Find your Brutus Intention and Interpretation Recap and

Find your Brutus: Intention and Interpretation

Recap and Discuss Take the next 10 minutes to go over our Guiding Questions and recap Act 2, Scene 1

“ 1. Brutus’ Soliloquy (2. 1. 10 -36) It must be by his death, and for my part Whereto the climber upward turns his face. I know no personal cause to spurn at him But when he once attains the upmost round, But for the general. He would be crowned. He then unto the ladder turns his back, How that might change his nature, there’s the question. Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees It is the bright day that brings forth the adder By which he did ascend. So Caesar may. And that craves wary walking. Crown him that, Then, lest he may, prevent. And since the quarrel And then I grant we put a sting in him Will bear no color for the thing he is, That at his will he may do danger with. Fashion it thus: that what he is, augmented, Th' abuse of greatness is when it disjoins Would run to these and these extremities. Remorse from power. And, to speak truth of Caesar, And therefore think him as a serpent’s egg — I have not known when his affections swayed Which, hatched, would as his kind grow mischievous— More than his reason. But ’tis a common proof And kill him in the shell. That lowliness is young ambition’s ladder,

2. The Conspirators: Are they villians? Are they heroes?

“ 3. Parallelism in Brutus’ Monologue (2. 1. 175 -196) Our course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassius, And let our hearts, as subtle masters do, To cut the head off and then hack the limbs, Stir up their servants to an act of rage Like wrath in death and envy afterwards, And after seem to chide 'em. This shall make For Antony is but a limb of Caesar. Our purpose necessary and not envious, Let us be sacrificers but not butchers, Caius. Which so appearing to the common eyes, We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar, We shall be called purgers, not murderers. And in the spirit of men there is no blood. And for Mark Antony, think not of him, Oh, that we then could come by Caesar’s spirit For he can do no more than Caesar’s arm And not dismember Caesar! But, alas, When Caesar’s head is off. Caesar must bleed for it. And, gentle friends, Let’s kill him boldly but not wrathfully. Let’s carve him as a dish fit for the gods, Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds. ◈ ◈ ◈ Purpose? Comparisions? Why?

Journal: Whois this Brutus guy? ◈ What are Brutus' intentions? How do you know that? ◈ How do you see Brutus? What traits would you attribute to him (strong, cunning, intelligent? )

Adaptation I: Scene 2, Act 1 from 1953

Adaptation II: Scene 2, Act 1 from 2015

Another Shakespeare Paraphrase… Just Because

Write! After examining the two film portrayals of Brutus as well as your group's interpretation of his character and intentions draw some conclusions: ◈ If you were the director, how would you cast Brutus? ◈ How would you want him to portray himself in the orchard scene (2. 1), and why?