The Tragedy of Julius Caesar

Matt, Allen Ascher (Osher Lifelong Learning Institue at Rutgers University), and Patrick Oray (Bard High School Early College Baltimore) discuss Shakespeare's historical tragedy depicting the assassination of the Roman leader and it's aftermath. 

This podcast was recorded on August 20, 2025. 

Transcript

Matt Park
There's no heed to be taken of them. If Caesar had stabbed their mothers, they would have done no less. 

Welcome to the Bard Sequence Seminar Podcast. Today, it's The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. 

I'm Matt Park, Director of the Bard Sequence, and today I'll be your friendly moderator and panelist, and I'm joined today by Patrick Oray and Allen Ascher. Patrick, would you mind starting by introducing yourself?

Patrick 
Sure. My name is Patrick Oray. I am faculty in literature at Bard High School Early College in Baltimore and I teach first year seminar and I also teach a Civic Engagement and Social Justice elective class.

Matt
Thank you, Patrick. And Allen?

Allen Ascher
My name is Alan Asher. I am a retired English teacher. I have taught Julius Caesar a couple of times over the course of my career. It was the first play of Shakespeare's that I ever engaged in, in the ninth grade in high school. And I'm looking forward to talking about it.

Matt 
Great. Thanks, Allen. And thank you, Patrick. 

Before we get started, full disclaimer. We are not here as experts who are here to have the final say on what Julius Caesar is, quote, really about. Instead, we're going to talk about what the text is to us. We are going to ground our readings and evidence from the text. But if we do a decent job, you should be walking away from this with more questions than answers. We are also not here to summarize the text for you because whether it's a podcast or an essay you should not spend your precious time giving your audience a literal summary of something that they need to read themselves. Read the thing, please. 

Okay, with that being said, let's get into it. We're going to do five or fewer minutes of context. Allen has generously volunteered to do the context for Julius Caesar. And so he's going to let us know a little bit about the text itself, its background, and that ever elusive guy that we call William Shakespeare. Allen?

Allen
It's a little bit difficult to cover everything that might pertain to the creation of this play. The first thing to keep in mind is how extraordinary a character historically Julius Caesar was. Not only in the history of Rome, but in the history of what we might call Western civilization. He was a major, major figure. He was written about by two ancient writers, Plutarch and Suetonius. Shakespeare was able to read the Plutarch biography. It had been translated by Sir Thomas North, actually not from the Greek, but from a French translation, in 1579. Shakespeare was born in 1564, and he wrote Julius Caesar, we think, in 1599. 

The context of the play was really the final years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. She had been the monarch of England all of Shakespeare's life. And we as Americans who were born in revolution against monarchy may see this play differently from the way the English did in the 16th century. Therefore, one of the things that characterizes the play is a kind of ambiguity of interpretation. And that's something that we'll see as we go along through this podcast. 

The play was extremely popular, really always has been. There are scenes in it that are very, very theatrical and exciting to an audience, but the interpretation changed over the years as monarchy fell into disrepute and authoritarianism also fell into disrepute. So particularly in the 20th century, in the 1900s, it was for the most part not produced in an Elizabethan setting. Very often, Caesar was represented by fascist trappings, particularly in the 1930s and beyond. Orson Welles did a brilliant production of it in that way and so politics and culture have changed the reception of the play and we presented with it now in 2025 have to make some decisions about interpretation and what it might mean in its application to the modern world.

Matt
Great, thank you, Alan. Patrick, anything else on your end that you'd like to add in terms of context?

Patrick
I think in terms of context, you know, I think that as Allen pointed out, like I'm reading this in a revolutionary context that is commenting on like all of Shakespeare's historical plays, you know, it comments on power dynamics. And I think that's an easy entree, especially in these times for students to grasp onto. I feel like, when you're talking about, first of all, you say Shakespeare and students are like, here we go. Language that I don't understand from people who live in history that have nothing in common with. I think at this particular time, students are into the subject. And that's as a teacher is an easy entree for me to talk to them about why Julius Caesar is so relevant.

Matt 
Great, thank you Patrick. I had a bit in here talking about Virgil, but I think I'm gonna save that and decide whether or not to add it later in the podcast, because I don't think it fits, I think, with what you all are talking about in the context. Instead, I'm gonna go ahead and then, so by the way, Allen, you accomplished context in under five minutes, so congratulations. That is a, a feat. And I think you've given us a good start there in not too much time. 

So the next prompt is our context? And I'll go ahead and start because I want to pick up on, you know, what both of you were saying, and especially what Patrick was saying, which is I am also reading this text in a modern context. I had not read this text before, prior to a year or two ago. And the reason I did pick it up is things that have been happening in the United States recently. And so specifically the meltdown of American democracy and the rise of certain things today in the country that are certainly swings towards authoritarianism. And so about a year or two ago, I was thinking about things that were happening in the country and looking for some reading to kind of engage with it academically and so that led me to think of Julius Caesar and I'm always thinking about Bard Sequence Seminar and the books that are assigned and why this book and why not that book. So it seemed to me that, you know, I should pick up Julius Caesar and give it a read. 

In high school, I certainly read a number of works by Shakespeare, but none of them were Julius Caesar. So we did Othello, we did Hamlet, we did Macbeth, we did Midsummer Night's Dream and, and I think one or two others, but, no Julius Caesar. So Allen, I actually borrowed your copy of the book one day. and I took it to the beach and I think I read either the entire text or almost the entire text in one whole day at the beach. I don't know how I accomplished that. Clearly my kids were not there. This must've been a day when Matt escaped to the beach without any children because I got quite a lot of reading done and I did find it to be quite relevant. I did really connect to this idea of the rise of a dictatorship set to the cheers of the masses. You know, the kind of common people rallying behind Caesar and clapping as, you know, any vestige of representational government is kind of washed away by the strongman.

And just generally speaking, I also enjoyed it, you know, when you're reading Shakespeare, you're going to either enjoy the language or not. I certainly did and there's a lot to appreciate here. So a few of my favorite lines are, on what meat does this our Caesar feed? The fault is not in ourselves but in our stars. For my known part it was Greek to me. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once, The evil that men do lives after them. The good is often turd with their bones. Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war and so on and so forth. So just generally speaking, I enjoyed it just in terms of enjoying the written word. 

I did enjoy it for the reason that I got into it and for the themes that are present and the way in which it does have that ambiguity, which allows you to kind of wrestle with authoritarianism and with the way in which society can in fact support that. And I think it also just generally works as a psychological examination of particular kinds of men and particular social constructs like duty, honor, patriotism, blood and soil nationalism and so on. So that's really my context for meeting it.

Allen
A panorama of subjects that you've just mentioned even in the quotes that you gave. One of the things that we notice about Shakespeare is you really can't pin him down to his opinions. We don't know what he thought. In this play, for example, the common people don't come off too well. And it's hard to imagine putting the government in the hands as he represents them in the play. Is that his opinion of democracy? I don't know. It just seems to be the direction that the play has taken that topic.

Matt 
So Alan, let's hold off on that because we do have a prompt to discuss that and kind of talk about what we think Shakespeare is saying here. I want to hear about you in ninth, was it ninth grade? 

Allen
It was the ninth grade, yes. 

Matt

Yeah, tell me about ninth grade you and what it was like encountering this text for the first time.

Allen
Well, evidently that happened before 90 % of the current population had been born. So it was at that time actually the standard Shakespeare assignment for ninth grade students in the New York City public school system. So if you speak to people of my vintage, they might tell you that that was their introduction to the play.

I'm not sure that political assassination is a great topic for 14 year olds, but there it was, okay, for us. And I was fascinated by it. The method my teacher used, you know, this was before a great deal of the electronic aids that teachers have. So the method my teacher used was to actually read the play to us, word to word, word for word. And then, some discussion and comment on it. Not really enough, but some of that. As I said, the play is not only very theatrical, but it's extremely poetic. All of those quotes that you just gave us, are indicative of that. And it was fascinating. Now that was in, I believe, 1961 or 62. I can't quite remember. In 19, I think it was in 1953, the Joseph Mankiewicz movie of Julius Caesar had come out and with an absolutely fantastic cast, including, of course, Marlon Brando's famous turn as Julius Caesar. My older sister was a huge Marlon Brando fan, and she took me to see the movie and it was just extraordinarily powerful, just an extraordinarily powerful experience. So this play has always been for me, and I've read several of Shakespeare's plays, but this one has always been a kind of touchstone for me, you to go back to what originally attracted me to the plays and, as I said, to the poetry of it.

Matt 
Thanks Allen. And Patrick, when did you first meet Julius Caesar?

Patrick
So, let's see. I'm not quite sure when I remember, oh in college, I took a seminar, a Shakespeare seminar, and the first work that grabbed me really was Othello, because at first I was just kind of like, oh, like, what's this black dude doing in Europe at this time? This is an interesting story, like how did that happen? And that led me to like the study of the history of the Moors in Europe.

And I thought that was like really cool. So it was really like the historical plays like You know like Henry VIII, Henry V, all those historical plays that really nabbed me. So Julius Caesar was definitely on my list like back then. And originally I wasn't going to teach Julius Caesar I was gonna teach Othello, sorry last when I taught it last semester But because of this I couldn't help it like I interrupted the usually program schedule to bring this in because it was so relevant

Matt 
Great, thank you Patrick. Okay, so let's get into it. We're now gonna talk about our take on the text. So what is your unique reading of this text? Why does it speak to you? 

Allen
That's a difficult question to answer. It seems to me that there are two aspects of this play. The one that is most noticeable, the one that's on the surface, if I may, would be the political implications of authoritarianism, a Republican response to that, ending in the assassination, and the unfortunate aftermath of that event as well. And that, when I first read the play when I was in high school, was what I took from it. At that time, I must have been 14, maybe I was 15, but at that time it was kind of evident that Brutus and Cassius are the heroes and Julius Caesar is the villain of the play.

Anytime you make an oversimplification and interpretation of a Shakespearean play like that, you're leaving out far too much. Years later, I forget how old I was, but I was certainly an adult when I read Dante's Inferno, I was shocked to find that the three greatest villains being punished in hell are, first of all, Judas for betraying Jesus, but secondly, Cassius and Brutus for betraying Julius Caesar. Now that was written in the 14th century long before Shakespeare, but it opened my eyes to the possibility of a different interpretation. 

The second level of the play though, and Matt you just mentioned this, is the psychological consideration of the characters. Their different motivations for what they do in the play. And that's more difficult, I think, to access in studying the play, particularly for young readers of it. So there are different aspects of the play that probably should be considered. Does Brutus have, for example, noble intentions in the play? Yes, probably on a political level. But does he have character flaws that too and that has to be examined as well.

Patrick
So what I like about my current teaching of Julius Caesar is that it is companion very nicely between two other texts that I teach. The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas and N.K. Jemisin's Those Who Stay and Fight, because more than a historical play, I see it as what I like about Shakespeare plays is like, it delves into like the human psyche. And what I see in Julius Caesar, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas and Those Who Stay and Fight are the choices that people face when they're faced with oppression. So it's kind of like a character study and like strategy. Like what do people do when they're faced with like these oppressive forces, what choices do they make? How do they organize? What choices do they make for themselves individually, for their families, for their society? And I think as like a trilogy, those three works work very well together in tandem as like a case study.

Matt 
Yeah, I mean, just in terms of the characters choices, the choice to let Mark Anthony go, and again, I hadn't read this I was familiar enough with the history to know that Anthony does survive,  So the choice for Brutus to kind of allow Mark Antony to live, I think, was one of the more interesting choices in here with the idea that he could kind of be easily controlled after the death of Julius Caesar and to allow him to speak to the crowd and things like that. Again, right, I hadn't read it before, and as that choice kind of unfolded, I was kind of screaming at the text like, no, you can't let him live. You know what's gonna happen. 

Allen Ascher 
That raises the question, why does Brutus do that? And he does that, he insists on allowing Antony not only to live, but to speak in spite of Cassius telling him this is a bad idea. The foundation of literature, of great literature, is character creates plot. What is there in Brutus's character that moves him in that direction and makes him so insistent upon it? That to me is the second level of meaning of the play underneath the history and the politics of it.

Matt 
Well, sure. mean, I think, you know, Brutus is clear, or at least he says that he kind of wants, he doesn't want to become a butcher. He wants to do the kind of minimal amount of harm as necessary. And so in his mind, killing Caesar, at least is what he says, right? Killing Caesar is necessary, but killing Antony is not. So let us not become butchers and let us not carry out a kind of broader purge against our kind of political enemies, you know, surely we'll be able to rein in this Mark Antony. He's not such a tough guy after all. So let's do the minimal amount of killing that we need to do, right?

Allen 
So would you say that Brutus's high-mindedness is a flaw given what he's attempting to do?

Matt 
So this is starting to sound like Game of Thrones right now. There are a few plots in Game of Thrones that are essentially this. I don't see Brutus as being really high-minded. I find him to be vain and to be kind of, easily pretty easily swayed right by Cassius's talk of his own kind of grandeur and stature. And so I tend to see it as a bit of arrogance on the part of Brutus in him believing that oh we'll put this Antony on a leash no problem and he will you know bark when we say and he won't bite us. As opposed to true kind of high-mindedness about you know, how do we topple a dictatorship with as little blood loss as possible? I'm not sure that I buy into Brutus as being especially high-minded, I guess.

Allen 
That's interesting. Yeah.

Patrick 
Yeah, if I could chime in, you know, I don't, I also don't think that Brutus is high-minded. I think his tragic flaw is that he's an idealist, like living in like real world circumstances. Like Cassius, so, you know, the idea that Brutus is being played by Cassius, you know, I can see that, but I also think that Cassius, plays like, I don't think he's like a kind of like a Iago, like, you know, pulling the strings. I see him more as he has the right ideas, but he doesn't have the social cache that Brutus does. I think my read on Cassius is that, look, you have the real power, because nobody's gonna believe me, but you're an idealist. I see the moves of real people and they're dirty and they're nasty. And I'm trying to advise you, like, this is the situation within. You're in the best position to do this, what are you going to do? He is reluctant to do this and he questions himself like time and time again. But I think really his tragic flaws, not that he's high minded, like in an arrogant kind of way, I think he's an idealist, like reluctant to do these things that like he's the man to take action. I think he's uncomfortable with taking the action because at this time, besides Caesar, he's the most respected man in Rome.

Allen
Yeah, I kind of agree with that. I think you're absolutely right about that. The other aspect of Brutus is that he is a reasonable man. He reasons with himself, among others, but he also believes that everyone else is going to be reasonable as well, 

Patrick
And that's the tragic flaw of the mob.

Allen

Well, yeah, and the mob in the forum, when he gives that speech, you know, he was ambitious and therefore, okay, and really turns them in his favor momentarily before Anthony speaks with them. He just thinks that people are, well, I use the term more reasonable, but in some ways better than they turn out to be. And that includes Antony.

Patrick
It's like politicians, like imagine Kamala Harris and the Democrats. If we just tell people the truth, if they just know the truth, they will act accordingly. Nope, nope. 

Allen
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I think that's an excellent analogy, know, a modern analogy for this. And the Democrats said they didn't make their case, and that's why they lost the election. Okay. Not sure that's true.

Patrick
High-minded folks talking down to the people and they don't like it. They vote with their guts and here we are.

Allen
Yeah, yeah. What was it Michelle Obama said? When they go low, we go high? All right, that's, you know.

Patrick 
Yeah, I'm more of the, you always love Machiavelli because, you know, that's my guy, that's what I listen to. And you go high and then us in the shadows, we do the dirty work.

Allen 
Yeah.

Matt 
Alan, I've never seen you as Machiavellian before. This is a revelation to me. I've known you now for almost 30 years and do you have a secret Machiavellian side that's about to come out now?

Allen 
Well, first of all, absolutely, but doesn't everybody? Yeah.

Patrick 
I would think so. Like between Machiavelli and what's the other one? got Baltazar, Grasian, the art of worldly wisdom. Like those are my Bibles right there. And The Art of War, that's, yeah.

Allen 
And if you're going to read Shakespeare, you have to read Machiavelli and you have to read Montaigne. 

Patrick 
You got to. Well, we are really there now. We are in there. No hope.

Matt 
Thanks. So that's actually that's a really good segue for me for my take, Allen, because this idea that everyone does have that Machiavellian side. That's essentially what I wrote about when I wrote about my take. I think that's really what this text fundamentally kind of is about. And it's about showing up the lie and the hollowness of the idea of community. In this text there's a lot of talk of brotherly love and I think one of the things that this text shows is that that brotherly love that these people talk about and this bond that supposedly exists between the members of an imagined community. It's it's hollow. It doesn't really exist when push comes to shove. And what actually happens is that people eat each other. This is a this is a cannibalistic text. And I think I'll talk about the language that it uses to kind of get that across, but to me that's kind of the truth of this text is that these people talk about loving each other and then they butcher each other and the human body just becomes meat and gore. 

So the word love is used in the text 58 times and almost every single use is one man declaring his love for another. And most of them are talking about their love for Julius Caesar. I think there's maybe one instance of love directed at a woman, which is directed at Portia by Brutus. And then there are small amounts of love when it's talking about an abstract concept, such as I love honor, things like that. But otherwise, it's mostly men declaring their love for each other.

So Artemidorus who writes the warning letter to Julius Caesar signs it "thy lover" And my favorite one is Brutus calls Julius Caesar his best lover. So I guess like sorry Portia. You're you must be his second best lover. I guess Julius comes first and the wife comes second. 

We have these declarations of love and these high ideals. But on the other hand, when people actually what they do and when they're talking, you know, not expressing their love for each other, you know, they're talking about eating each other, right? And so we have Julius Caesar describing Cassius as lean and hungry and preferring that the men around him are fat and contented. Cassius describes words as things which need to be digested. Julius Caesar is described by Cassius as a devouring wolf. And here he's probably borrowing a bit from Plato's Republic. Brutus calls on the conspirators to be sacrificers and not butchers. But then he immediately talks about the need to bleed Caesar and carve him up, however respectfully. Brutus directly tells Caesar that Rome will suck reviving blood from his body and great men shall seek out his blood for tinctures, stains, and relics. Brutus calls on the conspirators to bathe their hands in Julius Caesar's blood up to the elbow and walk around in public with their bloody arms and swords in the air. He imagines Julius Caesar bleeding in sport when this scene will be acted out over the centuries. Mark Antony asks the bleeding earth to forgive him while he plays meek and gentle with the butchers who killed Julius Caesar. He later talks about putting his tongue in the wounds of Julius Caesar if it would convince all of Rome to rise up immunity against the conspirators. Right. 

And so you have this really interesting dichotomy in the text where you have all of these declarations of brotherly love, and then you have these descriptions of blood and gore and the human body, which I think is in fact the truth of the matter, right? To me, this text is essentially about the falsity of our love for each other and the willingness of people, but especially men in hierarchical masculine societies to butcher their brothers and to bathe in their gore all the while claiming to be brothers and to have some kind of special bond and to claim to be loving of each other. And so those kinds of high ideals and the reality of the human body as meat and the human psyche as petty, jealous, fearful, and small for me is fundamentally the way that I look at this text.

Allen
I don't think you can forget Shakespeare's use of language and in fact maybe even the Elizabethan use of language. The definition of lover. You can't present that in a completely modern context, I think, when you're presenting the text. That would be one thing. The other thing about blood is, and the idea of sacrifice is a little bit alien to us in the 21st century. And I think that needs to be made clear. Religiously, we speak about the blood of Christ as something redeeming us. And Julius Caesar's blood in Brutus's mind, you know, he's not bathing in the blood, washing his hands in the blood for brutal reasons. He's taking something from it as a sacrifice. I believe he also says that, doesn't he? Let's sacrifice him as a dish for the gods. So, let's not impute our modern definitions of these words or our modern sensibility in this. Now, Antony, on the other hand, does say, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, that I am meek and gentle with these butchers, you know, not religious sacrificers at all. So again, you're getting those two sides, you know, those opposing voices that Shakespeare seems always
to use in his plays. But Caesar could be considered a sacrifice.

Patrick
If this were Caligula, I might, in the context of Caligula, I might go with lover in terms of like, you know, like intimate love and stuff like that. But in terms of love, the way in the, in the context that I read it is admiration. And it's one of those things where it's just like, you know, we all love our heroes until we meet them. The people love Caesar for what he did for them. Like, you know, giving them you know, lands and properties and food and stuff like that. That's how Caesar got to be popular. People love Brutus, you know, for his reason and his wisdom. But these are all types of like, it's like, it's liminal. It depends on your love is conditional on what you can do for me. And if I find out you can't do anything for me, then that's something else. 

In terms of blood, you know along the lines of I see I saw like blood especially like you know Caesar's blood running through the earth and things like that I saw that in terms of like legacy like what comes after politically you know what's going to come after Caesar's death? You know what what the blood that spills in Rome like to what end is it gonna be is it gonna be in service to authoritarianism and the mob? Or is blood gonna be spilled in terms of like true revolution when they're looking for like saving the Roman democracy? So that's how I looked at the connection between love and blood.

Matt
So Allen, in terms of, you know, I certainly do agree that there is this idea of a kind of religious sacrifice being made here, right? And so Brutus is portraying the death of Caesar as, you know, this is a sacrifice and his blood will rejuvenate Rome, right? That it will end tyranny, will rejuvenate Rome and a better kind of thing will flow forth. Again, that's the ideal, right? And we can talk about the ideal of religious sacrifice and obviously blood sacrifice long long predates the idea of Jesus Christ as a symbolic blood sacrifice. But to me, you know again, what the question I would ask is why is it when you're praying to your God that you need to bleed something? You know, what what does that say? And to me it's about behind these kind of high ideals whether they are worship or sacrifice or the good society or whatever it is, there is the reality of blood and meat and life and death and that's what it is and that is to me the fundamental truth about the world.

Allen
Well, yeah, and I think Shakespeare is presenting both sides to us in that, can you justify the assassination, the bloody assassination, on the foundation of Brutus's political ideals? And Shakespeare is, he's making it pretty clear that Brutus seems to be the only one who may feel that way about this. Cassius, you know, that long speech that Cassius gives in Act I, Scene II about why he hates Caesar, you know, why man he bestride the world like a colossus. This is all personal animosity that he's expressing, okay? Not what Brutus would subscribe to in judging himself this way. And beyond that, Matt, as you say, you can call into question the whole idea of sacrifice. And what does that mean? All right. And we talk about that to this day, you know, the soldiers who have sacrificed themselves to protect democracy and so on. That's the language that's often used. And we have to make some judgments about that use of language in our own society.

Patrick 
So about Cassius, you know I read that too, clearly, clearly, like they, you know, they, think, you know, what is it like Brutus, Cassius and Caesar, they all knew each other. Like they all went to high school together or something like that. Like the context, right? And I think, you know, Cassius does have a beef, not with Caesar, but I think it's with him as a leader. Like I took that speech, it's like, how does a man like this become a leader of the people? Cause I knew him back in high school, he was a punk. Right? Couldn't swim. mean, that's literally, talking about his swing, like his strength and stuff like that. You know what I mean? Like he, you know, he like bully people for lunch money and stuff like that, blah, blah, blah. And how did this guy, how did this guy, knowing him as intimately as he did, how does this guy become a leader? I think he has like, in that context, you know, I mean, there is, there is, you know, there's beef there and it's personal, but I don't think it's jealousy. 

Because I think Cassius, I think Cassius is probably the most self-aware person in the whole play because he knows what he knows, but he also knows his limits. He doesn't aspire to be Caesar because he knows he can't be Caesar. He can't aspire to be Brutus because he knows he doesn't have the respect of the people like that. But what he is, is a good, what he has to offer is kind of like Tom Hagen to the Godfather. Like he's good consigliere. Okay. He doesn't, he doesn't aspire to the power himself, but he, advises power and to advance his own political ends. He found a perfect instrument in Brutus, someone who I think he actually believes would be a better leader for Rome than Julius Caesar ever would be.

Allen 
But there's another aspect of this. Caesar does not like Cassius.

Patrick
Yeah, because he sees him. He's lean and hungry and he thinks too much.

Allen 
No, I'm not saying that Caesar is wrong in that, But Cassius wants to be, to use our word again, wants to be loved. And Brutus professes his love for him, okay? What shatters Cassius in the scene of the argument between Brutus and Cassius. In the in the second part of the play that second half of the play, Cassius is shattered that Brutus has such or expresses such a low opinion of him. All right. That's what is is really is really bothering him. Curiously though As you mentioned Patrick Caesar's assessment of Cassius is absolutely accurate. Absolutely accurate. 

Patrick
Yeah, he's definitely afraid of him. And he knows he can't be bought. He knows he can't be bossed. And he knows that, and Caesar knows that he sees him for what he is. And he knows that he has Brutus's ear.

Allen 
Yes, that's another, although I'm not sure how much Caesar suspects or worries about Brutus.

Patrick
He's lean and hungry and he thinks too much. 

Allen
No, no, that's Cassius. I'm talking about Brutus. Yeah, because, you know, in and this was done in the movie really well. He's absolutely surprised and flabbergasted that Brutus is about to stab him.

Patrick 
Because he thinks he loves him so much. 

Allen 
Absolutely, absolutely.

Patrick

That's where I think Caesar fools himself, that he's duped everyone, but I think he underestimated Brutus' love for him.

Allen 

But there's a similarity there between Brutus and Caesar that both of them, they misjudge the people around them. I mean there's there's no question in my mind that Caesar doesn't have an inkling that anyone is going to try to kill him that anyone has those those strong feelings about him and Brutus in his own way misjudges Cassius. Cassius to some extent is manipulating him. And I think Brutus misses that entirely. I think he thinks Cassius is just working on his tremendous admiration for Brutus. And I don't think that's all that's motivating Cassius in dealing with Brutus. know, as Patrick says, Brutus has this quality of appealing to the people and to the other conspirators that Cassius simply does not have. And he needs that, and he recognizes that, and he needs that.

Matt 
All right, thank you both. So next category, we're gonna do a bit of close reading. Drawing a quote from the play, I'm gonna call this, now we sit close about this taper here and call into question our necessities. Pick a word, passage, or phrase that is worth reading closely. Why does that word, passage, or phrase matter? And how does the way that it is written or translated matter?

I'll go ahead and start this one. I chose Cassius and Brutus talking about the assassination being acted out in the future. And obviously this is a bit of Shakespeare having a bit of fun here, you know, being the one writing the play and writing the play where the characters talk about how the scene will, you know, in the future be acted out. So Cassius says, "how many ages hence shall this  our lofty scene be acted over in states unborn and accents yet unknown?" And Brutus says, "how many times shall Caesar bleed in sport. So often shall the knot of us be called the men that gave their country liberty."

And so again, Shakespeare is having a bit of fun here and playing. It's a bit of a metafiction in which he's playing with the idea that he's writing the play and the characters are talking about one day they're going to write plays about this and also poking a bit of fun here at Brutus in terms of, you know, his idea that they're going to be remembered as the men that gave their country liberty. And I think Shakespeare is having a bit of sport with that as well. So I do think that's kind of interesting. Shakespeare likes to do these kinds of things, You know, in Hamlet we have the play that will catch the conscience of the king and so on. 

So that, you know, just generally I find that kind of interesting. what this also made me think of is so, a film, which I really enjoy, about the assassination of Jesse James and the ballot of Jesse James, which are two kind of American folk classics. and it's another instance in which someone betrayed their good friend and then proceeded to kind of stage a play, immortalizing the betrayal. And so in the case of Jesse James, he is shot in the back by Robert Ford, who then goes on to become a stage actor, a very poor stage actor by all accounts, in which he acts out night after night after night his betrayal of Jesse James and shooting him in the back. And again, here we have Cassius and Brutus talking about how their betrayal of Caesar will one day be staged.

And so I found a few similarities between those two cases, which were kind of interesting. Both Julius Caesar and Jesse James are, of course, murdered from behind, stabbed and shot in the back. Both are portrayed in the ballad and in Shakespeare's play as beloved by the poor and by the common man. Julius Caesar, obviously in the play, is extremely popular with the crowd, who offer him the crown and things like that. And in the ballad of Jesse James, he is extremely popular.
popular with the poor, with the common folks. Both are portrayed as generous and as giving back to the poor, as producing benefits for common people. Both are portrayed as only directing their violence and looting towards those who deserved it. So outsiders, foreigners, rivals, but never the common people. Never, you know, the ballot of Jesse James says he, you know, he never harmed a mother or a child, right? And Julius Caesar is so popular in Rome because he has done all of his killing outside of the boundaries of Rome for the most part. You know, he has invaded and enslaved the Gauls and brought death and destruction to lots of places, but not to Rome. And he's brought back those kind of economic benefits for the common people of Rome.

Both Julius Caesar and Jesse James exist and act according to their own moral code based on their superior character and are thus outside of the law, but they're celebrated for that. And both of their assassins are described as benefiting from their friendship, eating of their bread, and then again performing their cowardly act of betrayal. So when I read those particular lines in Shakespeare, immediately my mind went to the ballad of Jesse James and this idea of acting out a betrayal on stage. 

Allen 
I haven't seen that movie. But, you know, I think you make some valid points. It sounds to me, though, that, I mean, what was Robert Ford's motivation, for killing Jesse James?

Matt 
Well, I guess it depends on who you ask. Again, very similar, the idea that he was special and was not allowed to shine because he was in the shadow of Jesse James.

Allen
So it's more of a Cassius attitude than a Brutus. You know, we're doing this for the good of Rome.

Matt 
Yeah, but again, I'm not sure that Brutus is 100% doing it only for the good of Rome and not for his own kind of vain, I mean, the shadow of this man kind of reasons, but yes, mean, generally speaking.

Allen
Yes, you can make that argument. When John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln in the balcony, he leaped onto the stage and said in Latin, you know, what is it? Death to all tyrants. And so that was kind of his motivation or in his mind. And I, see, what I'm taking exception to, you're focusing on Shakespeare having some fun with the idea that, you know, this is going to be played for the next 400 years and so forth. I'm not quite sure that's entirely what Shakespeare has in mind. We've seen plenty of assassination since then. And they all seem to share something of the motivations and effects that Shakespeare depicts in this play. You know, we have to remember this is a play. It's not a historical document. And Shakespeare can manipulate these historical figures to get whatever point he wants to make across in that moment. 

I remember I'm going to, I'm going to pull age rank, old man rank on you now. I remember the assassination of Kennedy very clearly. Everybody my age remembers the assassination of Kennedy very, very clearly. And it's a devastating event. And in fact, if you look at the history of the country that followed, it had devastating effects on the politics as well. So, there's an argument going on in that little dialogue where is it Brutus who says Caesar will bleed in sport and Cassius who says, but whenever that happens, we will be considered the men who gave our country liberty. It's a deeper issue that Shakespeare is discussing. And the deepest question there is, is it justified? Given everything that Shakespeare presents about the characters, is the assassination defensible?

Matt
I mean, I think when you're talking about political assassinations, particularly of a figure like a Julius Caesar, like a president, like someone who is especially important, I think the assassin typically has ideas of kind of grandeur in their head that they will be remembered as heroes for this act, that they will be revered, and that they will finally, people will see them for who they are and their inner greatness which has, you know, theretofore been ignored because they've been, you know, in the shadow of this great person or something like that, right? You know, obviously that doesn't apply to every assassination or assassination attempt, but it does apply to quite a few of them along with this idea that they are somehow changing the world, right? 

Allen

Right, for the better. 

Matt

And that this, yeah, for the better, of course, and that this will set the world correct. It'll set the world back on the tracks and headed, you know, in the right direction.

Allen 
But Shakespeare does present the opposite effect. I mean, if anything, Antony, you know, Octavius is kind of a bland character, but Antony is more extreme than Caesar. As an authoritarian figure is worse than Caesar. And that's what you get as a result of the assassination.

Matt 
Yeah, and he immediately starts plotting against the third Triumvir. What is it? Is it a Lepidus?

Allen 
One of my favorite lines in the entire play. Octavian, who's fairly young, says about Lepidus, he is a tried and valiant soldier. And Anthony says, so is my horse. And that's a great line. That's a great line. So is my horse.

Matt 
Allen, Patrick, what did you guys choose for your close reading?

Patrick 
Okay, so I chose and asked this to my class and I chose, you know, one of the most obvious ones but for different reasons. The soothsayer's beware the odds of March and here's why. So beware the odds of March is clearly the soothsayer's warning to Caesar. But he dies obviously in like the first but like third of the play or something like that. And then the soothsayer pops up again in the movie.

Patrick
He pops up again during, I think it's particularly during Mark Anthony's speech. So I thought, know, Shakespeare is a clever guy, master sampler of other people's stuff, but still clever guy. And I wondered this, beware the Ides of March. What if that were wasn't just a warning for Caesar in the immediate term? What if that was a warning to the readers of the play about the situation, that Caesar's position and that we find ourselves in in the situation of the play battling authoritarian forces. So it's kind of like for any reader of this who sees this, who's reading it in the context of our times, to me it suggests that, people reading this play, like I'm doing this for Caesar's sake, of course, but hey, wink, wink, you to the reader, because I'm the soothsayer and I see everything that everybody else doesn't see. What if this whole, this thing is like me telling you like, read this story, because this is a warning for you, and beware your eyes of March when something like this comes up. And I got some really interesting student answers from. So that was my close reading of that line.

Matt
Would you mind sharing a few of the student answers without you don't have to mention names or anything?

Patrick 
Okay, the phrase we heard the Ides of March is said to Julius Caesar warning him of his impending doom, but the phrase is also one that can be applied to America's current political climate. The relation being that as ancient Rome had a demagogue trying to persuade the public by making false pretenses, America currently has one in its office. The history of Rome was similar to that of America when it comes to the fear of, misspelled the word, but demagoguery. Ancient Rome feared a leader who would come into office under false narratives and turn out to be a tyrant, just as America's founding fathers had feared a demagogue poisoning their constitutional democracy that they fought so hard to establish. Ultimately, I take the phrase, beware the eyes of March, to be interpreted not just as Caesar's warning of death, but a warning to everyone, everywhere that demagoguery is an evil that can rise anywhere. 

Matt 
All right, I hope that student got a good grade. 

Patrick 
yeah, she's super, yeah, she's whip smart. Whip smart. She's like a Good Will Hunting smart. Doesn't always come to class, but she gets it.

Matt 
Got it. Allen, what did you pick to close read?

Allen 
There are a couple of possibilities, okay? Let me start with one that's a little more trivial, but not trivial at all, really. Do remember when Brutus and Cassius asked Casca to describe what was going on when Caesar was offered the crown? And Casca says, Casca's a fairly sour character at that point. Casca says, something funny happened, but I would not open my lips to laugh because of the stinking breath of the crowd. Okay, he mentions that. Then later on, in the funeral oration, Antony comes down from the pulpit to be among the people to show them the body of Caesar. And he says very subtly to them, don't get so close to me, stand a little far off. And both of those lines indicate the opinion of the patricians of the common people, as it were. OK, it's not pounded into our brains, but it's a very significant aspect of the demographics of the play and who's in charge and why and how they feel about others and so forth. So that's one. 

The other one is Cassius' line that's very often quoted. The faulty or Brutus is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings. It's always presented, and it always was traditionally, as this is really good Shakespearean advice to young people. That you are the captain of your souls, the masters of your fate, the fault is not in your stars, but in yourselves, and so forth. Yet, it parallels two speeches in later plays, one by Edmund in King Lear and one by Iago in Othello saying that, this is the very foolishness of people to attribute to the stars their fates when it's really themselves that are determining that. And those two are the two worst villains in all of Shakespeare. Is Cassius a villain? Is he being presented having that same philosophy and advice as a villain in this play. I don't know the answer to that. I think, again, there's a fundamental ambiguity in a lot of what's presented in this play that requires individual interpretation.

Matt
Well, I think that line, the fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves. Again, later when talking about Julius Caesar as this kind of wolf-like figure, you know, it said that he's only able to become a wolf because the Roman people have become so sheepish, right? And there's this idea that they've become unmanly and no longer the noble blood of Aeneas, which is nonsense, is no longer running through their veins and all this kind of stuff. I mean, to me, that seems to be blaming people who are oppressed for their oppression, right? This idea that, well, if only we were less like sheep, then, you know, our politicians would not be such wolves. If only, you know, we took personal responsibility that we would not be oppressed.

Allen Ascher
But Matt, isn't that what Patrick is talking about? In the sense that how do we respond to this? What's the proper way for us common folks to respond to this?

Patrick
Well, what Patrick says is, once again, this is why I think Cassius is, for me, one of the most interesting characters in the play, because he's a realist. He sees the world and people for what they are, and he acts accordingly. He just doesn't have the power to move people, other than people like Brutus, who are savvy enough to consider what he knows. I really do think, once again, that because of, especially because of that line, which I love, I think that Cassius is the most self-aware of any of the characters, of the Roman people, of Caesar himself, and even Brutus, because, and I'll mention this later, you know, for the way that Brutus meets his end, I think that line comes back to, man, this is not fate or divinity that caused this. It is your action. You decided your actions. Own those actions and, I don't know, deal with it as it may.

Matt 
Okay, I'll move us on because we are over the hour mark already. So let's keep on going.

So the next one I had was "Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius?" Where is Shakespeare trying to lead the audience in this play towards a political or moral point, a critique of governments, of politicians, of men, of the common man? So we've already been kind of talking about this a bit. Any other thoughts in terms of does Shakespeare have a kind of overarching point here? Is he trying to lead the audience to a particular place? Is he just saying this is all so ambiguous? There's nothing to be determined. We can't say what's good or right, know, good or bad, up or down, right or left. You know, to you, what is Shakespeare driving at here, if anything?

Patrick
I think the speeches are like an indication of that. Like I think that, because that's kind like the pendulum. That's where the pendulum swings in the play. I think it's an indictment of the mob because when Brutus spoke, he had them in the palm of his hands. They agreed with everything. They were cheering for him. And then when Mark Anthony spoke, know, like Brutus is kind of like, if you think of like the rhetorical triangle, right? He's reason. Brutus is reason. Mark Anthony knows what moves them best and that's their passions. Actually maybe hold on I will say Cassius and Mark Anthony are the Most self-aware people because they know how they know how they know what triggers them they knows how to make them move how to make them act I Think overall like between like the eyes of March, which I think is meant for us and the indictment of the crowd. I think that's where Shakespeare was going with this. That's just my interpretation

Matt 
Yeah, I mean, the quote I opened the podcast with, right, was, you know, if Caesar had stabbed their mothers, they would have done no less. Referring to the crown that the crowd is offering to Julius Caesar. Right. And I do think that is kind of Shakespeare's critique of the common person or of the mob or of mob mentality. And this idea that Julius Caesar could have literally, you know, offed all of their mothers and they still would have praised him and put a crown on his head, I think says something about just you know how Shakespeare kind of conceives of them which I do think is very interesting because I mean in his own time Shakespeare's plays were being attended by the common people. They were also going to the Globe Theatre to see bear baiting and all kinds of other you know lowbrow stuff as well and all kinds of things but they certainly were showing up to and attending and watching Shakespeare's plays in his own time. And he does have, he does seem to me at least to have this kind of disdain of the kind of common man, of the common person baked into here. I mean, I think to me that at least is fairly certain. 

Again, what is less certain is what he thinks about government, about democracy as a form of government, about authoritarianism. And again, whether or not he does think, you know, the assassination of Julius Caesar was in fact necessary, was good, was bad. I'm not sure if I kind of see a driving thesis there beyond the idea that all of these powerful men are just going to try and eat each other and eventually, you know, one of them will be left and standing on top but there's no kind of, you know, morality or justice or anything, you know, necessarily true about all this. This is just the way that power works. So to me that part, I don't see necessarily there being a kind of driving moral or political point for Shakespeare. I don't see him as endorsing a particular kind of government as best or as coming out of this. To me that's just kind of what it appears.

Allen
Yeah, I would agree with that. It's almost impossible to pin Shakespeare down to a particular point of view. When a character speaks in Shakespeare, the character is not necessarily expressing Shakespeare's view. He's expressing the character's view. And we don't really know and and and many of them contradict each other the characters so that we don't really know exactly what Shakespeare is saying. There's a very interesting line right after Brutus's funeral oration where one of the common people shouts very enthusiastically "Let Caesar's better parts be crowned in Brutus." In other words, we're not looking for democracy here. We're looking for a better authoritarian figure, if you will. 

One of the things that I've found in speaking to not to the kids, but to adults, is that they like the idea of great writers agreeing with them. So they interpret great writers as agreeing with their own preferences. And you really, you really are doing something, I'll use the word dangerous, but obviously it's not dangerous. But you're doing something unfortunate if you try to do that with Shakespeare. We don't know what he thought. We know what his characters thought and that's a completely different thing.

Matt                    
Again, drawing the line from the text here. "I durst not laugh for fear of opening my lips and receiving the bad air." Shakespeare was well known for both his comedies and his tragedies. Does this text work as a comedy? And if so, what would you do to it to make it funny? And I'm not saying this just as a complete farce, but I think, no, I think looking at, again, things that are happening in America today, there is one impulse, which is to see the tragedy of this all. And there is another to see it as a kind of farcical comedy and to look at some of the figures in society today or in Julius Caesar and to see the foolishness and to see the humor. It's always been a strategy of the common people to laugh at those in power and to see their flaws and to mock them behind their backs. And so I'm really interested in not only the idea of this play itself being funny in certain ways or being easy to adapt into a comedy, but I'm also again thinking about, again, when we think about what we should be doing today, what role does humor play in things like resistance? What role does humor play in terms of us just kind of maintaining our sanity and our ability to continue living on a daily basis. Should we be laughing at those in power or is it really not that funny after all? Is it really that we're laughing too much and we need to take things more seriously?

Patrick
Have you all ever watched, you guys watch The Daily Show? You know Jordan Clapper? You know he goes all, he goes, so he basically, you know The Daily Show, like Jon Stewart's The Daily Show. Jordan Clapper is one of the correspondents and his thing is going to all the MAGA rallies and interviewing people and they often say like really like just dumb stuff. So I'm imagining, if you wanna turn this into a comedy, you know, just to the effect of like what people will and will not believe. I imagine like, you know, Brutus and Mark Anthony, you know, like, you know, they're like they're trading, right? And then the people, yay for Brutus. And then all of sudden, yay for Mark Anthony. Go back and forth, back and forth. And then somewhere in there, Jordan Clapper is in the crowd interviewing these folks and the silly things that they will believe just to show just making fun of the mob like, you know what mean, the mom mentality. I think that would be kind of funny. I would cast myself as that character.

Allen 
What was that routine Jay Leno used to have to interview people on the street, know, to ask them basic questions?

Patrick
Yep, it's the same approach as Jordan Clapper.

Allen
You know, the interesting thing to me is that it's funny. You know, yeah, it's funny. It's tragic at the same time. What Patrick is describing, you know, what people at these MAGA meetings will believe, it's funny, but it's tragic that people actually believe this and are working on this belief in a sense, you know, it gets a little complicated. I don't think you can see Julius Caesar as a comedy. It's more pointing out some of the absurdities in life. And, you know, God knows there are plenty of those. But there are funny lines. There are funny lines in it.

Matt 
And I mean, there is always in any Shakespearean tragedy, there is comic relief and that's deliberately written into it, of course. And the text, you're right, the text itself is not inherently funny. I do think with a few tweaks here and there, though, it becomes funny pretty quickly. I think some of these kind of dialogues and some of these interactions and some of these monologues very quickly become a Mel Brooks movie. And I don't think you need to change all that much to get it there. I think it happens pretty quickly just with a little bit of shift of emphasis here, a little bit of a different wordplay there. And it essentially becomes that. And I think that's what, I think that's a defining feature of authoritarianism is how utterly ridiculous and absurd it is. And yet how tragic and powerful a force it is and what it unleashes because of the extremities that authoritarians are able to go.

And if people weren't actually being harmed, you would look at it and say, this is the funniest thing ever. It's so absurd. It is the craziest thing I've ever seen. Wow, this is humorous. Until you pull back and then realize and remember that actually people are being hurt by this thing. And there's, you know, there's a limited amount that humor can kind of do to that, I guess.

Patrick
I'm imagining, I'm imagining, sorry to cut you off, but I imagined something really funny. know, friends, Romans, them in your ears, and then all of sudden a whole bunch of people throw up whole bunch of ears on there, stage, because they don't understand what they take everything like literally.

Allen
I think in my mind, I defined funny and humorous slightly differently from absurd. Absurd, think, can be tragic. It can also be very funny. 

Patrick 
Yeah, absurd, yeah. Theatre of the Absurd, there you go.

Allen
It can be very funny at the same time. But, I was watching some documentaries on the Civil War the last couple of days. You know, Lee ordered 15,000 men to walk across a mile-long field into the teeth of union defenses, and like seven or nine thousand of them were killed on the, on the spot by that. And you look at that and you wonder what made these guys do that? I mean, because Robert E. Lee said to do it? You walk across a field like that? That to me is absurd. And it's tragic at the same time. But you're right. You know, it's a thin line in between. I mean there's a reason why his comedies are among the best comedies that have been written, as well as the tragedies being the best of those.

Matt 
And again, I do think there is something in particular about authoritarians. And the reason that they are authoritarians to a certain degree is that they don't kind of fit in in society and they can't rise through normal means. So they do have to kind of rise through absurd means by definition, right? You don't rise to become emperor or dictator, Caesar or whatever through the normal political process. So you need some kind of absurd process to rise the power and in doing so, right, that is where that kind of absurdity comes in and that is where you can look at this and say, my God, look at this person. They're incredibly strange. Look how stupid they are. Look at this thing they're doing. And yet they keep rising, right? And no matter how much you point out how absurd this is, they keep gaining power. They keep growing, right? And they keep rising until they eventually get to the top. And then, you you realize, oh, it's not so funny anymore, right?

Allen
Well, isn't that what Cassius is saying about Caesar? He's saying he's a very ordinary person. He can't swim. He's sick, you know, like a sick girl. And yet look where he is. There's that wonderful speech in Richard II where Richard has been deposed and he still has some adherents calling him your majesty and so forth. And he makes a long speech. And at the end of it, his line is, how can you say I am a king? You know, and it calls the whole thing into quote, what does that mean even? And Shakespeare points that out time and time again in his plays that these are ordinary people and sometimes even less than ordinary.

Matt 
"Let not our looks put on our purposes, but bear it as our Roman actors do." You're casting a movie based on this text. Who are you choosing to play, which characters, and why? Alan, are you sticking with Brando? Is he forever your guy in this role? Are you updating that?

Allen
I think that Julius Caesar in 53 may be the best Shakespeare put on film. And I think the cast was pretty much letter perfect in it. I couldn't think of anyone else to choose for that. Now, there was a second movie, Julius Caesar, that starred Jason Robards as Brutus and Charlton Heston as Mark Antony. And that was something you might laugh at, actually. Jason Robards was an excellent, excellent actor when he was doing Eugene O'Neill. But he was a stereotypical American actor who could not handle the Shakespearean verse. It just didn't come across. The second problem with it is when after Caesar's assassination, when Mark Anthony comes in and he's a little nervous about what they're going to do with him and so forth. And Jason Robards, you know, kind of reassures him, we're not going to hurt you and so on. Charlton Heston is about twice the size of Jason Robards. I mean, just just to see the two of them in that juxtaposition is kind of an absurdity. So you have to be very careful when you're casting these plays to get the right types for it and with the right abilities for it. I really, you know, I'm sure that there are great film actors today who can handle this very, very well. But that movie presentation, I thought was just excellent.

Matt 
Okay, so Alan's casting nobody. It's already been perfected. Patrick, Patrick, what do you think?

Allen
It's already been done. Yeah.

Patrick
All right, you know, I always love how like the Shakespeare remixes. When Othello is cast as a basketball player, you know, like kind of like first generation, he goes to private school and all that. love that stuff. Okay. So Alan, let's keep all of your picture perfect characters in play. However, I want to make two switches. I want John David Washington, Denzel Washington's son to play Brutus. I want him to play Brutus. And I want the woman, there's two women, let's see. One is Gloria Foster, Mary Alice, you probably wouldn't know those names, but they both played the Oracle in The Matrix. Okay. That's what I, that's, that I want, so I want her to be the soothsayer. Okay, and the way I want Brutus like kind of like, portrayed, you know, he's like the reluctant participant, kind of like, during like Jesus's 40 days and 40 nights doubting everything that got him into the position doesn't know what he wants to do. But in the end, he kind of owns it. Like by the time he kills Caesar, I want, I want him to own it. I'm gonna stop there because that's gonna feed into how I would rewrite the end of this. But that's what I want. John David Washington as Brutus and the Oracle as the Soothsayer.

Allen
I will add one thing in a way of explanation. Okay. If you were to ask someone of my generation who the best football player ever was, we're going to say Jim Brown. Right? 

Patrick 
I get you. That's fine. You have your choice. No, no, this is is generation rule like,

Allen 

Right. if I ask Patrick, I understand. But if I ask younger people, they're going to mention people that I'm not that familiar with. you know, it is fine. I absolutely agree. But I want to explain that I saw that movie at a very impressionable age. And therefore, that's what, you know, that's how I envisioned those characters. And so, and that's why I made the statement that I'm sure there are actors now who could bring this off.

Patrick 
Yep. I do not doubt you because I picked the night I agree with you that that is the that is the best, like on film, the best Julius Caesar because I chose that one to show in class. I agree. I saw the other way. It sucked. Come on, man. You can do your Ten Commandments, man, but don't bring it to Shakespeare, dude. You don't have you do not have the chops.

Allen 
And, know, I got to tell you, Patrick, he was a Shakespeare aficionado. He did a few films of Shakespeare and none of them are good. 

Patrick
I know, but he's the bank. He was the bankable actor in the day. We needed like gravitas. So I get it. I get it. But you know, time travel aside, like if we can bring all those actors into play, of course, you know, what's his name has to be in it. Who's got this all in the English actor. He's in all the, did Henry the Eighth, David, Kenneth Branagh. know, Kenneth, Kenneth Branagh as Cassius. Gotta be. Hands down.

Allen
Yeah. Actually, that's one movie he did not do, Branagh. That's one of the plays he did not make into a movie. He's done a number of them.

Patrick 
So, okay, so we still got a chance, right? In these times and they're both black, you know, like that revolutionary kind of feel to it, I kinda like it. We should drop a treatment and see what we can do.

All right, well, you all did a much more respectful job with this than I did. I'm going...

Allen
Are you going to mention the cast of Young Frankenstein to do this?

Matt 
No, no, actually, actually, so I did go the comedy route, though. So I did think if I were going to turn Julius Caesar into a comedy, I would just do the entire cast of Monty Python. They did do a little sword and sandals epic called The Life of Brian. So we know they can take on the Roman Empire. I have John Cleese as Julius Caesar. I think he's good. He's he's big. He's good at being the kind of big imposing figure. He's good at being a bit of a jerk. And so for him, he makes sense to me as Caesar as the dictator. I've got Eric Idle as Brutus, Terry Jones as Calpurnia because he was always the best at playing female characters. He just has some really epic ridiculous portrayals of female characters that I feel like he would be able to kind of bring that. 

Patrick
I'm with it. I see it. I watch it. I watch it.

Matt 
and he would just be whining at Julia Caesar and, Julius, don't you know? You're a I don't know. can't do the voice.

Allen
I may spend the next week trying to erase that image from my mind, actually.

Matt 
Graham Chapman as Cassius, obviously directed by Terry Gilliam. And then I had Michael Palin as a Cinna the Poet, who needs to be in the comedy because the killing of Cinna by the mob, again, is such an absurd thing that it needs to be there in an absurdist comedy. But I think Monty Python would do a terrific Julius Caesar. I think it would be great and I would watch it. 

So, final category. "Let me see, let me see. Is not the leaf turned down where I left reading? Here it is, I think." So the Bard seminar has been conceived of as a sequence of texts that help guide students on an intellectual journey. What is your sequence with this text and why? You can pair it with any text that you like, but just make sure to explain why those particular texts and what journey you would like to take students on.

Patrick
I can do that because I actually did it. So when I signed Julius Caesar, had just finished, like Julius Caesar was a follow-up to me teaching Plato's The Republic. And I had an assignment that focused on Socrates' idea of the ideal city. We studied that and then I paired it with the Black Panthers 10 point program, comparable plans for an ideal society. And then I had them do their own, write their own 10 point program in the style of the Black Panthers, outlining what their ideal society is. And then we moved into Julius Caesar. So we can learn about the history of competing ideals of democracy and authoritarianism. And then before I, my teaching of Plato's The Republic was preceded by The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas and Those Who Stay and Fight. So it was kind of like a long kind of like series of like the human condition and the ideal society.

Allen 
This was difficult for me to do. You know, we could certainly go in the direction of other plays about ancient Rome or movies about ancient Rome. Or even Julius Caesar, you know, or Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra, that kind of thing.

I would have to give it more thought. I don't know exactly what I would do. I mean, there are plenty of modern books about authoritarianism and what can be done about it. I remember doing A Day in the Life of Ivan Danisovich, which touches on some of the same circumstances, let's say. But I don't know, this play, because of its combination of historical narrative and psychological insight. think it's just kind of, you know, for me it's kind of at the top of those kinds of things. I'm not sure what else might measure up to it. You you can do something like Billy Budd, but I don't know if I would have much enthusiasm for anything like that. I'm not as well read, obviously, in the more modern works about authoritarianism.

Matt 
Thanks, Alan and Patrick.

Patrick
Hey, just one thing. Are we gonna do the question about what scene we would rewrite? Or I just have a quick comment, just really quick comment. 

Matt
Yeah, go ahead.

Patrick

Can't help it, okay. So Brutus kind of like goes out, like it's clear that it's like a reference to Plato. Like he gives his apology and then, you know, he drinks the arsenic and commits suicide, stuff like that. I never liked that. I never liked that at all. So I figure, so remember, this is John David Washington. So at the end, where he's basically like, almost like says like he resigns himself to his fate, right? At the end, you know, I want, you know, slowly over time, I want like the Brutus's character to like slowly like realize like he's owning this. Like this is his destiny to do this stuff. And if he's gonna go out, like go out like Fidel Castro speeches, like speaking truth to power, right?

And then like, mean, I think Matt, seen, you referenced Game of Thrones. You ever seen like the Battle of the Bastards when John Snow just kind of just goes rogue and he's willing to take on the whole army by himself? That's how I want him to go out. That's how I want my Brutus to go out. I don't know if he gets saved at the end. I don't know if there's like gonna be like some national guardsmen, you know, but that's how I want him to go out. Like I was reluctant at first as any reluctant revolutionary is, you we all wanna live. But at the same time, he's like inspired by like all these ancestors before him and he's in position to do it. He did the deed, he owns it. I picked my path. Like, you know, that whole going back to that speech with Cassius, like, you know, it's not in the stars, it's in the faith, you know, our faith is in our own hands. I kinda want him to repeat that when he goes out.

Matt 
Yeah, Shakespeare's not that interested in describing military battles really, right? Like the battle is kind of the backdrop and it's happening, but you're seeing it through the lens of these characters. And so Brutus is not gonna charge headlong into a column of hacking away and things like that, unfortunately.

Patrick
Yeah, I don't want them to go out passively. You know what mean? I want them to go out actively. So Jon Snow things the closest I go.

Allen
It raises a point, Patrick raises a point, that Brutus seems to think that Caesar was a sacrifice. But at the end of the play, like you said, Patrick, he seems to accept his death very passively. Would it be better if he saw himself as a sacrifice to something greater than himself?

Patrick
Yeah, but I mean, not like necessarily like I guess I don't know, like in the terms of like, I forgot who wrote Revolutionary Suicide, but like in that regard. You know what mean? Like I accept this death. This is a good death. If I must die, I'm choosing how I'm going out. And this is the message that I leave, you know, to whomever.

Matt 
And for my seminar sequence, again, for a film companion, I'm suggesting The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. I've already stated the reasons for that. It is a slow-paced film, but it's beautiful and emotionally impactful. Some really terrific acting. Just generally, again, if you like a slow movie, it's for you.

One thing I actually thought about that I didn't think I was going to is that my previous podcast I did about Things Fall Apart. And having done Things Fall Apart and now doing Julius Caesar, I'm seeing a lot of connections there and kind of wondering if Chinua Achebe was not to some degree influenced specifically by Julius Caesar. There is quite a bit in there in terms of overlap and Okonkwo, the main character of Things Fall Apart, attempts to overthrow British colonialism violently and in the end ends up hanging himself when he realizes that he has failed to win, he's failed to do so, the people haven't rallied behind him and he comes and he goes off and kind of hangs himself and is later found by the colonial authorities who are obviously victorious and know colonialism can can go on in Nigeria. There is also a lot of discourse in that text about people becoming not manly enough anymore and if only we were manlier we would be able to throw these British, these colonialists out of the country and again I do think there's a bit of that in Julius Caesar. So that is an interesting read. It's really interesting for me having done those two texts very close to each other. And maybe that's a bit of recency bias where two things that I've done close to each other, I start to see the connections there. I think there is something to go with that. 

But for my main pairing, I'm really interested in a book by another legendary African author, Wizard of the Crow by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. I think it's a good novel to discuss authoritarianism and democracy. Only in the case of Ngugi, The Wizard of the Crow is about a dictator who tries to convince his people that he is restoring democracy to them without actually restoring anything democratic whatsoever. And so he talks about giving back democracy to the people and in the novel he's actually pregnant. He, the male dictator of this country, is pregnant and they say that he's pregnant with Baby D, baby democracy, and that he's going to give birth to the democracy and give it to the people. It's a profoundly funny novel and one that really mocks the dictator and the dictatorship and the various goons who uphold his rule. But it's also one which has more faith in the people to see through the dictatorship and to oppose it when the moment is right to eventually rise up and reclaim something like a democratic government.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o went into self-imposed exile in 1982 as his works and plays were being banned in Kenya due to their criticism of the authoritarianism of the Kenyan government as well as their communist content. He remained in exile for two decades, first in the UK and later in the United States, and he only returned to Kenya in 2004 when the longtime dictator Daniel Arap Moi was out of power and Ngugi was about to release this novel, Wizard of the Crow. And so he figured, you know, the dictator is gone with my forthcoming novel about authoritarianism and democracy, let me go back to my native Kenya for the first time in over two decades. Almost immediately upon his return, several men broke into his room. They beat him with the butt of a gun, put out cigarettes on him, and tortured him and they raped his wife. And so that is what authoritarianism looks like. And there's nothing really funny about it sometimes. And so that's where I want to end the podcast.

Patrick
You stand by this book Matt, because I'm about to buy it. 784 pages. 

Matt 
I love it. Do you like magical realism? 

Patrick

Oh, of course. 

Matt

I love it. It's yeah, it's good.

Patrick 
Alright, buy now. You got me. Are you a shill for them or something? You getting money off of this?

Matt 
Yeah, you know, I'm backed by Big Ngugi. Yeah, absolutely. I'm a shill.

Patrick
I just bought it. I like it. and I think there is something to the whole Shakespearean influence on Things Fall Apart because I know that Achebe had, you know, if he's in Nigeria, he had a classical like British education. So of course he would have run by like Shakespeare. And I think in the same way that like CLR James did a play on the Haitian Revolution that's very off like Shakespearean tragedy and stuff like that. So I think there is something to that.

This is fun. Can we do another one? 

Matt

Uh, yes. 

Patrick

I wanna do, I've said it in the chat, I wanna do one on Othello.

Matt 
Okay, I am interested, I am interested. 

Patrick 
For black history month. I'm just kidding. That's how I'm the DEI in. I'm sneaking it in. I'm sneaking it in.

Matt 
We'll get past them yet. They'll never catch us. Yeah, let's definitely talk about doing some more in the future. Patrick, Alan, thank you both. This has been really great. I've really enjoyed talking to you both.