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REVIEW
- Burke, Kenneth. "Antony in Behalf of the
Play."
- Southern Review, 1 (1935): 308-319. Rpt. in
The
Philosophy of Literary Form: Studies in Symbolic Action.
N.P.: Louisiana
State UP, 1941. 329-43.
Thesis: Burke's
general aim is to "consider
literature . . . as a
communicative relationship between
writer and audience, with both
parties actively participating" (329). In
this case, This
reader-writer relationship is emphasized in the
following article,
which is an imaginary speech by Antony. Instead of
addressing the
mob, as he is pictured in the third act of Julius Caesar, he
turns to the audience. And instead of being a dramatic character
within the
play, he is here made to speak as a critical
commentator upon the play, explaining its mechanism and its
virtues. Thus we have a tale from Shakespeare, retold, not as a plot
but from the
standpoint of the rhetorician, who is concerned with a
work's processes of
appeal. (329-30) Burke's method
makes summary difficult, but I
believe that his main point is that
Shakespeare keeps his audience in "as vacillating a condition as this
very Roman mob you have been watching with so little respect" (331),
inviting both sympathy for and doubts about Brutus, Caesar, and
Antony. Burke's method also gives him the freedom to simply assert
major points, such as the idea that Antony is "no mere
Caesar-adjunct, but the very vessel of the Caesar-principle"
(334).
Antony doesn't explain just what the "Caesar-principle" is,
or why he embodies it, rather than Octavius, who becomes the next
Caesar.
Bottom Line: Cloudy, and only mildly
interesting.
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