Superstition is considered a myth to most people, but for the ancient Romans, this was a historical belief. For the Romans, believing in superstition was a very ordinary thing. To them superstition explained the supernatural and strengthened their relationships with the gods (The Roman Empire). In the play Julius Caesar, the author William Shakespeare uses superstition repeatedly to affect the plot as well as the characters. Superstition in the play is used to foreshadow Caesar’s death, impact Brutus’ actions in the battlefield and to emphasize the Roman’s connection to superstition and fate.
One of the biggest superstitious beliefs in Rome at that time was the power to see the future; which Caesar’s future was to die. Julius Caesar was one of Rome’s greatest leaders and even he could not escape the superstitions of his death. Many signs of superstition were shown such as the appearance of the soothsayer, who is a person with the ability to see the future. When the soothsayer came up to Caesar he said, “Beware the ides of March” (1.2.28); and by the ides of March, the soothsayer means a day in the Roman calendar that marks the 15th of March. The effect of this quote was to foreshadow the death of Caesar through the superstitious act of seeing the future. Caesar’s death was also foreshadowed in Calphurnia’s dream where she saw the conspirators bathe their hands in Caesar’s blood (2.2.80-84). The Romans at that time widely believed in ghosts, so Calphurnia seeing ghosts in her dream coming out of their graves was also superstition. Not only was it superstition, but it was also a bad omen and a sign that something bad was going to occur. The lioness roaming the street and everything else Calphurnia dreamt about was superstition that...
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...in sorrow because of superstition and suffered painful deaths for both ignoring and accepting it. William Shakespeare was a great author and writer and hopefully we can continue to learn from his writing for years to come; because that is every school student’s undeniable fate.
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And let no one think this tale a myth or a lie, for it is vouched for by Cornelius Balbus, an intimate friend of Caesar. the second sign came when Spurinna warned him to beware of danger, which would come not later than the ides of March. The third sign came when a little bird called the king-bird flew into the Hall of Pompey with a sprig of laurel, pursued by others of various kinds from the grove hard by, which tore it to pieces in the hall. Caesar himself dreamed of being in the clouds and his wife Calpurnia thought that the pediment of their house [had] fel...
Cassius believes that he should not be ruler of Rome for a few very specific reasons, so to combat this he convinces Marcus Brutus to join his conspiracy by forging fake letters. Brutus is very honorable and is loved by many people in Rome, so he would bring the people to their side. On the 15th of March Caesar went to the capital despite the multiple warnings he was given. Calpurnia ,Caesar’s wife, dreamt of his statue running with blood and begged him to stay home. Although Caesar ignored it when Decius convinced him that it represented the good and richness that he would bring to Rome.
Superstition has been around almost since people first inhabited the earth. For this reason, it has played a main role in many classical pieces of literature. One of Shakespeare’s tragedies, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, is full of superstition and the supernatural. It contained so much superstition in order to foreshadow key events in the plot, to further develop characters, and to thrill and relate to the Elizabethan audience for whom the play was written.
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Shakespeare’s complex play The Tragedy of Julius Caesar contains several tragic heroes; a tragic hero holds high political or social esteem yet possesses an obvious character flaw. This discernible hubris undoubtedly causes the character’s demise or a severe forfeiture, which forces the character to undergo an unfeigned moment of enlightenment and shear reconciliation. Brutus, one of these tragic heroes, is a devout friend of the great Julius Caesar, that is, until he makes many execrable decisions he will soon regret; he becomes involved in a plot to kill the omniscient ruler of Rome during 44 B.C. After committing the crime, Mark Antony, an avid, passionate follower of Caesar, is left alive under Brutus’s orders to take his revenge on the villains who killed his beloved Caesar. After Antony turns a rioting Rome on him and wages war against him and the conspirators, Brutus falls by his own hand, turning the very sword he slaughtered Caesar with against himself. Brutus is unquestionably the tragic hero in this play because he has an innumerable amount of character flaws, he falls because of these flaws, and then comes to grips with them as he bleeds on the planes of Philippi.
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