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Friends romans countrymen lend me your ears how to#
Friends romans countrymen lend me your ears movie#

The three basic ingredients of any persuasive speech are Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. Here’s a basic breakdown of the tactics Antony and Shakespeare use in the speech:

Friends romans countrymen lend me your ears how to#

Shakespeare himself studied rhetoric at school, so he knew how to write powerful persuasive speeches. Back in ancient Rome, aristocrats like Antony were groomed since birth in the art of persuasive speech. One reason why this speech is so famous is its clever use of rhetoric, the art of persuasive speaking. To drive it home, the word if is in the stressed position, making it impossible for the crowd to not consider the possibility that Caesar wasn’t ambitious, and thus, didn’t deserve to be murdered. Brutus said Caesar was ambitious and Antony agrees that ambition is worthy of death, but he also adds an If, to plant the seeds of doubt in the crowd’s minds. “ If it were so.” Again, Antony might be making a subtle jab at the conspirators.Antony might be making a subconscious attempt to say Brutus and the other evil men who took the life of Caesar are living, when they deserve to die. “The Evil that men do, lives after them”- Notice that the words evil and men are in the stressed position.He uses the verse to emphasize Antony’s frustration.

Friends romans countrymen lend me your ears movie#

In the movie version, Marlin Brando as Antony shouts each word to demand the crowd to just lend him their attention for a little while. It is not a standard iambic pentameter line, which makes it rhythmically more interesting.

The first line of the speech grabs your attention.

I could write a whole post on the verse in this page, which I don’t need to do, since The Shakespeare Resource Center did it for me: What I will do is draw attention to some major changes in the verse and put my own interpretations on how Antony is using the verse to persuade the crowd: Antony uses his own emotions and his powers of persuasion to manipulate the crowd, so his verse helps show how he changes the pulse of the Roman mob. It not only tells you which words are important to stress, it gives you clues about the character’s emotional journey just as a person’s heartbeat can indicate their changes in mood, a subtle change in verse often betrays the character’s pulse and state of mind. The greatest gift Shakespeare ever gave his actors was to write his plays in blank verse. The two main methods Shakespeare uses to infuse Antony’s speech with powerful persuasive energy are the way he writes the verse, and his command of rhetoric. Methinks there is much reason in his sayings. My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, 1650Īnd I must pause till it come back to me.įirst Citizen. O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,Īnd men have lost their reason. What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him? You all did love him once, not without cause: I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,īut here I am to speak what I do know. Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition? I thrice presented him a kingly crown, 1640 When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: 1635Īmbition should be made of sterner stuff: Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill: He hath brought many captives home to Rome He was my friend, faithful and just to me: Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest- 1625 The good is oft interred with their bones 1620 I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears

So how does he get them to do so, right after Brutus got them on his side?Īntony. If you notice in the text of the speech below, Antony never overtly says: “Brutus was a liar and a traitor, and Caesar must be avenged,” but that is exactly what he gets the crowd to do. If he fails, he will be lynched by an angry mob. So the stakes are very high for Antony: If he succeeds, the crowd will avenge Caesar, and Antony will take control of Rome.