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REVIEW
- Foakes, R.A. "An Approach to Julius Caesar."
- Shakespeare Quarterly. 5 (1954). 259-70.
Thesis: The last (and best) paragraph of Foakes' essay neatly
sums up the whole thing:
This study of the dramatic purposes for which language and imagery
are used in Julius Caesar suggests solutions for the problems
both of style and diction and of the nature and unity of the play.
The imagery of words and action points to the imaginative and
dramatic unity of the play as consisting in the completion of the
circle of events bginning and ending the rebellion. The action of the
play turns on the distance between the ideals and public symbols for
which the names of Caesar, Brutus, and Cassius, stand, and their true
nature and actions. The three main figures are all noble and yet
weak; none has the stature of hero or villain. Brutus and Cassius
kill the man Caesar and not his spirit, not what he stands for, what
they aim to destroy; it is a treacherous and dishonorable act which
brings disorder, loss of the liberty they had sought, and finally
civil war. All they had hoped to gain they lose, until they have
nothing left but their names, and the opportunity to die bravely, to
find freedom in suicide . . . . Only by their
deaths do they set at rest the spirit, the name of Caesar which they
had sought to destroy. Their personal action is completed in this
way, a tale of frustration and disorder which spreads outwards to
involve the mob, the whole nation in civil destruction. All is the
result of a self-deception, an obsession with names and an ignorance
of reality, that could lead Brutus to think he was acting honorably
in slaying his "best lover" (III.ii.49), and Cassius to think the
death of one man would bring freedom. (269-70)
In support of his points, Foakes discusses various motifs, including
portents, names, sickness, and blood.
Evaluation: This solid work, but sometimes it seems that
Foakes is a bit too determined to force everything to fit his thesis.
Bottom Line: Informative but dull.
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