Caesar Speech Comparison

Shakespeare wrote the play “Julius Caesar” based on the historical figure Julius Caesar. The tragedy focuses on the well known demise of Caesar and the aftermath of his death. Directly following Caesar’s death, Shakespeare has imagined the speeches that Brutus and Mark Antony could have given at the funeral. Brutus being Caesar’s murderer, and Mark Antony a friend of Caesar 's plotting for revenge. The two speeches contrast greatly in the intent of their meaning, and they use stylistic devices in order to do so. A few devices they use in their eulogies are tripling, anaphora, and parallelism.

Brutus addresses the crowd by using the tripling of, “Romans, countrymen, and lovers!”. By using the words in that particular order, he is trying to appeal to the crowds ideals before their morals ie logos, in order to make it easier for him to validate his reasons for killing Caesar. He first says, “Romans” to remind the crowd that they are all citizens of Rome, and should always consider what is best for the country before their personal needs. Brutus wants the crowd to realize and agree with his subsequent reasoning by first reminding them of what “really matters”, so they won’t revolt against him for killing a seemingly great leader. He then uses “countrymen” to address the plebeians, which is interesting as he addresses the common folk before saying, “lovers”. He implies that the title of countrymen is still more important than personal feelings, to