"Cliff Notes - Julius Caesar" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

troops overcome Cassius'. Cassius, retreating to a nearby hill,
sends his trusted friend Titinius to find out whether
approaching troops are friends or foes. Is Titinius captured?
It appears so; and Cassius, believing he has sent his good
friend to his death and that the battle is lost, takes his
life.

If only Cassius hadn't acted so rashly he might have saved his
life, for the reports turn out to be false and Titinius still
lives. Brutus, not the enemy, arrives, and mourns the death of
his friend.

The tide now turns against Brutus. Sensing defeat, and
unwilling to endure the dishonor of capture, he runs on his
sword and dies. Like Caesar and Cassius, he thinks in his final
moments not of power or personal glory, but of friendship.

Antony delivers a eulogy over Brutus' body, calling him "the
noblest Roman of them all." Octavius agrees to take all of
Brutus' men into his service, a gesture of reconciliation that
bodes well for the future.

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JULIUS CAESAR: JULIUS CAESAR

In order to discuss Shakespeare's play intelligently you have to
make up your mind about (1) Caesar's character, and (2) Caesar's
threat to the Roman Republic. Either Caesar deserves to be
assassinated, or he doesn't. On your answer hangs the meaning
of the play.

On one hand, Caesar is a tyrant whose ambition poses a real
danger to the Republic. In that case, the hero of the play is
Brutus. On the other hand, Caesar may be vain and arrogant, but
he is the only ruler strong enough to hold the Roman Republic
together, and a flawed ruler is better than none at all. In
that case, Brutus becomes an impractical idealist who is
manipulated by a group of scheming politicians.

Whatever your position, there's no doubt that Shakespeare wants
to show us the private side of a public man, and to remind us
that our heroes are, like the rest of us, only human. In
public, Caesar is worshipped like a god; in private, he is
superstitious, deaf, and subject to fits of epilepsy (falling
sickness). Caesar's public image is like a mask he wears to
hide his weaknesses from others and from himself. Yet at the
moment of death his mask slips, and we see another Caesar who
values friendship above all.

Let's look at Caesar in three different ways.