Key Quote
“"Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more"”
Brutus · Act 3, Scene 2
Focus: “Rome”
Brutus's justification for assassination — framing murder as a higher form of love — reveals the terrifying logic by which political violence is moralised.
Technique 1 — COMPARATIVE STRUCTURE / MORAL CALCULUS
The comparative structure — 'not... less, but... more' — creates a moral calculus (weighing competing values numerically): Brutus claims to have measured his love for Caesar against his love for Rome and found Rome heavier. This utilitarian (judging actions by their overall benefit) reasoning reduces complex human relationships to a mathematical equation — as if love can be quantified and compared on a scale.
The parallelism (matched grammatical structure) of 'loved Caesar' and 'loved Rome' equates the personal and the political, individual and nation. But the equation is misleading: loving a person is qualitatively different from loving an abstract concept. Brutus's rhetoric conflates (merges distinct things) two fundamentally different kinds of love to justify an act that neither can truly support.
Key Words
RAD — REGRESS
Brutus regresses morally: a man defined by his own integrity has committed murder, and his defence — however eloquent — cannot restore his moral standing. The regression is in the gap between self-perception and reality: Brutus believes himself an honourable liberator, but the audience increasingly sees him as a self-deceived killer. His moral regression is invisible to himself, making it all the more tragic.
Key Words
Technique 2 — PROSE vs VERSE — RHETORICAL STRATEGY
Brutus speaks in prose while Antony, who follows, speaks in verse. This is a deliberate rhetorical choice by Shakespeare: Brutus appeals to reason (logical argument) using prose's more conversational register, while Antony appeals to emotion using verse's rhythmic, musical register. The play demonstrates that emotion defeats reason in the arena of public persuasion — Antony's verse wins the crowd that Brutus's prose merely convinced.
The speech is notable for what it lacks: emotional specificity. Brutus provides abstract principles ('honour,' 'freedom,' 'Rome') but no concrete details of Caesar's tyranny. This abstraction (dealing with ideas rather than specifics) reveals that Brutus's case rests on hypothetical danger rather than actual evidence — he killed Caesar for what he MIGHT have done, not what he DID.
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Context (AO3)
REPUBLICANISM vs MONARCHY
The tension between republicanism (government by elected representatives) and monarchy (rule by a single sovereign) was live in Elizabethan England. Brutus represents republican values — the belief that no individual should hold absolute power. Shakespeare explored this tension carefully, knowing his audience included both republicans and monarchists.
POLITICAL ASSASSINATION
The Gunpowder Plot (1605) — an attempt to assassinate King James I — occurred shortly after *Julius Caesar* was first performed (c. 1599). The play's exploration of whether political murder can ever be justified had immediate, dangerous relevance to Jacobean politics.
Key Words
WOW — THE BANALITY OF EVIL (Arendt)
Hannah Arendt's concept of the banality of evil — that terrible acts are often committed by ordinary people who believe they are acting correctly — illuminates Brutus's position. Brutus is not a villain; he is a thoughtful, honourable man who genuinely believes he is saving Rome. His evil is banal (ordinary, unremarkable) precisely because it is committed with good intentions and rational justification. Arendt studied Adolf Eichmann and found not a monster but a bureaucrat who 'just followed orders.' Brutus is Eichmann's classical precursor: a man who commits murder and calls it duty, who kills his friend and calls it love. Shakespeare's deepest insight is that the most dangerous people are not those who know they are doing wrong but those who are absolutely convinced they are doing right.
Key Words