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REVIEW
- Brower, Reuben A. "The Discovery of Plutarch:
- Julius Caesar." Hero & Saint: Shakespeare and The Graeco-Roman Heroic
Tradition. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1971. 204-38.
Thesis: Brower's central concern is Shakespeare's presentation
of heroes, and his central idea about Julius Caesar is that
"In the Renaissance rendering of Plutarch's Lives by Amyot,
'Englished' by the transforming genius of North, Shakespeare found a
version of the ancient heroic in language so familiar that he could
in his turn transform it, adapting it to his uses as a growing writer
of tragic drama" (205).
Plutarch (especially as Shakespeare knew him) most favored Pericles:
In the final blend of North-Amyot-Plutarch, Pericles has become the
complete hero-prince, great in martial conquests and political
skills, nobler still by virtue of 'overcoming himselfe', gentle in
manners, and merciful to his enemies. The Plutarchan ideal of a
ruler who has reached the harmony within necessary for achieving
harmony with his people has been qualified by Virgilian and Christian
tenderness. In one man, and perhaps only one in the ancient world,
'personal' and 'political' values were in perfect balance. (211)
Plutarch's ideals, says Brower, constitute the basis upon which
Shakespeare built the character of Brutus; also, in exploring the
balance of personal and political values within Brutus, Shakespeare
started on the path to the "drama of the mind" (237) which appears in
his greatest tragedy.
In the course of making his general argument, Brower touches on many
associated subjects. Of particular interest is his section on the
speech patterns of the characters:
"Julius Caesar" is the most purely oratorical of the
tragedies. Dramatic speech is nearly always public speech, and
distinctly persuasive. The most private soliloquies are public and
impersonal in tone when compared with similar speeches in
Hamlet and Macbeth. There is also a marked tendency for
characters to use the third person of themselves or of other
characters they are addressing, and a not unrelated fondness for
rhetorical questions and apostrophes, for personification and the use
of semi-allegorical abstractions to describe outer and inner
action. (217)
Brower believes that these stylistic characteristics were inspired by
the focus on public and political life that Shakespeare found in
North's Plutarch.
Bottom Line: Very informative.
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