Blooms Literary Themes - THE HEROS ... - ymerleksi - home

100William ShakespeareAs Solzhenitsyn’s statement brilliantly articulates, political poweris fraught with self-justifications that endorse a kind of “end justifiesthe means” principle. For example, in his attempt to vindicate his rolein the conspiracy at Caesar’s funeral, Brutus tells the Roman plebeiansthat he stabbed Caesar because Caesar’s ambition was growing toodangerous for the security of Roman liberty. As Brutus so eloquentlysays to his audience: “Not that I lov’d Caesar less, but that I lov’dRome more” (3.2. 21–22). For Brutus, the specific political agendathat allows him to stab his good friend without pangs of conscience isthe ideology of the Roman Republic, a senatorial form of governmentopposed to the concept of tyranny (or, in the case of Caesar, demagogueswho might turn into tyrants). Although an avid supporterof republicanism, Brutus refuses to get his hands dirty when facedwith the unethical considerations that political survival require. In hispersonal crusade for justice, Brutus neglects Cassius’s shrewd advicethat Mark Antony must be killed with Caesar, just as he mistakenlyallows Antony to speak after him at Caesar’s funeral, a costly mistakethat triggers a civil war in Rome, one that ultimately destroys the veryform of government that Brutus sought so hard to preserve. The factthat Brutus’s political career will be cut short by his moral refusal toexecute Mark Antony when he has the chance is an irony that Shakespeareexplores in the last half of the play.The second stage of Julius Caesar begins with Mark Antony’sfuneral oration of Caesar. Shakespeare shifts the attention of theplay from Brutus and the conspirators to the explosive power ofthe Roman mob. It is in Mark Antony’s famous “Friends, Romans,countrymen” speech (3.2. 82–266) that Shakespeare most fullyexplores the tragic dimensions of political power, a world whererhetoric, not sincerity, proves to be the galvanizing force that motivates(and activates) the Roman people. Antony deceives his audience,for example, into believing that Caesar has left every Romancitizen seventy-five drachmas. Furthermore Antony lies about hisown skills as an orator, claiming that he has not the “power of speechto stir men’s blood,” whereas in reality he is the supreme sophist ofRome. Antony’s rhetorical power to incite a mass insurrection atCaesar’s funeral represents what Allan Bloom has referred to as thetheme of Shakespeare’s Roman plays, that “the corruption of thepeople is the key to the mastery of Rome” (83). Commenting on