"
Coleridge's comment on this deserves notice. He wrote: "This speech is
singular; at least, I do not at present see into Shakespeare's motive,
his
rationale, or in what point of view he meant Brutus'
character to appear. For surely ... nothing can seem more discordant
with our historical preconceptions of Brutus, or more lowering to the
intellect of the Stoico-Platonic tyrannicide, than the tenets here
attributed to him--to him, the stern Roman republican; namely, that he
would have no objection to a king, or to Caesar, a monarch in Rome,
would Caesar but be as good a monarch as he now seems disposed to be!
How, too, could Brutus say that he found no personal cause--none in
Caesar's past conduct as a man? Had he not passed the Rubicon? Had he
not entered Rome as a conqueror? Had he not placed his Gauls in the
Senate? Shakespeare, it may be said, has not brought these things
forward. True;--and this is just the ground of my perplexity. What
character did Shakespeare mean his Brutus to be?"
All this is sound criticism, and can only be answered by the truth that
Shakespeare from the beginning of the play identified himself with
Brutus, and paid but little attention to the historic Brutus whom he had
met in Plutarch.
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