Julius Caesar

William Shakespeare

Anticipation Guide

Plot Summary

Act I Group Presentations

Important Quotes from Acts I & II

What if Brutus...

Puns

Act III- Trimming Shakespeare's Speeches

Act III Overview

Act III Review

Summary Review

Act V Study Guide

Themes

Extra Credit Project

Anticipation Guide
Part A Directions: In the space provided indicate whether you agree or disagree with the statement.

Agree or Disagree Statement
1. _____________ It is never right to kill another person.
2. _____________ Political leaders usually act in the best interest of their countries.
3. _____________ If a political leader has done something wrong, it is all right to get ride of him or her by whatever means necessary.
4. _____________ “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
5. _____________ In certain situations it may be justified for a political leader to bend or break the law for the good of the country.
6. _____________ People should never compromise their ideals or beliefs.
7. _____________ “My country right or wrong” is not just a slogan; it is every citizen’s patriotic duty.
8. _____________ No cause, political or otherwise, is worth dying for.
9. _____________ “Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant taste of death but once.”
10. _____________ “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is [often buried] with their bones.”

Part B Directions: Select three of the above statements which you feel the most strongly about and respond to each by being as thoughtful and thorough as you are able. Remember, there is no right or wrong answer! I want to hear your individual voice responding to these ideas. Each response should be one to two paragraphs in length.

Act I Group Presentations

You will be required to perform a scene from the play. The performance must include:
• Being familiar with your lines (not stumbling over pronunciation)
• Being able to explain the meaning of your lines
• Writing in a part for your narrator (the narrator will explain the action and dialogue by smoothly interjecting throughout the performance)
• Acting out, choreographing movement (don’t stand there are read off a piece of paper: BORING!!!)
• Speaking loudly and clearly
• Using props and name placards (NOT produced in class moments before the show)

Grading Rubric

Project Agenda

Day 1- Read through the scene as a group, assigning roles and becoming familiar with the language.

Day 2- Write out the narration, translating the action and dialogue of the play into YOUR OWN WORDS (not copying from the modern translation provided in the book). As a group work to figure out how to integrate the narration into the performance of the play. If time permits, begin to work on choreographing the action and movement of your performers (remember, facial expressions, tone and volume of voice, etc. are all important aspects when performing a scene).

Day 3- Dress rehearsal. Be sure to know what costumes your actors are going to where (Julius Caesar is traditionally performed in togas) and what props are necessary. Perform through your scene at least once. You will not have time to prep on Monday.

Day 4 (Monday)- Performance of Act I in the Little Theatre. Report directly to the Little Theatre.

Day 5 (Tuesday)- Performance of Act I in the Little Theatre. Report directly to the Little Theatre.

10 Puns

Two vultures board an airplane; each is carrying two dead raccoons. The flight attendant looks at them and says, "I'm sorry, gentlemen, each passenger is allowed only one carrion."

Two boll weevils grew up in the deep South. One went to Hollywood and became a famous actor. The other stayed behind in the cotton fields and never amounted to much. The second one, naturally, became known as the lesser of two weevils.

Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, but when they lit a fire in the craft, it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it, too.

A three-legged dog walks into a saloon in the Old West. He slides up to the bar and announces: "I'm looking for the man who shot my paw."

Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? He wanted to transcend dental medication.

A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. "But why?" they asked, as they moved off. "Because," he said, "I can't stand chess nuts boasting in an open foyer."

A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named "Ahmal." The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him "Juan." Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, "They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."

These friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to "persuade" them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent florist friars.

Mahatma Gandhi walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him a super callused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

And finally, there was the person who sent ten different puns to friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did.

Julius Caesar Act One
Study Guide
Scene 1
1. Where does the first scene take place?

2. What are Flavius and Marullus doing?

3. Who claims to be a “mender of bad soles,” a “surgeon to old shoes,” and one who lives by the “awl?”

4. According to a laborer, why have the people left their shops and assembled?

5. Who was Pompey?

6. How do Marullus and Flavius rebuke the people?

Scene 2
7. Who was Lupercal, and when did the Feast of Lupercal occur?

8. What character establishes the notion that Caesar is ambitious, and that he flies too high and is a danger to free men?

9. The purpose of the Feast of Lupercal was to secure purification and fertility for the spring planting. What other purpose did it serve for women as well?

10. In scene two, who, in particular, is instructed to stand in Antony's way and why?

11. What warning does the fortuneteller give to Caesar?

12. What is Caesar’s response to the fortuneteller’s warning?

13. What do Cassius and Brutus discuss after Caesar and his followers leave?

14. With whom is Brutus upset and why?

15. Cassius openly works on contrasting Brutus’s humility to Caesar’s presumptuousness and arrogance. Why?

16. What fear does Brutus blurt out when shots are heard and a trumpet sounds?

17. When Caesar returns from the race, which character’s countenance seems to disturb him?

18. How does Caesar contrast Cassius with Antony?

19. Why does Antony have to speak to Caesar from his right side?

20. Why does Brutus grasp Casca’s cloak? What does he want to know?

21. What does Casca tell him has happened?

22. What other physical impairment does Caesar have?

23. According to Casca, did the Roman people seem to want Caesar to be king?

24. What dramatic action had Caesar taken in front of the people before his fainting?

25. How did Casca react to the events at the Lupercal Festival?

26. What has happened to Marullus and Flavius and why?

27. Cassius’s major plan involves Brutus. What is it?

28. What secretive means does Cassius intend to use to persuade Brutus he is more noble than Caesar?

Scnene 3
29. In scene three, it is the evening of the Ides of March. Describe the weather.

30. Casca meets Cicero on the streets. State two unexplainable events.

31. What is Caesar to do tomorrow?

32. Cassius compared the storm to whom?

33. According to Casca, what do the senators plan to do tomorrow?

34. What pledge does Casca give to Cassius?

35. Who is Cinna?

36. According to Cinna, acquiring the cooperation of who would be more beneficial?

37. Cinna is to deliver the forged letters to what three places?

38. According to Cassius, what fraction of Brutus remains to be won over?

39. Who “sits high in all the people’s hearts?”

Part II- Act One Quotations
Directions: For each quote identify who said it, to whom they were speaking, and what it means.

1. “O you hard-hearted people, you cruel men of Rome,
didn’t you know Pompey the Great?”
Speaker: Spoken to:
Meaning / Significance:

2. “If we can pluck these growing feathers out of Caesar’s wing,
we can force him to fly lower.”
Speaker: Spoken to:
Meaning / Significance:

3. “barren women, when touched in this holy race,
are able to shake off the curse of sterility.”
Speaker: Spoken to:
Meaning / Significance:

4. “I shall remember
When Caesar says ‘Do this,’
It is done.”
Speaker: Spoken to:
Meaning / Significance:

5. “Beware the Ides of March.”
Speaker: Spoken to:
Meaning / Significance:

6. “I fear that the people choose Caesar
for their king.”
Speaker: Spoken to:
Meaning / Significance:

7. “I was born as free as Caesar and so were you.
We both have eaten as well, and we can both
Suffer the winter’s cold as well as Caesar.”
Speaker: Spoken to:
Meaning / Significance:

8. “Cassius over there is too lean and hungry looking;
he things too much. Such men are dangerous.”
Speaker: Spoken to:
Meaning / Significance:

9. “Such and such are reasons, they are natural occurrences,
because I believe that they are completely strange events, full of meaning
for the place where they occur.”
Speaker: Spoken to:
Meaning / Significance:

10. “It’s a very pleasing night to honest men.”
Speaker: Spoken to:
Meaning / Significance:

11. “O, he has a high place in the hearts of the Roman people,
and what would appear offensive if we did it,
his approval, like precious alchemy,
will transform it to something virtuous and worthy.”
Speaker: Spoken to:
Meaning / Significance:

ACT II, SCENE I
1. What question is Brutus pondering at the opening of the scene?

2. For what information does Brutus want Lucius to look at a calendar? What is the significance of what Lucius finds?

3. Why do the conspirators want Cicero to join them?

4. Why does Brutus reject Cicero? What is Cassius's reaction and what does this show about his and Brutus's relationship?

5. What do the conspirators plan to do the next day?

6. How does Decius say he will make sure that Caesar will come to the Capitol?

7. What has Portia done to show Brutus that she is worthy of knowing his secrets?

ACT II, SCENE II.
8. What strange and horrible things does Calphurnia report to Caesar that have been seen that night?

9. What does Calphurnia mean by the following statement? “When beggars die, there are no comets seen;/The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.”(30-31)

10. How does Decius convince Caesar to go to the Capitol?

ACT II, SCENES III & IV
11. What is Artemidorus's plan?

12. Why is Portia so nervous and upset? On what errand does she send Lucius?

Study Guide Questions for Act V

Scene 1:
1. About what do Octavius and Antony argue?

2. What is significant about this day for Cassius?

3. What are two things Brutus says he will never do, even if he loses the war?

Scene 2:
4. How does Brutus feel about the battle at this point?

Scene 3:
5. Who wins the first battle?

6. What does Cassius send Titinius to do?

7. Why does Cassius decide to kill himself?

8. How does Cassius’s death help Pindarus?

9. What mistake caused Cassius’s death?

10. What does Titinius do when Messala goes to inform Brutus of Cassius’s death?

Scene 4:
11. What happens to Cato?

12. Who does Lucilius pretend to be?

13. What happens to Lucilius?

Scene 5:
14. What does Brutus ask Clitus, Dardanius, and Volomnius to do?

15. How does Brutus die?

16. According to Marc Antony, why is Brutus better than the other conspirators?

Trimming the Fat off the Speeches in Julius Caesar
Act III- Murder & Treason!!!

Your Task: We are going to perform an edited version of Act III of Julius Caesar. For this assignment, your group must carefully edit your assigned section of the act. The editing should not alter Shakespeare’s language; it should just make the speeches briefer while maintaining the central meaning. Below, study the example which has been provided.

The Original: 3.1.159-162 (33 words)

BRUTUS
I know that we shall have him well to friend.

CASSIUS
I wish we may; but yet have I a mind
That fears him much, and my misgiving still
Falls shrewdly to the purpose.

Cut in Half (18 words)

BRUTUS
We shall have him to friend.

CASSIUS
We may: yet have I a mind that fears him much.

The Main Ideas (which must retain its message after the cuts)
* Brutus is optimistic and thinks Antony will be on the conspirators’ side.
* Cassius is pessimistic and fears Antony.

Setting: Rome, March 44BC

There was a civil war and Pompey was the leader of the losing side. Julius Caesar returns to Rome victorious and the citizens were celebrating in the streets. Marullus and Flavius, who were supporters of Pompey, get angry with the citizens and Caesar will order their execution later in Act I.

There is a race to celebrate the Feast of Luprical. On his was to this festivity, Caesar is warned by a soothsayer, “Beware the Ides of March,” which he promptly ignores. At the race Caesar is offered the crown by Marc Antony three times and he rejects this offering each time.

Meanwhile Cassius is working on convincing Brutus that Caesar must be assassinated in order to save Rome from Caesar’s ambitions nature. Brutus is convinced and joins the conspiracy. Other conspirators include: Casca, Cinna (not the poet), Decius Brutus, Metellus Cimber, Trebonius, Caius, etc.

The conspirators meet on a storm night (pathetic fallacy) at Brutus’s house to plot Caesar’s death. The signal to stab him will be: “Speak hands for me!” which will be said by Casca. Portia, Brutus’s wife, convinces him to confide in her.

Calpurnia, Caesar’s wife, has dreams that foreshadow something terrible happening to her husband. She begs Caesar to stay home on the Ides of March, however he does not heed her advice and goes to the Senate as usual. Along the way he is petitioned for favors although he doesn’t grant any.

On this same morning, Cassius believes that the conspiracy has been discovered because Popilius Lena wishes Cassius good luck in his endeavor and then goes to talk to Caesar. The gig is not up, however, because only moments later the conspirators successfully kill Julius Caesar.

Marc Antony discovers what has happened to Caesar. First, he asks the conspirators to kill him right alongside Caesar, but then Brutus explains that they do not plan on killing him. Antony convinces Brutus and Cassius that he should be allowed to speak at Caesar’s funeral. Cassius has doubts about this, however Brutus overrides him. When left alone with the body, Antony speaks directly to Caesar’s corpse, an example of apostrophe.

At the funeral, Brutus speaks first and he convinces the crowds that it was the right thing to do to kill Caesar. However, Antony speaks after and convinces the crowd that Caesar was a good guy, not overly ambitious, and he rallies the crowds to turn on the conspirators. Meanwhile Brutus and Cassius flee when they realize the mob has turned against them.

Unfortunately for the poet Cinna, he is killed by the angry mob.

Act IV, war unfolds.

Writing About Theme

Stating the Theme

A clear, precise statement about a story’s theme can serve as a promising thesis sentence. After you read a story, you will probably have some vague sense of its theme—the central unifying idea, or the point of the story. How do you hone that vague sense of theme into a sharp and intriguing thesis?

Start by making a list of all the story’s possible themes. From there, determine which points are most important, and formulate a single sentence in which you touch on each one. For a story in which you have listed the following as possible themes: tradition vs. progress, pride goes before the fall, and insensitivity to others’ feelings, you might write a summary such as: The central theme of --- is that progress is best made in a spirit of compromise, not by insensitivity to the feelings o those who follow the old ways.

Remember, your goal is to transcend a mere one-sentence plot summary. Try to capture the story’s essence, its deeper meaning.

To flesh out your statement into an essay, relate details of the story to the theme you have spelled out. Like all thesis sentences, yours must stand up in the face of the evidence. If you encounter elements of the story that seem to contradict your thesis, you may need to do some fine-tuning. Your thesis, or statement of theme, should apply to everything in your story. If it doesn’t, reevaluate. You may have missed some crucial details, or you may be overlooking the story’s central preoccupation, focusing instead on a peripheral one. If this is the case, you will need to start from scratch. This happens to the best of writers; recognizing your own mistakes is an important step in critical thinking.

Checklist

Determining a Story’s Theme

• List as many possible themes as you can.
• Circle the two or three most important points and try to combine them into a sentence. This sentence is your preliminary thesis.
• Relate particular details of the story to the theme you have spelled out. Consider plot details, dialogue, setting, point of view, title—any elements that seem especially pertinent.
• Check whether all the elements of the story fit your thesis. If not, reevaluate your thesis.
• Have you missed an important aspect of the story? Or, have you chosen to focus on a secondary idea, overlooking the central theme?
• If necessary, rework your thesis until it applies to every element in the story.

Theme Word Bank
Abuse / neglect
Alienation
Ambition
Appearance vs reality
Betrayal
Bureaucracy
Children
Courage / cowardice
Chance / fate / luck
Cruelty / violence
Custom / tradition
Defeat / failure
Despair / discontent / disillusionment
Dreams / fantasies
Domination / suppression
Duty / allegiance / blind faith
Escape / confinement
Ethic vs morality / right vs wrong
Exile / persecution
Falsity / pretense / affectation
Family / parenthood / deconstructed family
Gender evolution
The isms (prejudices: sexism, racism, classism, anti- Semitism, sizism,
ageism, lookism)
Deconstructed family
Free will / will power
Greed
Heaven / paradise / utopia
Home
Heart vs. reason
Initiation
Illusion / innocence
Instinct
Journey
Law / justice / revenge
Education / school
Loneliness / alienation
Materialism
Memory / past
Mob psychology
Mysterious danger
Nature vs. mechanistic world
Persistence / perseverance
Patriotism
Poverty / class
Prophecy
Redemption / salvation
Repentance
Resistance / rebellion
Revenge / retribution
Ritual / ceremony
Scapegoat / victim / suicide
Media
Search for self
Time
War

Source: Kennedy, X. J. and Dana Gioia, Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Pearson and Longman, New York: 2009.

Extra Credit Project Options

Options 1
15-minute Caesar Movie: Summarize each of the 18 scenes in an abbreviated script with a cast large enough to portray the whole play. This will probably make the tragedy seem funny; go for it. Make us laugh with your speedy tragedy. Sometimes a parody makes the tragedy easier to deal with. A script is mandatory. Your movie should be filmed and must be viewable on a standard DVD or VHS player. If I cannot watch the movie, I cannot give any credit. (Group Project)

Options 2
Rap/Song Summary (music video optional / see note above about video view-ability): Summarize each of the 18 scenes in the lyrics of your song or rap. Be prepared to perform your song/rap live or by recording. Written explanation of song is mandatory. (Up to three members)

Options 3
Comic Book: Write a comic book that includes each of the 18 scenes in Caesar. (Up to two members)

Options 4
Mock Trial: Instead of killing Caesar, Brutus, and Cassius, let’s put them on trial. Stage a mock trial (live or video / see note about video view-ability) with any combination of these characters on trial for his crimes. Produce evidence against him, his defense, and the judge’s verdict with explanation. Written summary of evidence with explanation is mandatory. (Group Project)

Options 5
Sound Track: Choose songs to accompany each scene of the play if it were adapted to a contemporary time. Choose from instrumental or vocal music to suit the mood you need to convey through music. You will need to present a recording of the music you choose along with a scene by scene list and written (paragraph form) description justifying your choice. (Individual Project)

Due: Tuesday, January 20, 2008

Value: Up to one grade demarcation / step (if project is excellent), in other words, a B+ becomes an A-, an A becomes an A+, and C- becomes a C, etc.