Comparing Julius Caesar And Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince

Julius Caesar , by William Shakespeare, is a tragedy that is based on recorded events, by Plutarch, a Greek historian, biographer, and essayist, from Roman history. It is a play that is synonymous with the struggle of power, betrayal and brutality, in the name of leadership. The Prince, by Niccolò Machiavelli, is a 16th-century political treatise which also concerns it self with dominate leadership and power struggles. Through different textual forms – drama and prose, the ideas which they highlight, alongside the values and attitudes which they convey, are intricately connected with the contexts within which each composer was writing, as well as with the artistic effect each achieves. In both works, language is skillfully shaped to convey

Shakespeare is a dramatic play, which was primarily created for the purpose of entertainment, while The Prince is a treatise, which is a formalized systematic discourse, which concerns itself with power, with in a political arena. Julius Caesar consists of two different types of speech, Blank Verse, or Unrhymed Iambic Pentameter, and Prose. Shakespeare has used these two distinctive forms of text to help the audience distinguish between the nobles, who speak in Blank Verse, or Unrhymed Iambic Pentameter, and the commoners who speak in prose. This creates death between the characters in the play and shows how much power each character contains. It also makes the commoners sound less formal, and less educated. An example where this is exercised is when the daft plebeians are manipulated by Antony’s speech and threaten to revenge Caesar by killing the conspirators “Revenge! About! Seek! Burn! Fire! Kill! Let not a traitor live!” It demonstrates the simple, but strong and powerful language used by the commoners. The language used by Shakespeare helps to indicate the power which a character possessives, while also creating depth and exciting the audience of the play. Shakespeare has also used Prose as a means to create a didactic text, which explores leadership and