Antony can sense an anti-Caesar feeling amongst the crowd as he enters, and he seems to give the same impression as he starts to speak, “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him”. But, Antony is going to be sly with his wordplay – if he goes straight into a speech extolling Caesar, then the crowd would remain positively towards Brutus’ speech and against this sudden outburst of Caesar glorification. Therefore he must agree with them at first, and then twist their agreement with Brutus’s words. Antony starts to list Caesar’s achievements, but attempts to say them without glorification in his speech, and instead as a factual piece of information – however, he starts to use a great sense of sarcasm at intervals in his speech; he repeats these particular words; “But Brutus says he was ambitious, and Brutus is an honourable man”. The repetition of these words after all the listed achievements that Caesar has made gradually convinces the crowd to favour Caesar, or rather at least put them in two minds about who they should believe more out of Antony and Brutus. Antony’s speech and the Plebeians’ uncertainty is heightened by his grief and sorrow, which the crowd are evidently aware of.
“But Brutus says he was ambitious, and Brutus is an honourable man” gradually becomes said with more irony and sarcasm as the speech continues – for example, Mark Antony says “I thrice presented him a kingly crown, which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?” and then he repeats his statement about Brutus being an honourable man. Although he does not directly say that Brutus is wrong about Caesar being ambitious, he implies it within the rhetoric (“Was this ambition?”) which seems to leave the crowd to themselves to decide whether they thought Caesar was ambitious or not. The way in which Antony says this would obviously leave the crowd in favour of Caesar, rather than against him as they previously had been after Brutus’s speech.
Antony’s wordplay can be seen as even more sly in the case of when he says “I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, but here I am to speak what I do know” – this is implying that all of what he said was factual, and he makes no effort to try and verify the accuracy of Brutus’s speech, and in no way dos he try and say that Brutus’s speech was true at all.
Antony’s speech caused slight discourse and great uncertainty with the Plebeians, and they talk amongst themselves. Antony has got them in a good position to convince them with the final strikes of verbal persuasion. The Plebeians seem to take his word as they speak and each of them encourage those who still seem to be looming more towards Brutus’s notions about Caesar than Antony’s to agree with what Antony is saying. The Plebeians are not as confidently pro-Caesar as they had been anti-Caesar when Brutus was speaking, but they are definitely on the verge of it and in serious contemplation. One of the Plebeians says “Poor soul, his eyes are red as fire with weeping”, and this suggests that they seem to be sympathetic – another key factor which would help Antony win them over.
The title that they had earlier proclaimed to Brutus was “noble”, and now they seem to be entitling Antony with it – in fact, they say that “There’s not a nobler man in Rome than Antony”.
At this point it is definitely evident that they have switched allegiance to Mark Antony, although this can be more thoroughly expressed after another portion of Antony’s speech, concerning Caesar’s will. Antony has certainly convinced the crowd to be against the conspirators; “I rather choose to wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you, than I will wrong such honourable men”. Obviously this is an example of great sarcasm. This is unfair to the Plebeians, and probably enrages them, and what seems even more unfair in Antony’s speech is that he says (talking about the will) “Bequeathing it as a rich legacy unto their [the conspirators] issue”. Therefore now, the Plebeians are adamant on the notion that they want to hear what is contained in the will. They are convinced that the conspirators are traitors; “They were traitors”, “They were villains, murderers! The will, read the will!”
It is evident that Antony will read the will, and it can be seen by the audience that he uses reluctance to read the will as a tactic to intensify the Plebeian’s anxiety to see what is in the will and escalate their rage and fury against the conspirators; “You will compel me then to read the will?” A gain of ill thoughts towards the conspirators by the Plebeians is seen as Antony says “I fear I wrong the honourable men whose daggers have stabbed Caesar”. This is only because Antony has convinced the Plebeians that Caesar was not as bad as Brutus had made out.
I think if Brutus had remained there instead of let Antony by himself speak to the Plebeians, the speech would not have had the same effect that it did upon the Plebeians – either because Brutus would interrupt, or because the Romans’ respect for Brutus would stand strong, and remain unmoved as his presence would still electrify the crowd. It is evident that the crowd’s attention immediately diverts to Antony as Brutus leaves, and that their focus is on him and Brutus is almost forgotten as Antony “mesmerizes” them with his persuading speech.
I also think that the Elizabethan audience would appreciate the rhetoric a lot more, only because of the way the Plebeians seem to respond so easily to the rhetoric used by both characters in the play. A modern audience would not exactly “appreciate” it as much in my view, because a modern audience is understanding of persuasion and comprehends the various techniques used in speeches meant for conviction. The rhetoric used would make the Elizabethans think a lot more; a modern audience would probably be used to this kind of persuasive device. Also an Elizabethan audience would be limited in its amount of viewers who are familiar with the fact that it is meant as a persuasive device – many in an Elizabethan audience would probably not have great levels of knowledge about these kinds of things, especially in ratio to those of a modern audience.
If we look at the characters of Brutus and Antony themselves, we can see that both of them were true friends of Caesar’s; however I think Antony was certainly a lot more faithful to him. I think that Brutus is speaking sincerely when he is sad about Caesar’s death, although according to him he did it for a purpose and he himself was influenced greatly by Cassius – furthermore, if we look at the political stature of each of the characters, we can see that Brutus’s aim was to eradicate a potential dictator (in his view). He felt that Caesar was going to gain too much power and was afraid of this, because of Caesar’s “ambition”. Politically, Mark Antony is not highly suggestive of how he feels. He is simply a good friend of Caesar’s and his purpose in convincing the Plebeians is not politically motivated, however, Brutus’s is.
When Antony reads out the will, the Plebeians become so excited about the riches they are to receive and the goodness of Caesar’s generosity that they even say how they are going to “revenge his death”.
So from being anti-Caesar and pro-Brutus, Antony had been able to completely reverse these feelings amongst the Romans, and convert them into pro-Caesar and anti-Brutus, as well as against the conspirators in general, because the Plebeians were enraged by the murder of Caesar – however they were more concerned with those who killed Caesar rather than mourning for Caesar instead.
Overall, the main persuasive device used is rhetoric – it is used extremely well by both of the speakers, however Antony proved himself to be more successful. He was so successful that he managed to convince a crowd of Romans, who must have been quite unintelligent, as they were so easily led into believing different points of view with such swift change of opinion from different speakers. If they were truly sad about Caesar’s death, they would have mourned – instead they were angry, and this anger was conjured up by Antony, who managed to skip the process of grieving for Caesar with such conviction.
