family prepared to move to a new homestead in Coles County, Illinois, Abraham was old enough to make his own decisions and struck out on his own.[55] Traveling down the Sangamon River, he ended up in the village ofNew Salem in Sangamon County.[56] Later that spring, Denton Offutt, a New Salem merchant, hired Lincoln and some friends to take goods by flatboat from New Salem to New Orleans via the Sangamon, Illinois, and Mississippi rivers. After arriving in New Orleans—and witnessing slavery firsthand—Lincoln returned to New Salem, where he remained for the next six years.[57][58]

Julius Caesar (play)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The ghost of Caesar taunts Brutus about his imminent defeat. (Copperplate engraving by Edward Scriven from a painting by Richard Westall: London, 1802.)
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1599.[1] It is one of several plays written by Shakespeare based on true events from Roman history, which also include Coriolanus andAntony and Cleopatra.
Although the title is Julius Caesar, Caesar is not the most visible character in its action, appearing alive in only three scenes. Marcus Brutus speaks more than four times as many lines, and the central psychological drama of the play is Brutus' struggle between the conflicting demands of honor, patriotism and friendship.

Contents

 [hide]

Characters[edit]

Triumvirs after Caesar's death
Conspirators against Caesar
Citizens
Loyal to Brutus and Cassius
Other

Synopsis[edit]

Julius Caesar
The play opens with the commoners of Rome celebrating Caesar's triumphant return from defeating Pompey's sons at the battle of Munda. Two tribunes, Flavius and Marrullus, discover the commoners celebrating, insult them for their change in loyalty from Pompey to Caesar, and break up the crowd. They also plan on removing all decorations from Caesar's statues and ending any other festivities. In the next scene, during Caesar's parade on the feast of Lupercal, a soothsayer warns Caesar to "Beware the ides of March", a warning he disregards. The action then turns to the discussion between Brutus and Cassius. In this conversation, Cassius attempts to influence Brutus' opinions into believing Caesar should be killed, preparing to have Brutus join his conspiracy to kill Caesar. They then hear from Casca that Mark Antony has offered Caesar the crown of Rome three times, and that each time Caesar refused it, fainting after the last refusal. Later, in act two, Brutus joins the conspiracy, although after much moral debate, eventually deciding that Caesar, although his friend and never having done anything against the people of Rome, should be killed to prevent him from doing anything against the people of Rome if he were ever to be crowned. He compares Caesar to "A serpents egg/ which hatch'd, would, as his kind, grow mischievous,/ and kill him in the shell.", and decides to join Cassius in killing Caesar.
Caesar's assassination is one of the most famous scenes of the play, occurring in Act 3, scene 1 (the other is Mark Antony's funeral oration "Friends, Romans, countrymen.") After ignoring the soothsayer, as well as his wife's own premonitions, Caesar comes to the Senate. The conspirators create a superficial motive for coming close enough to assassinate Caesar by means of a petition brought by Metellus Cimber, pleading on behalf of his banished brother. As Caesar, predictably, rejects the petition, Casca grazes Caesar in the back of his neck, and the others follow in stabbing him; Brutus is last. At this point, Shakespeare makes Caesar utter the famous line "Et tu, Brute?"[3]("And you, Brutus?", i.e. "You too, Brutus?"). Shakespeare has him add, "Then fall, Caesar," suggesting that such treachery destroyed Caesar's will to live.
The conspirators make clear that they committed this act for Rome, not for their own purposes and do not attempt to flee the scene. After Caesar's death, Brutus delivers an oration defending his actions, and for the moment, the crowd is on his side. However, Mark Antony, with a subtle and eloquent speech over Caesar's corpse—beginning with the much-quotedFriends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears[4]—deftly turns public opinion against the assassins by manipulating the emotions of the common people, in contrast to the rational tone of Brutus's speech, yet there is method in his rhetorical speech and gestures: he reminds them of the good Caesar had done for Rome, his sympathy with the poor, and his refusal of the crown at the Lupercal, thus questioning Brutus' claim of Caesar's ambition; he shows Caesar's bloody, lifeless body to the crowd to have them shed tears and gain sympathy for their fallen hero; and he reads Caesar's will, in which every Roman citizen would receive 75 drachmas. Antony, even as he states his intentions against it, rouses the mob to drive the conspirators from Rome. Amid the violence, an innocent poet, Cinna, is confused with the conspirator Lucius Cinna and is murdered by the mob.
The beginning of Act Four is marked by the quarrel scene, where Brutus attacks Cassius for soiling the noble act of regicideby accepting bribes ("Did not great Julius bleed for justice' sake? / What villain touch'd his body, that did stab, / And not for justice?"[5]) The two are reconciled, especially after Brutus reveals that his beloved wife Portia had committed suicide under the stress of his absence from Rome; they prepare for a war against Mark Antony and Caesar's adopted son, Octavius. That night, Caesar's ghost appears to Brutus with a warning of defeat ("thou shalt see me at Philippi"[6]).
At the battle, Cassius and Brutus, knowing that they will probably both die, smile their last smiles to each other and hold hands. During the battle, Cassius has his servant Pindarus kill him after hearing of the capture of his best friend, Titinius. After Titinius, who was not really captured, sees Cassius's corpse, he commits suicide. However, Brutus wins that stage of the battle - but his victory is not conclusive. With a heavy heart, Brutus battles again the next day. He loses and commits suicide by running on his own sword, which is held by a soldier named Strato.
The play ends with a tribute to Brutus by Antony, who proclaims that Brutus has remained "the noblest Roman of them all"[7]because he was the only conspirator who acted, in his mind, for the good of Rome. There is then a small hint at the friction between Mark Antony and Octavius which will characterize another of Shakespeare's Roman plays, Antony and Cleopatra.

Sources[edit]

The main source of the play is Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives.[8]

Deviations from Plutarch[edit]

  • Shakespeare makes Caesar's triumph take place on the day of Lupercalia (15 February) instead of six months earlier.
  • For dramatic effect, he makes the Capitol the venue of Caesar's death rather than the Curia Pompeia (Curia of Pompey).
  • Caesar's murder, the funeral, Antony's oration, the reading of the will and the arrival of Octavius all take place on the same day in the play. However, historically, the assassination took place on 15 March (The Ides of March), the will was published on 18 March, the funeral was on 20 March, and Octavius arrived only in May.
  • Shakespeare makes the Triumvirs meet in Rome instead of near Bononia to avoid an additional locale.
  • He combines the two Battles of Philippi although there was a 20-day interval between them.
  • Shakespeare gives Caesar's last words as "Et tu, Brute? ("And you, Brutus?"). Plutarch and Suetonius each report that he said nothing, with Plutarch adding that he pulled his toga over his head when he saw Brutus among the conspirators,[9] though Suetonius does record other reports that Caesar said in Greek "καὶ σὺ, τέκνον;" (Kai su, teknon?, "And you, child?"[10][11] The Latin words Et tu, Brute?, however, were not devised by Shakespeare for this play since they are attributed to Caesar in earlier Elizabethan works and had become conventional by 1599.
Shakespeare deviated from these historical facts to curtail time and compress the facts so that the play could be staged more easily. The tragic force is condensed into a few scenes for heightened effect.

Date and text[edit]

The first page of Julius Caesar, printed in the Second Folio of 1632
Julius Caesar was originally published in the First Folio of 1623, but a performance was mentioned by Thomas Platter the Younger in his diary in September 1599. The play is not mentioned in the list of Shakespeare's plays published by Francis Meresin 1598. Based on these two points, as well as a number of contemporary allusions, and the belief that the play is similar to Hamlet in vocabulary, and to Henry V and As You Like It in metre,[12] scholars have suggested 1599 as a probable date.[13]
The text of Julius Caesar in the First Folio is the only authoritative text for the play. The Folio text is notable for its quality and consistency; scholars judge it to have been set into type from a theatrical prompt-book.[14] The source used by Shakespeare was Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Life of Brutus andLife of Caesar[15]
The play contains many anachronistic elements from the Elizabethan era. The characters mention objects such as hats and doublets (large, heavy jackets) – neither of which existed in ancient Rome. Caesar is mentioned to be wearing an Elizabethan doublet instead of a Roman toga. At one point a clock is heard to strike and Brutus notes it with "Count the clock".

Analysis and criticism[edit]

[icon]
This section requires expansion.(June 2008)

Historicism[edit]

Maria Wyke has written that the play reflects the general anxiety of Elizabethan England over succession of leadership. At the time of its creation and first performance, Queen Elizabeth, a strong ruler, was elderly and had refused to name a successor, leading to worries that a civil war similar to that of Rome might break out after her death.[16]

Protagonist debate[edit]

A late 19th century painting of Act IV, Scene iii: Brutus sees Caesar's ghost.
Critics of Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar differ greatly on their views of Caesar and Brutus. Many have debated whether Caesar or Brutus is the protagonist of the play, because of the title character's death in Act Three, Scene One. But Caesar compares himself to the Northern Star, and perhaps it would be foolish not to consider him as the axial character of the play, around whom the entire story turns. Intertwined in this debate is a smattering of philosophical and psychological ideologies on republicanism and monarchism. One author, Robert C. Reynolds, devotes attention to the names or epithets given to both Brutus and Caesar in his essay "Ironic Epithet in Julius Caesar". This author points out that Casca praises Brutus at face value, but then inadvertently compares him to a disreputable joke of a man by calling him an alchemist, "Oh, he sits high in all the people's hearts,/And that which would appear offence in us/ His countenance, like richest alchemy,/ Will change to virtue and to worthiness" (I.iii.158-60). Reynolds also talks about Caesar and his "Colossus" epithet, which he points out has its obvious connotations of power and manliness, but also lesser known connotations of an outward glorious front and inward chaos.[17] In that essay, the conclusion as to who is the hero or protagonist is ambiguous because of the conceit-like poetic quality of the epithets for Caesar and Brutus.
Myron Taylor, in his essay "Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and the Irony of History", compares the logic and philosophies of Caesar and Brutus. Caesar is deemed an intuitive philosopher who is always right when he goes with his instinct, for instance when he says he fears Cassius as a threat to him before he is killed, his intuition is correct. Brutus is portrayed as a man similar to Caesar, but whose passions lead him to the wrong reasoning, which he realises in the end when he says in V.v.50–51, "Caesar, now be still:/ I kill'd not thee with half so good a will".[18] This interpretation is flawed by the fact it relies on a very odd reading of "good a will" to mean "incorrect judgements" rather than the more intuitive "good intentions."
Joseph W. Houppert acknowledges that some critics have tried to cast Caesar as the protagonist, but that ultimately Brutus is the driving force in the play and is therefore the tragic hero. Brutus attempts to put the republic over his personal relationship with Caesar and kills him. Brutus makes the political mistakes that bring down the republic that his ancestors created. He acts on his passions, does not gather enough evidence to make reasonable decisions and is manipulated by Cassius and the other conspirators.[19]
Traditional readings of the play may maintain that Cassius and the other conspirators are motivated largely by envy and ambition, whereas Brutus is motivated by the demands of honor and patriotism. Certainly this is the view that Antony expresses in the final scene. But one of the central strengths of the play is that it resists categorising its characters as either simple heroes or villains. The political journalist and classicist Garry Wills maintains that "This play is distinctive because it has no villains".[20]
It is a drama famous for the difficulty of deciding which role to emphasise. The characters rotate around each other like the plates of a Calder mobile. Touch one and it affects the position of all the others. Raise one, another sinks. But they keep coming back into a precarious balance.[21]
Wills' contemporary interpretation leans more toward recognition of the conscious, sub-conscious nature of human actions and interactions. In this, the role of Cassius becomes paramount.

Performance history[edit]

The play was likely one of Shakespeare's first to be performed at the Globe Theatre.[22] Thomas Platter the Younger, aSwiss traveller, saw a tragedy about Julius Caesar at a Bankside theatre on 21 September 1599 and this was most likely Shakespeare's play, as there is no obvious alternative candidate. (While the story of Julius Caesar was dramatised repeatedly in the Elizabethan/Jacobean period, none of the other plays known are as good a match with Platter's description as Shakespeare's play.)[23]
After the theatres re-opened at the start of the Restoration era, the play was revived by Thomas Killigrew's King's Companyin 1672. Charles Hart initially played Brutus, as did Thomas Betterton in later productions. Julius Caesar was one of the very few Shakespearean plays that was not adapted during the Restoration period or the eighteenth century.[24]

Notable performances[edit]

John Wilkes Booth (left), Edwin Booth and Junius Brutus Booth, Jr.in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in 1864.
  • 1864: Junius, Jr., Edwin and John Wilkes Booth (later the assassin of U.S. presidentAbraham Lincoln) made the only appearance onstage together in a benefit performance of Julius Caesar on 25 November 1864, at the Winter Garden Theaterin New York City. Junius, Jr. played Cassius, Edwin played Brutus and John Wilkes played Mark Antony. This landmark production raised funds to erect a statue of Shakespeare in Central Park, which remains to this day. It is worth noting that John Wilkes had wanted to play Brutus but lost the role to his brother, who was a better actor. The play was declared the most astounding of performances with Edwin playing the star lead of Brutus. This enraged John to such ends that he swore to make his own name famous. He joined a secret organization and plotted to kill the president. And so he did, and after shooting Abraham Lincoln he jumped onto the stage and shouted the line "Sic semper tyrannis!" Latin phrase which translates to "thus always to tyrants" but is most commonly interpreted as "death to tyrants". The significance of the line is that "Sic semper tyrannis!" was the line Edwin Booth delivered as Brutus in his 1864 production of Julius Caesar.
  • May 29, 1916: A one-night performance in the natural bowl of Beachwood Canyon, Hollywood drew an audience of 40,000 and starred Tyrone Power, Sr. and Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. The student bodies of Hollywood and Fairfax High Schools played opposing armies, and the elaborate battle scenes were performed on a huge stage as well as the surrounding hillsides. The play commemorated the tercentenary of Shakespeare's death. A photograph of the elaborate stage and viewing stands can be seen on the Library of Congress website. The performance was lauded by L. Frank Baum.[25]
  • 1926: Another elaborate performance of the play was staged as a benefit for the Actors Fund of America at theHollywood Bowl. Caesar arrived for the Lupercal in a chariot drawn by four white horses. The stage was the size of a city block and dominated by a central tower eighty feet in height. The event was mainly aimed at creating work for unemployed actors. Three hundred gladiators appeared in an arena scene not featured in Shakespeare's play; a similar number of girls danced as Caesar's captives; a total of three thousand soldiers took part in the battle sequences.
Orson Welles as Brutus in theMercury Theatre's Caesar (1937–38)

Screen performances[edit]

Adaptations and cultural references[edit]

1963 production of Julius Caesar atThe Doon School, India.
One of the earliest cultural references to the play came in Shakespeare's ownHamlet. Prince Hamlet asks Polonius about his career as a thespian at university, Polonius replies "I did enact Julius Caesar. I was killed i' th' Capitol. Brutus killed me." This is a likely meta-reference, as Richard Burbage is generally accepted to have played leading men Brutus and Hamlet, and the older John Heminges to have played Caesar and Polonius.
The Canadian comedy duo Wayne and Shuster parodied Julius Caesar in their 1958 sketch Rinse the Blood off My Toga. Flavius Maximus, Private Roman Eye, is hired by Brutus to investigate the death of Caesar. The police procedural combines Shakespeare, Dragnet, and vaudeville jokes and was first broadcast on The Ed Sullivan Show.[34]
The 1960 film An Honourable Murder is a modern reworking of the play.
In 1973 the BBC made a television play Heil Caesar, written by John Griffith Bowen. This was an adaptation of the play put into a modern setting in an unnamed country, with references to recent events in a few countries. It was intended as an introduction to Shakespeare's play for schoolchildren, but it proved good enough to be shown on adult television, and a stage version was later produced.[35][36]
In 1984 the Riverside Shakespeare Company of New York City produced a modern dress Julius Caesar set in contemporary Washington, called simply CAESAR!, starring Harold Scott as Brutus, Herman Petras as Caesar, Marya Lowry as Portia, Robert Walsh as Antony, and Michael Cook as Cassius, directed by W. Stuart McDowell at The Shakespeare Center.[37]
In 2006, Chris Taylor from the Australian comedy team The Chaser wrote a comedy musical called Dead Caesar which was shown at the Sydney Theatre Company in Sydney.
The line "The Evil That Men Do", from the speech made by Mark Antony following Caesar's death ("The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.") has had many references in media, including the titles of ...
A politically oriented film directed by J. Lee Thompson in 1984
Shakespeare's use of this line may have been influenced by the Greek playwright Euripides (c. 480-406 BC), who wrote, "When good men die their goodness does not perish, but lives though they are gone. As for the bad, all that was theirs dies and is buried with them."[38]
The 2009 movie Me and Orson Welles, based on a book of the same name by Robert Kaplow, is a fictional story centred around Orson Welles' famous 1937 production of Julius Caesar at the Mercury Theatre. British actor Christian McKay is cast as Welles, and costars with Zac Efron and Claire Danes.
The 2012 Italian drama film Caesar Must Die (Italian: Cesare deve morire), directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, follows convicts in their rehearsals ahead of a prison performance of Julius Caesar.
In the Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451, some of the character Beatty's last words are "There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats, for I am armed so strong in honesty that they pass me as an idle wind, which I respect not!"
The play's line "the fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves", spoken by Cassius in Act I, scene 2, has entered popular culture. The line gave its name to the J.M. Barrie play Dear Brutus, and also gave its name to the bestselling young adult novel The Fault in Our Stars by John Green and its film adaptation. The same line was quoted inEdward R. Murrow's epilogue of his famous 1954 See It Now documentary broadcast concerning Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. This speech and the line were recreated in the 2005 film Good Night, and Good Luck. It was also quoted byGeorge Clooney's character in the Coen brothers film Intolerable Cruelty.
The line "And therefore think him as a serpent's egg/Which hatch'd, would, as his kind grow mischievous; And kill him in the shell." spoken by Brutus in Act II, scene 1, is referenced to in the Dead Kennedys song, "California Über Alles".

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Footnotes[edit]

Secondary sources[edit]

  • Boyce, Charles. 1990. Encyclopaedia of Shakespeare, New York, Roundtable Press.
  • Chambers, Edmund Kerchever. 1923. The Elizabethan Stage. 4 volumes, Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-811511-3.
  • Halliday, F. E. 1964. A Shakespeare Companion 1564–1964. Shakespeare Library ser. Baltimore, Penguin, 1969. ISBN 0-14-053011-8.
  • Houppert, Joseph W. "Fatal Logic in 'Julius Caesar'". South Atlantic Bulletin. Vol. 39, No.4. Nov. 1974. 3–9.
  • Kahn, Coppelia. "Passions of some difference": Friendship and Emulation in Julius Caesear. Julius Caesar: New Critical Essays. Horst Zander, ed. New York: Routledge, 2005. 271–283.
  • Parker, Barbara L. "The Whore of Babylon and Shakespeares's Julius Caesar." Studies in English Literature (Rice); Spring95, Vol. 35 Issue 2, p. 251, 19p.
  • Reynolds, Robert C. "Ironic Epithet in Julius Caesar". Shakespeare Quarterly. Vol. 24. No.3. 1973. 329–333.
  • Taylor, Myron. "Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and the Irony of History". Shakespeare Quarterly. Vol. 24, No. 3. 1973. 301–308.
  • Wells, Stanley and Michael Dobson, eds. 2001. The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare Oxford University Press

External links[edit]

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William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
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