Critical Essay | Critical Essay by William R. Bowden

Critical Essay by William R. Bowden

SOURCE: Bowden, William R. “The Mind of Brutus.” Shakespeare Quarterly 17, no. 1 (winter 1966): 57-67.

In the following essay, Bowden describes Brutus as self-righteous and intellectually limited.

A bothersome passage in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is Brutus' accusation of Cassius in the celebrated quarrel scene:

                                                            I did send to you For certain sums of gold, which you denied me: For I can raise no money by vile means: By heaven, I had rather coin my heart, And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash By any indirection: I did send To you for gold to pay my legions, Which you denied me: was that done like Cassius?

(IV.iii.69-77)¹

These lines have elicited a good deal of scholarly comment (as what lines in Shakespeare have not?), but I do not know that their implications in an assessment of Brutus' character...
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