Caesar Critics

Question 1

Schlegel

Answer 1

‘heartless littleness’

Question 2

Kermode

Answer 2

‘a Machiavellian sense of political reality is the entirety of Octavius’ mentality’

Question 3

Alderman

Answer 3

‘Octavius is …by no means the spokesman for the ideal of Rome itself: our sense of ancient Roman virtues comes …from the descriptions of Antony as he used to be’

Question 4

Frye

Answer 4

‘a leader who is ruthless yet not really treacherous given the conditions of a ruler’s task, who is always provided with all the justifications he needs for destroying Antony’

Question 5

AC Bradley

Answer 5

‘his figure is invested with a certain tragic dignity’
‘his lament over Antony…may well be genuine, though we should be surer if it were uttered in a soliloquy’

Question 6

Brandes

Answer 6

‘the victory of Octavius brings glory to no one and promises nothing’

Question 7

Adelman

Answer 7

‘the contest between Caesar and Cleopatra, Rome and Egypt, is in part a contest between male scarcity and male bounty as the defining site of Antony’s heroic masculinity’

Question 8

Hansen

Answer 8

‘Octavius, ever the play’s embodiment of stoic discipline and cold, detached realpolitik, is ever offended by Antony’s transgression against these values that he so fervently believes in and him having traded Roman values for Egypt and Cleopatra’
‘a man with his own moral compass, a compass on which level-headed statesmanship, duty and moderation stand forth as essential values’

Question 9

Brower

Answer 9

‘in his characterisation of Octavius and the makers of the new order, Shakespeare casts a cold eye on the course of empire’

Question 10

Wilders

Answer 10

‘Shakespeare develops Octavius’ character significantly from the Plutarch source where he ‘appears as a brilliantly efficient soldier and a careful politician’