Shakespeare and Moral Agency (Continuum Shakespeare Studies)

223 Pages·2010·0.57 MB·English

by  Michael D. Bristol

20 Shakespeare and Moral Agency
Granting, then, that the play puts under scrutiny the suffi ciency of good
intentions alone in a gray world of complex political forces, it should be noted
that it is precisely the issue of intention that Antony highlights in his tribute to
his fallen enemy:
Antony: All the conspirators save only he
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar.
He only, in a general honest thought
And common good to all, made one of them. (5.5.68–71)
As both Antony and Octavius agree, distinctions need to be made, motivations
and intentions must be taken into account as we judge others’ (and our own)
morality.
Shakespeare here seems to be leading the audience to make the kinds of
distinctions we make in Richard II and in Othello. Some characters are beautiful
in what they are rather than what they do; indeed, their very interior beauty
leads them to make errors that lead to tragic outcomes. Richard II, as has so
often been noted, is the poet-king beautiful in his speech and in his soul,
disastrous in his political judgments. Othello’s noble friendship and trust are
the very qualities which allow the envious Iago to bring about his downfall.
And Iago notoriously tells us of his seemingly innocent victim Michael
Cassio, “He hath a daily beauty in his life / That makes me ugly” (Othello,
5.1.19).
In Julius Caesar, Cassius takes on something of the role of Iago in the later
play. He, too, is a man driven to violence through his envy, and he makes no
secret of his envy of Caesar even in trying to appeal to Brutus’s republican ideal-
ism.13 Rather than speak of the evils of monarchy or the danger to republican
liberty in Caesar’s ascent to power, Cassius emphasizes Caesar’s mere humanity,
his equality with the other aristocrats like himself and Brutus, as he feels out
Brutus’s attitudes towards Caesar:
Casisus: I had as lief not be as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself.
I was born free as Caesar. So were you.
We both have fed as well, and we can both
Endure the winter’s cold as well as he.(1.2.96–101)
Although Cassius tells Brutus that “honor is the subject of my story” (1.2.94),
envy is its clear driving motor. In the climax of his exhortation to Brutus, envy
of greatness is made the central republican virtue:
Cassius: Now in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed