M.K.M Summary

The Genre Approach (Chapter One)

-The genre approach: approaching literature through the study of its genres, therefore defining a type of literary work on the basis of its characteristic futures.

- Genre: the classification of literary works according to common elements of content, form or technique, like novels, poetry, plays, and short stories

Basic Genre Categories

a- Traditional genre categories (tragedy, comedy, epic, lyric, pastoral, satire)

b- Genre as a general kind of literary production (novel, fiction, poem- poetry, play-drama)

c- Sub-genre as a more specific kind of literary production (detective novel, gothic novel, Bildungsroman, ode, sonnet, dramatic monologue, social comedy, restoration play, naturalist drama)

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Q- What is the novel?

A fictitious prose narrative of considerable length, in which characters and actions representative of real life are portrayed in a plot of more or less complexity

Elements of the novel

- Fictitious: novels are fictions or fictitious, because they depict imaginary characters and actions.

- Prose: writing or speech in its normal continuous form: a form of language that is not poetry.

- Narrative: the process of telling, and it helps to distinguish novels from plays or drama, in which the action is directly presented rather than related.

- Length: novels must be longer than an anecdote or short story, and it can be immense.

- Characters: representing human beings in fiction, characters may be used to represent larger attitudes or beliefs, even to be symbolic, and characters can act as narrators or facilitators of the action.

- Action: action implies an agent, and without action, there would be no story or narrative, therefore actions are the events that, in the narrative, constitute the basic movement through time. - Representative of real life: the novel must present us with a recognizable world, a world that we can believe in.

- Plot: it is a series of connected events, which can be more or less complex.

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Realism and Romance (Kettle)

Q- Why did the novel arise at all?

Because it was the literary form that corresponded most closely to the needs and experience of the rising commercial class in England, who were the first revolutionary bourgeois writers.

-Realism: a style of writing that seeks to convey the impression of accurate recording of an actual way of life in a recognizable time and place, therefore representing contemporary life, society and attitudes.

The main differences between (Realism / Romance / Gothic)

Realism: a form of literature that deals with reality and realistic conventions driven from the individual human experience, it describes the social life and its relationships, depending in its structure on facts from real life (times and places), therefore it depicts ordinary characters (the hero or heroine is one of us) living in a natural world.

Romance: a form of literature that deals with fantasy and idealism with imaginary and unreal conventions, some times driven from sources such as mythology, history, legend or previous literature. It portrays an escape from reality with extra ordinary characters (the hero or heroine is larger than life) living in a super natural world.

Gothic: the word comes from gothic architecture or building styles from medieval Europe. The idea of gothic was used later to mean that a novel story has elements which create negative feelings of fear and anxiety, and this is done by introducing descriptions of an unfriendly atmosphere, and characters like ghosts or supernatural beings like half man have beast (unreal and beyond normal explanation)

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Realism and the novel form (Watt)

* The primacy of individual experience in the novel

The novel is a form of literature whose primary standard is truth to the individual experience, which is unique and always evolving, and the novelist's primary task is to convey the impression of honesty and fidelity to the human experience.

The characteristics of the novel (Watt)

A- Originality in the pursuit of truth to the individual experience through new and appropriate conventions and the use of non traditional plots: mythology, history, legend or previous literature.

B- The Plot must be acted by particular people in particular circumstances.

C- Proper names have exactly the same function in social life; they are the verbal expression of the particular identity of each individual person.

D- Individualized characters, the exploration of the personality and self-awareness.

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-Formal realism (Watt): a manner of representation according to which the novel is 'under the a obligation to satisfy its reader with such details of the story as the individuality of the actors concerned, the particulars of the times and places of their actions, details which are presented through a more largely referential use of language than is common in other literary forms'.

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Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (Chapter Two)

Q- What is the social background in pride & prejudice?

In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen showed that the structure of society was set according to property and wealth with an ultimate concern for marriage. The social-class (rank) of any individual at that time was determined according the ownership of land, estates, money and well-known connections, and throughout the novel, the writer shows the importance of marriage, describing the various types and reasons behind it.

Q- Discuss the opening statement of pride and prejudice?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

The opening sentence in Pride and Prejudice announces its theme marriage with all its social conventions, but with ironic tone.

- Irony: the expression of meaning in language, which normally expresses the opposite. In the novel, irony involves a more knowing view point, frequently that of the narrator shared with the reader, which is implicitly mocking the more literal or apparent meaning of words or a situation as understood by a character.

Narrative techniques

- Third-person narrator: a voice (writer) that speaks from outside the story, who refers to characters inside the story by name or by third person pronouns (he/she/they)

- First-person narrator: narration from the point of view of a character within the story, who refers to himself or herself in the first person as (I)

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Characterization

The techniques used by writers to reveal their characters by using techniques such as physical description, actions, dramatic dialogue, interaction with other characters or letters.

-Telling: the writer uses the narrator to tell what happens, describing the feelings and reactions of the characters.

-Showing: the writer uses a dramatic presentation, in which the reader seems to see and hear the characters act and speak for themselves

Characters (flat and round)

-Mrs. Bennet: she never changes throughout the novel. She represents a type of person, who only has one interest in life – marriage of her young daughters.

-Elizabeth Bennet: she undergoes many changes in the novel, as she experiences and discovers her mistakes through her interaction with others.

The theme of marriage in pride and prejudice

Jane Austen represents marriage positively as the ultimate goal and fulfillment of a woman's life, but in various types and for different reasons, and as some scholars' state that most of her writings represent the attitude of a Conservative Christian moralist

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Related Definitions (1)

- Cultural stereotype: unquestioned beliefs or ideas conveyed from society or parents, which can become meaningless with time.

- Feminist: the fight or argument for equal rights for women

- Dialogic: it describes a narrative in which multiple voices, perspectives or discourses are present, engage and interact with each other

- Dialogue: speech between two or more characters in a narrative

Free indirect speech: speech that is presented, rather than directly related, extremely flexible from of prose discourse, between indirect narrative commentary and direct speech, giving the impression of combining the two. Examples

Direct speech: He said 'I love her'Indirect speech: He said that he loved herFree indirect speech: He loved her

-Narrator: the speaking voice of a narrative, the voice and perspective through which a narrative is told, a character in work. -Focalization: a technique in writing of drawing on and playing with the distinction between 'who speaks' and 'who sees', in the novel, the narrator's voice who speaks but the reader sees through the eyes of the character 'focalizer'

- Omniscient: it describes a third-person point of view that allows an author to convey external details, description and information while also enabling the revelation of characters internal thoughts, emotions and motivations.

- Style: the characteristic way in which a writer organizes and expresses his or herself in writing; the combination of literary devices that a writer uses to communicate themes and narrative content

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Jane Austen and the war of ideas (Butler)

* In the war of ideas, Butler states that Jane Austen as a novelist is a conservative Christian moralist.

* Key points in supporting Butler's opinion

-Mutual illumination: in the confrontation between the two central characters in pride and prejudice (Elizabeth & Darcy), each discovers the other to be worthy of respect (Self-discovery), therefore the very admission of the value of an opponent forces Elizabeth and Darcy to be more humble about themselves.

-Moral education: Jane Austen's hero and heroine illustrate a view of human nature that derives from orthodox Christian pessimism, not from progressive optimism. The theme of moral education of Elizabeth and Darcy rebukes the contemporary doctrine of faith in the individual.

-First Impressions: a clue to the conservatism of the novel lies in the original title 'First Impressions', Jane Austen mocks the convention of love at first sight, and in doing so, expresses conservative scepticism about the truth of man's spontaneous feelings.

- Marriage: in a conservative novel such as pride and prejudice, the marriage of Elizabeth and Darcy is the fulfillment of a personal moral quest.

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The English Novel (Williams)

The major changes in the English community were the result of many elements such as the industrial revolution, the struggle for democracy, the growth in cities and towns, and these changes created the crises of a knowable community, especially in the altered and critical relations between and within social classes.

The expansion of reading was the result of the new methods of binding and printing, the increase in reading newspapers and magazines, and new cheep libraries. Writers needed new sources for writing, and they needed to satisfy the new demands of intellectual readers in the changing society.

Summary of Williams's argument

The crises of society, the expansion of reading and the new needs of the evolutionary bourgeois writers for new sources contributed in the rise of the novel to reflect real life, the changing society and its new relationships.

The novel and society (Chapter Four)

* The emergence of the realist novel in terms of social change:

Watt argues that the realist conventions of the novel coincided with the needs and interests of a society or a particular social class that was becoming more rational, secular and individualistic in its outlook.

Kettle supports the opinion that romance gives way to realism at precisely that point when feudalism is being supplanted by capitalism; therefore, the evolution of the novel did not take place in an isolated artistic environment but is deeply affected by the shift and stress of the changing social order.

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The views of Leavis (The Great Tradition)

A- Leavis considers the history of the novel in terms of continuity, the novel as a literary genre reaches its maturity through a process of steady, organic growth, from Austen to T.S Eliot to Henry James.

B- The idea of tradition that Leavis proposes is based on T.S Eliot definition, a writers relation to tradition is a creative one, in the sense that each gathers up the potentialities of the past and transforms these, in some original way, for the benefit of those who follow.

Leavis, the standards that represent and uphold the novel tradition or (the laws of membership that regulate the great tradition):

- Novelists must demonstrate a degree of technical originality and sophistication.- Novelists are significant in terms of the human awareness they promote, awareness of the possibilities of life.

C- Leavis is narrowly selective in creating a league table of first division novelists in terms of 'greatness' and this distinction between 'major' and 'minor' novelists is made too easily and too assuredly.

D- Leavis unfairly relegates Defoe, Fielding and Richardson of being mere progenitors of the novel largely because of their early appearance in the evolutionary history of the genre; on the other hand he didn't grant more than a secondary order of significance to the novels of Dickens.

E- Leavis values novels that reveal a serious interest in life.

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The views of Williams (The English Novel)

A- Williams avoids using the word tradition and refers instead to a new generation of writers emerging from this social change.

B- Williams does not consider the novels as products of society, but he believes that novels have an active role and value in 'defining the society, rather than merely reflecting it'.

C- Williams concentrates on the novels involvement with one central issue, the exploration of community; the substance and meaning of community.

D- Williams believes that some of the most significant creative developments in the form and structure of the English novel arose from the writer's need to speck convincingly from within a known community.

E- Williams insists that the development of the English novel depended partly on the recognition of other kinds of people (different social classes) and other kinds of country (urban as well as rural), and on the recognition that social and economic relationships were often determining elements of conduct.

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The Differences between the views of Leavis and Williams

1 - Williams shows more interest than Leavis in the changing social context in which novels are written and read.

2 - Leavis clearly values novels that reveal a serious interest in life, but Williams concentrates on the novels involvement with one central issue, the exploration of community.

3 - Leavis sees technical sophistication as a necessary corollary to moral seriousness, but Williams sees stylistic experiment accompanying social change 'merely sociological'.

4 - Opposite to Leavis; Williams firmly believes that the meanings and experiences of nineteenth-century fiction connect in a profound and valuable way with our social problems and dilemmas in the later twentieth century.

Women and the novel

Q- Why did women in the 18th and 19th centuries turned to the novel rather than other literary forms like poetry and drama?

1- For the middle class women during the 18th and 19th century, it was the growing wealth and status that provided the women in the family with time for reading.

2- The increasing concern with the proper nature of womanly behavior, together with the insistence that women were especially suited to preside over the domestic sphere, gave prestige to the novel as the form most able to examine and presents these themes.

3- novel writing was one of the few paying occupations that could be pursued in their own homes.

4- For women, the novel form was flexible and not guarded by the need for classical education like poetry.

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- Canonical male texts: the pervasive misrepresentation of women characters within the novel tradition.

Stereotypical images or women in canonical male texts (Morris)

A- Good women in literature are almost invariable docile, beautiful and chaste, and the plot towards them with marriage and domestic happiness.

B- Bad women are those who are aggressive, ambitious and undomesticated and their usual fate within the plot is unhappiness, loss of hop, madness, despair and even death.

Stereotypical images or women characters in Great Expectations

Good women

* Biddy: a kind, sweet and intelligent girl, at the end of the novel she marries Joe Gargery.

Bad women

* Miss Havisham: a strange old lady, she's very wealthy, but a very cold hearted and desperate women.

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Great expectations by Charles Dickens (Chapter Five)

* The novel is about the moral growth of a single character. Pip's self-delusion and vain attempts to become a gentleman with neither the hard work nor the aristocratic source of income required for such a role.

* Narrative techniques: Dickens used the first-person narrative, but it involves an adult narrator looking back over a considerable time and so able to exercise adult judgments about him-self.

* The opening of Great Expectations: it demonstrates a novel that employs melodramatic and gothic techniques while maintaining its quality as a first-person narrative.

Q-What is the literary tradition in Great Expectations?

It involves a tradition of first person autobiographical narrative fiction, which is some times given the label Bildungsroman or apprenticeship novel.

- Bildungsroman: a sub-genre, a novel about the early years of somebody's life in the quest-for-self, exploring the development of his \ her character and personality, it includes ambition, looking for fortunes, new vision of life, education and so on.

The theme of career or profession

In the development of the novel, pip tries to become a gentleman, but the lack of hard work and aristocratic source of income prevents him from doing so, and during these attempts, a secret patron gives Pip a large sum of money; so he thinks that the patron is Miss Havisham, but later on he discovers that the real patron is Magwitch (the convict that he helped in the beginning of the novel), and from this turning point, Pip is a changed person and he takes on a new career as hard working trader in the east.

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Q- Identify the basic plot twists in Great Expectations for Pip?

One: it deals with Pip's Childhood in Kent and the dissatisfactions set up by Satis House.

Two it deals with his life as a young 'gentleman' in and around little Britain in London.

Three: it deals with the arrival of the convict, and Pip's attempts to save him, to forgive Miss Havisham and to be forgiven by Joe.

According to Dorothy Van Ghent

-Two kinds of crimes from dickens (two main themes)

1- The crime of parent against child: the crime against the child is Mrs. Joe's and Pumblechook's and Wopsle's all foster parents either by necessity or self-conceit.

2- The calculated social crime: the public treatment of Magwitch.

* Both of the themes are analogues, they involve treating persons as things, the crime of dehumanization.

Q- How does Dickens depart from the conventions of characterization and plot familiar from other novelists?

Van Ghent clams that Dickens's writing is characterized by general principal of reciprocal changes, by which things have become as it were demonically animated and people have been reduced to things-like characteristics.

* Leavis argument depends on the legitimacy of Dickens's mixed kind of writing, in particular his use of melodrama.

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Culture and Imperialism (Said)

- Said: very few of the British or French artists took issue with the notion of subject of inferior races, and in thinking about some writers such as Dickens and others, critics have often relegated the ideas of writer's about colonial expansion, inferior races or niggers to a different department from that of culture.

-Why did Said analyse novels & books of the colonial period?

1- He considers those novels and books estimable and admirable works of art and learning for the pleasure of reading and profit.

2- The challenge to connect those novels and books with the imperial process of which they were manifestly and unconcealedly a part; rather than condemning or ignoring their participation in what was an unquestioned reality in their societies.

* Key Point in Said argument:

Western writers until the middle of the twentieth century, whether Dickens and Austen, Flaubert or Gamus, wrote with an exclusively western audience in mind, even when they wrote of characters, places or situations that referred, made use of, overseas territories held by Europeans.

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Can realist novels survive? (Chapter Seven)

- The Traditional clam of the realist novel: to tell a tale not told before, using techniques that involve readers closely with the individual in a specific society, towards the ultimate objective of extending their sympathies and understanding (Allen & Walder).

* A new approach to realism as a concept in all the art forms such as novels, painting, music, television (a private or domestic medium like soap-opera) and cinema.

Towards a methodology for the study of the novel (Bakhtin)

-The Prerequisites (requirements) for the novel Bakhtin

(1) The novel should not be poetic

(2) The hero of a novel should not be heroic in either the epic or the tragic sense of the word.

(3) The hero should not be portrayed as an already completed and unchanging person but as one who learns from life.

(4) The novel should become for the contemporary world what the epic was for the ancient world.

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The Idea of the Canon (Chapter One)

Canon: the term 'the canon', at a very basic level refers to the set of authors and literary texts that has been passed down from age to age, generation to generation, with a stamp of approval – with reputation for being great.

- (Straightforward definition): those works of literature that are considered especially worth studying.

- (Dictionary definition): a body of sacred writings, accepted as inspired, which the Christian church authorizes as the principal guide to faith and morals.

- (Author's canon): it is composed of those works held to be by the author, as distinct from those spuriously or merely conjecturally attributed to him.

Scripture & Literature (defining canonicity)

* The differences between scripture and literature

A- The authors of the scripture are anonymous (divinely inspired), but the authors of literature are identifiable people (geniuses)

B- The classification of certain works as 'divine' is authorized by the church, whereas with literature it is less easy to identify who decides authors and texts are worthy if inclusion in the literary canon.

* The Similarities between scripture and literature

A- The scripture are texts that can be studied as stories, as sets of narratives including mythic characters and events.

B- The scripture are texts that have been tremendously influential in the development of literature itself, all of them were used as models for the styles, characters and values of literary texts that followed.

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Q- Why do critics consider Shakespeare as a canonical writer?

One of the most basic reasons is Shakespeare's Englishness 'he was born in England; therefore he became a writer that dealt with English themes such as society, history or attitudes. Another reason is his long-standing status as 'the Bard of Avon'. Shakespeare in his image and contributions to the development of the poetic and dramatic form; enshrines the ultimate figure of the great writer, as a symbol to the English countryside, theatre, social customs and entertainment.

- Bardolatry: cultural worship of a writer who embodies the genius and values of a nation

Q- Why do critics consider Shakespeare plays as canonical?

1- They are Shakespeare's writings (Englishness and Bardolatry)2- Their endless process of interpretation and reinterpretation 3- Their new production ways by theatre directors 4- They are English texts dealing with English themes5- Some of them deal with many historical events………………………………………………………………………..

- Drama: it is the form of literature written for performance and - along with poetry and prose fiction - is one of the three major genres.

- Theater: it is the forum where plays are performed; it includes the physical space (the stage), the area reserved for the audience, and the backstage area. It can also refer to drama and to the study of drama.

- Performance: the new entity that is created when the words of the play text are directed, acted, interpreted in three dimensions on stage, or for audio productions.

Shakespeare: Theatre Poet (Chapter Two) * The language used by Shakespeare is different from the written or spoken English language nowadays, because most of the words that Shakespeare used have fallen out of use completely.

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Introduction to Tragedy

Tragedy: a literary form, a story that creates feelings of fear and pity towards the main hero or heroine of the story, and it ends naturally with the death of the main character or characters.

* The definition of tragedy by the Greek philosopher AristotleTragedy: it is an imitation of some action that is important, entire, and of a proper magnitude, embellished by language, effecting through pity and terror the purgation of those emotions.

The conventions or features of a classical tragedy

1- Exceptional hero character (the hero is larger than life) the story deals with a person of high estate, like Caesar and Othello.

2- The hero has a tragic flaw in his character (Hamartia), Caesar was too ambitious and overweening pride (Hubris), and Othello suffered from the lack of judgment.

3- The plot towards the hero will feature one or more surprising reversal or change of fortune (Peripeteia), for example, Caesar was killed and Othello committed suicide.

4- In the end, a final recognition of some gravely unwelcome truth (Agnorisis) for example, Caesar discovered Brutus betrayal too late, and Othello discovered Lago conspiracy and regretted his lack of judgment, but after killing his wife Desdemona.

Hamartia: a fatal flaw or error of judgmentHubris: an overweening pridePeripeteia: a surprising reversal or change of fortuneAgnorisis: a final recognition of some gravely unwelcome truth

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Othello (Chapter Four)

The opening scene in the Play

The introduction of the main characters The introduction of the main themeSetting tone of the playCreating suspense

Lago's Character

Lago is a Machiavellian figure, a dishonest man that manipulated other people, in his appearance he acts as Othello's friend and loyal soldier, but in reality, he hates Othello for many reasons such as choosing Cassio as a first lieutenant instead of him.

Using the word honest or honesty in the play

Lago used the word many times in the play to give the impression of a good moral character with virtue and truth, but Othello used the word into different situations. The first was the same as Lago, and the second was to mean faithful, for example, when Othello said 'I do not think but Desdemona's honest'.

The handkerchief

It has many symbolic meanings to many different scholars, but the most important one of all, is that even a small thing such as the handkerchief can have tremendous significance. Lago used the handkerchief as evidence to persuade Othello about Desdemona's betrayal.Main Themes in the play

Racism: race issue is one of the main themes in the play, and that is obvious in the following points, Roderigo refers to Othello many times in the play as thick lips. Lago describes the marriage of Othello and Desdemona as a mating of two animals, describing Othello as a 'black ram', 'Barbary horse' and as the devil. Gender: in the play, Shakespeare reveals many facts about the status of women especially married women and that is clear in Emilia's speech about women being mere sport and pleasure in the life of their husbands!

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In this statement, Shakespeare reflected the status of women in the contemporary English community at that time.Language: Shakespeare showed that Lago manipulated most of the main characters in the play, through his command over language, hints and slander.

Appearance and Reality: Shakespeare employs these two themes in the character of Lago, who acted in appearance as the friend and advisor of Othello, Roderigo and Cassio, but in reality, he was acting in his best interest, and that is to destroy Othello.

Important definitions from the book of approaching plays

- Soliloquy: it is a speech, usually quite lengthy, delivered by a character that is alone onstage, therefore giving direct access to that character's thoughts and feelings, divulging their intentions and reactions to events and to other people, and thus making that character more intimately known to the audience. Example (Othello and Lago / approaching plays p29-30)

- Stichomythia: a stylistic or alternate dialogue between two characters - Oratory: the art of public speaking

- Rhetoric: the art of using language, spoken or written for persuasion

- Rhetorical: rules and figures of speech that were formulated by classical writers.

- Climax: the moment of crisis leading to the dénouement or resolution

- Dénouement: the unrevealing of the complications of the plot at the end of a play - Apostrophe: a rhetorical convention in which the speaker either addresses a dead or absent person, or an intimate object or abstraction

- Aside: a short speech spoken sotto voce to the audience or another character on stage, with the presumption that other characters cannot hear what they are saying

- Chorus: a group of male singers and dancers who took part in and commented on the action of the play, providing a summary and a narrative link

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- Naturalism: naturalist drama of the nineteenth century emphasizes the roles of society, history and personality in determining the activities of its characters.Julius Caesar (Chapter Five)

Q- Why is the play of Julius Caesar part of the canon?

1- It is one of Shakespeare writings (Englishness and Bardolatry)2- The universal issue of the play3- The historical event portrayed by the play

The sources for Julius Caesar

Shakespeare took the information of the story from an English translation made in 1579 by Sir Thomas North of a collection of biographies by Plutarch, a Greek scholar and writer.

The social Background in which Shakespeare wrote this play

Shakespeare wrote the play of Julius Caesar in a disturbing political and social time in England, therefore the play might have two interpretations:

The first: It was to worn Queen Elizabeth from becoming as the Roman leader 'Julius Caesar', therefore saying what have happened in Rom, might happen in England. This interpretation can rely on the resemblance between Caesar and Elizabeth.

Queen Elizabeth: she had been on the throne for forty years, unmarried, childless, and she was becoming increasingly autocratic and despotic.

Julius Caesar: he was aging, superstitious, childless, despot and was introduced by Shakespeare as tyrant and too ambitious.

The second: it was to worn the English people from civil war, just like what happened in Rom after the assassination of Caesar. The Renaissance view of the Roman world

When European scholars and men of letters rediscovered the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, it affected England more than the rest of Europe. It promoted political ideas and questions about governments, what is the best form of government? If a ruler harmed his subjects, what those subjects should do? It promoted the idea of a republic.

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Q- Why is Julius Caesar a two-part tragedy?

- It deals with two parts of tragedy

Part one represented by Julius Caesar, whose tragic flaw was being too ambitious, therefore he was assassinated

Part two represented by the death of the conspirators especially Brutus, in the case of Brutus, his tragic flaw was the lack of judgment; therefore, at the end of the play he dies.

Q- Why do you think the play is called Julius Caesar?

- The name 'Julius Caesar' might have seemed to Shakespeare to have more box-office appeal than the name of Brutus.

- The play did not record just Caesar's death, but his revenge - foretold and overseen by his ghost.

The opening scene in the Play

1- The importance of the ordinary people in shifting the balance of political power2- The idea of ingratitude or disloyalty3- The reality of self-serving under a mask of political idealism4- In the emphasis on Caesar's defeat of Pompey's sons, the suggestion that revenge may become an important theme of the play.

The Private and Public worlds

- Public scenes show big assemblies of characters on stage- Private scenes show the inside life of public figures

Example:

The grand entry of Caesar's entourage, on its way to watch the race run trough Rome at the festival ( public scene) , after the games, Brutus and Cassius talk about Caesar in a conspiratorial way (private scene).

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* Soliloquies give audience a direct line into the true feelings of a speaker, because it is a private scene, such as the soliloquy of Cassius in act one scene 2.

Compare and contrast the two orations made by Brutus and Antony after the assassinations of Julius Caesar?

A- Antony used a number of dramatic pauses in his oration, and although Brutus spoke, first about the killing of Caesar as in the best interest of Rome, but the scene was dominated by Antony's speeches over the physical body of Caesar.

B- Brutus spoke in prose and Antony spoke in verse, therefore his speech was less directed at the hearts than at the heads of the listeners.

C- Brutus addressed his audience of ordinary people as if they were a jury in a court of law, therefore the speech was directed to the heads of the people not their hearts, but Antony addressed their hearts and heads, because he know how to trigger the emotions and self-interest of the mob. Q- What is Brutus tragedy?

It is the fact that Brutus failed to achieve the ultimate goal for which he committed the ultimate crime. He agreed to the killing of Caesar in order that Rome could become a republic again and avoid falling into tyrannical subjection under a king, but after the killing of all conspirators, Octavius declares that he is the man who will succeed Caesar.

Major themes in the play

Exaggerated ambition and pride can be fatal Misused power is a corruptive force The negative consequences of conspiracy and revenge The values of loyalty, honor and friendship The political order

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