Julius Caesar- Mark Antony speech - Analysis

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Shakespeare                                                                          Candidate Number: AN626

1. Choose one speech you have studied in depth this semester.

a. Explain what is being argued in the speech, paying detailed attention to the ways in which the argument is made, and the language used.

b. What effect does this speech have upon the development of the play as a whole?

Julius Caesar- Mark Antony speech

    Mark Antony’s funeral oration over the body of Julius Caesar in act three, scene

two is the most important speech in the play and effects the development of the play

as a whole in many ways. Firstly this speech falls in the play where we have seen

Antony’s distraught reaction to the murder of Caesar and his letter vowing allegiance

to Brutus in return for being able to live. Act three, scene one prepares us for

Antony’s rhetoric as here he states that ‘Brutus is noble, wise, valiant and honest’

which fits in with him repeatedly stating ‘Brutus is an honourable man’. It becomes

evident in this scene that Antony has an ulterior motive for forming this allegiance

and asking to do the funeral oration when he is ‘swayed from the point by looking

down on Caesar’ and then states that ‘friends am I with you all, and love you all’ but

still wants to know ‘why and wherein Caesar was dangerous’. Thus we the audience

are aware that Antony is not being honest with the conspirators especially when he

speaks in a soliloquy of the anarchy he will create when he states ‘blood and

destruction shall be so in use…that mothers shall but smile when they behold/ Their

infants quartered with the hands of war’. This shows the extent of the anarchy he will

unleash on Rome.

 

   Furthermore Antony’s funeral oration is important as it follows Brutus’s speech in

the play, where he has turned public opinion around to favour him, as he has been

able to persuade and convince the crowds, through his rhetoric and oratory that Caesar

‘had’ to die and demonstrates his power to use words effectively. This is apparent in

the reactions of the crowds as they now believe ‘this Caesar was a tyrant’. Hence

Brutus has been successful. And so Antony’s speech now becomes a reaction to that

of Brutus’s, as he no longer speaks for the people of Rome by supporting Caesar but

must now turn public opinion around to revenge Caesar’s murder. He is able to do this

effectively in this speech. This is why Julius Caesar pivots on act three, scene two as

the oration and rhetoric that the play focuses so much on, predominantly occurs in this

scene.

    Antony’s oration is the most powerful speech in the play as in this speech he is able

to manipulate and turn opinion around, have the last word and evoke emotion and

action, that being mutiny. Antony speaks in verse, as opposed to Brutus who spoke in

prose, thus it can be inferred that Antony’s speech was meant to sound different to

that of Brutus’s.

    In this part of the speech he begins by addressing the crowd by stating ‘Friends,

Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears. / I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him’.

Firstly he addresses the crowds as Brutus did to get their attention. When he states ‘I

come to bury Caesar, not to praise him’, it is evidently a reaction to the shift in public

opinion as the crowds now support Brutus and Antony is able to acknowledge that the

crowds will not listen to a man praising Caesar. However, ironically Antony is able to

manipulate the crowds to the extent where he is able to do what he said he came not to

do, which is to praise him. Thus showing Antony’s oratorical power and the

significance of the speech.

        In this speech Antony answers Brutus’s charge that Caesar was an ambitious

man, and argues that he was not. Antony states ‘the noble Brutus/ Hath told you

Caesar was ambitious/ If it were so, it was a grievous fault…’ Antony makes a point

of calling Brutus ‘noble’, this is the beginning of Antony repeatedly calling Brutus

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and the conspirators ‘honourable’ and noble, that by the end, it has become so

sarcastic that no one believes it. Also by calling him noble, he is able to keep the

crowds onside so that they will continue to listen to him. Moreover by stating that it is

Brutus who ‘hath told you Caesar was ambitious. If it were so…’ he emphasises that

it is not he who believes this. Also as he says ‘if it were so’ he emphasises that it

might not be true as it is ...

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