" Much of this is Professor Dowden's view and not
Shakespeare's. When Shakespeare wrote "Julius Caesar" he had not reached
that stage in self-understanding when he became conscious that he was a
man of thought rather than of action, and that the two ideals tend to
exclude each other. In the contest at Philippi Brutus and his wing win
the day; it is the defeat of Cassius which brings about the ruin;
Shakespeare evidently intended to depict Brutus as well "fitted for
action."
Some critics find it disconcerting that Shakespeare identified himself
with Brutus, who failed, rather than with Caesar, who succeeded. But
even before he himself came to grief in his love and trust, Shakespeare
had always treated the failures with peculiar sympathy. He preferred
Arthur to the Bastard, and King Henry VI. to Richard III., and Richard
II. to proud Bolingbroke. And after his agony of disillusion, all his
heroes are failures for years and years: Brutus, Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear,
Troilus, Antony, and Timon--all fail as he himself had failed.
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