• Du détournement au délire interprétatif : les figures de l’excès dans Julius Caesar de Shakespeare

    Author(s):
    Yan Brailowsky (see profile)
    Date:
    2014
    Subject(s):
    English drama, Sixteenth century, Seventeenth century, Prophecy, Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    Early modern English drama, Shakespeare and early modern drama
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M60R9M379
    Abstract:
    Shakespeare’s Rome is nothing but excess—excess as écart, death or even rapture. Caesar exceeds, or crosses, multiple boundaries: after having entered Rome with his army and taken hold of the city, he becomes a living god; after his death, he returns to predict the death of Brutus as a ghost, flouting the laws of Nature. To this, we must add the playwright’s excess: Shakespeare includes more omens than attested in his sources. By thus breaking with his forebears (notably Plutarch), the dramatist may have wished to point out the inherent difficulties in circumscribing the dangers of interpreting prophetic or divinatory phenomena. The divinatory practices of ancient Rome make it possible to indefinitely (re)interepret signs and wonders sent by the gods, at the risk of interpreting too much. Thus, the Ides of March also refer to the “sides”, “tides” and even the “dogs” of an irate crowd or deity... such as when, in a moment of madness, or “slip”, Antony prophesies, invoking Caesar’s ghost and the “dogs of war” of the god of war, Mars, on the ides of the month named after him, March. The ensuing chaos is the excess this paper wishes to examine.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Journal article     Show details
    Pub. DOI:
    10.4000/shakespeare.1039
    Publisher:
    OpenEdition
    Pub. Date:
    2014-3-1
    Journal:
    Actes des congrès de la Société française Shakespeare
    Issue:
    25
    Page Range:
    3 - 23
    ISSN:
    2271-6424
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    4 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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