Caesar, Brutus and Stephen Greenblatt
in
Julius Caesar
Stephen Greenblatt has done it again. In Tyrant
– Shakespeare on Politics he has written a brilliant analysis of
Shakespeare from still another angle. This time, as the title suggests, on
politics but not in the way one would expect. This is, in actuality, a book
about Donald Trump the tyrant, without once mentioning Trump’s name. With many
quotes from Macbeth, King Lear and other plays Greenblatt shows
how tyrants come to power through manipulation and fear, through the support of
people who believe they will benefit only to find themselves victims of the
tyrant themselves. Reading this book makes one want to read the plays all over
again. The first one Hal and I chose to reread was Julius Caesar.
Greenblatt writes: ‘There is one play in
Shakespeare’s whole career that features a systematic, principled attempt to
stop tyranny before it starts,’ (page 147)
and goes on to show how some of Rome’s tribunes are angry at Caesar’s
willingness, perhaps eagerness, to be made king and destroy the Roman republic.
Cassius especially is angry, and he
convinces Brutus that he is right. Brutus too is convinced but much more
troubled by his determination to assassinate Caesar. Greenblatt points out that
Brutus’ dilemma is unique in Shakespeare: ‘Brutus invokes “the general” – that
is, the common good – as opposed to a “personal cause”, but his long soliloquy
undermines any attempt to draw a clean line between abstract political
principles and particular individuals, with their psychological peculiarities,
their unpredictably, their only partially knowable, opaque inwardness’ (pages
149-150). Don’t you love the way Greenblatt writes? He’s almost as good as
Shakespeare himself!
Greenblatt goes on to analyse the Roman
psyche as one that prefers action to thought but that Shakespeare wants to show
those behind the scene, ‘troubled, vulnerable, conflicted people uncertain of
the right course to take and only half aware of what was driving them to act.
The danger was all the greater because they were acting on a world stage, and
their obscure private motives had massive, potentially catastrophic consequences’
(page 150).
Is Brutus then noble but misguided?
Greenblatt doesn’t think Shakespeare meant him to seem that way. He points out
that Brutus was more noble than the self-serving Marc Antony but what good did
that do? ‘…the dream of purity is hopelessly unrealistic and hedged about with
irony. And it utterly fails to take into account the volatility of the mass of ordinary
Romans,’ Greenblatt tells us (page 154).
He also tells us that Shakespeare doesn’t
offer ‘any solution to the psychological and political dilemmas that [the play]
mercilessly probe (when does Shakespeare ever do that?) but instead, ‘an
unprecedented representation of political uncertainty, confusion and blindness’
(page 154).
It’s very easy to believe that if
Shakespeare had lived today, he would write a brilliant play about the tyrant
Donald Trump. Stephen Greenblatt very successful fills that vacuum with his
book Tyrant. Read it.
And, oh yes, don’t forget to re-read Julius
Caesar.
Greenblatt, Stephen. Tyrant
– Shakespeare on politics. 2018. WW Norton, New York.
Shakespeare calling – the book available here and other sites:
Not much chance of my reading any of Greenblatt's books (no market for them at all in my country), but I have recently (or maybe not so recently) re-read "Julius Caesar". My previous impression was confirmed: tragedy this is not, but as dramatisation of power politics it is a remarkable success. Personally, I think Brutus is an obnoxious dictator in disguise - and a moron to boot. Mark Antony and Cassius own the play. They at least know themselves and their ambitions. Their brief meeting in III.1, like Antony's Forum Speech and Cassius' manipulation of Brutus, is one of the greatest moments in Shakespeare. How those two, Antony and Cassius, much the smartest people onstange, wish they were on the same side! As for Donald Trump, I rather doubt a modern Shakespeare would waste his time with such cartoonish character. But I have no doubt he would write a biting play about the people who put such characters in power (and quite a bit of power at that).
ReplyDeleteA pity you can't order Greenblatt. Maybe directly from the publisher? He's very much worth reading! Oh I think Shaespeare would relish writing about Trump. He's so deliciously awful! Worse than Richard III!
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