Language and Narration

The Theme in the Work

In Act I, Scene 2, the gravest event of the day, the crown offered and refused, reaches us through Casca's voice, who takes the ritual apart: the crowd applauds like an audience of actors, and Cicero speaks Greek, which Casca does not understand. The decisive point, whether Caesar wants the crown, is left unanswered, because the one who tells the story already has his contempt ready.

In Act II, Scene 1, Brutus decides Caesar's death through an image he himself chooses, the serpent's egg, and asks the conspirators to hide the plan in their faces like Roman actors. In Act II, Scene 2, Decius's flattery defeats the warnings from heaven: he changes the meaning of Calpurnia's dream, adds the offer of the crown and the threat of the senators' laughter, and the phrase about fear overturns what the dream and the augurs could not.

In Act III, Scene 2, in the Forum, Brutus and Antony use language in opposite ways. Brutus speaks in prose, asks to be believed on his honor, and offers an argument: he loved Caesar, but loved Rome more. Antony speaks in verse, says he is no orator, repeats that Brutus is an honorable man until the formula becomes irony, and swaps the argument for things the people see and gain: the torn cloak, the wounds, the will.

In Act III, Scene 3, the poet Cinna is surrounded by exalted citizens and, even while shouting that he is the poet, is attacked by name and for his bad verses.

In every scene where something is decided, whoever tells the story decides: Casca with contempt, Brutus with an image, Decius with flattery, Antony with verse. The meaning of the crime depends on who recounts it afterward, and the poet's scene shows the final face of this, a mob dragging a man along, shouting that he be torn apart, because of a name.

Where It Appears

• Act I, Scene 2: Casca tells that Antony offered the crown three times and Caesar refused it three times, but says he paid no attention and that it was all nonsense, and still thinks Caesar wanted it.
• Act II, Scene 1: Brutus justifies Caesar's death with the image of a serpent's egg, which, once hatched, would become harmful and must therefore be killed in the shell.
• Act II, Scene 2: Decius reinterprets Calpurnia's dream as a good omen, adds the Senate's offer of a crown and the threat of the senators' laughter, and Caesar welcomes the conspirators who have come to fetch him.
• Act III, Scene 2: In the Forum, Brutus speaks in prose and says he loved Caesar but loved Rome more, while Antony speaks in verse, shows the torn cloak, and reveals the will.
• Act III, Scene 3: The mob takes the poet Cinna for the conspirator of the same name and, even when he shouts that he is the poet, attacks him by name and for his bad verses.

Passages

Brutus chooses the image that decides the crime:

Antony opens the speech that turns the crowd:

The mob condemns a man by his name: