How to Move the Crowd: The Persuasive, Powerful Rhetoric of Mark Antony

 

Sundai M. Riggins

English Teacher

Elizabeth Seton High School

Bladensburg, MD

 

Plays and Scenes Covered:

Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene 2

Lines 82-151

 

 

NCTE Standards Covered:

1,  2,  3,  4,  5,  6,  7,  8,  9,  10,  11,  12,  13,  14,  15

 

 

 

What’s On and Why?

 

Brutus and Mark Antony’s speeches are critical to the climax of the play.  After Antony’s speech, all goes downhill for Brutus and the conspirators.  Antony’s combination of ethos, pathos and repetition, plus his compelling delivery inevitably wins over the citizens of Rome.  It is imperative for students to note the shift in power and also the intensity of the text and the oral delivery of Antony’s speech.  This lesson will allow students an opportunity to do a close reading, identify the effects of the rhetorical appeals used and the opportunity to mimic how
Antony would have delivered the speech.

 

 

What To Do:

 

1)     Distribute copies of Act III, Scene 2 lines 82-151

2)     Have students circle any repeated words.

3)     Using at least two different dictionaries, have students look up the definitions of the two most commonly used words in the speech, honorable and ambitious.

Briefly discuss the definitions to each word.  Tell students to note the context of the words used in Antony’s speech.  Allow students to read the first part of the speech aloud.  Briefly discuss why they may find the speech persuasive.  Ask students about how the repetition of the words changes the context of the speech.

4)     Introduce the terms ethos and pathos.  Briefly discuss why these appeals can be

effective and critical persuasive elements of an argument.  Have students and underline words and phrases that appeal to ethos and pathos.  Now allow students to edit ½ of the speech with bland phrases.  Allow students to share their edited responses.

5)     Divide the class into groups of 3 or 4.  Distribute copies of lines 82-117 and lines

130-149 in chunks (see handout).  Remind students of the rhetorical appeals.  Using their text and the excerpts from the speech, students should underline words they would like to emphasize and stress in the delivery of the speech.  Probe them with the following questions:

How did Mark Antony feel about Caesar?

What words does he use to express his feelings?

How do you think he would have delivered this speech?  Consider his tone of voice, mood and attitude.

Note the order of the speech when considering all of the above.  Did his tone of voice and / or mood change?  Does he yell, cry, whisper?

 

6)     After the students edit their speeches, allow the class to reread Antony’s speech.

Each group can choose a student to read their group’s portion of the speech.  Divide the room into quadrants.  Let the students know each quadrant should read each plebeian’s response.  As a class, everyone should read the last line, 149, “The will, the will, we will hear Caesar’s will!”

 

7)     As a wrap up / closing activity – ask students to write down the answers to the

following:

How did Antony’s speech influence the crowd?

What did you notice about the words you decided to stress?  Did you focus on ethos, pathos appeals?  Why or why not?

Ask students to briefly share their responses.

 

 

How Did It Go?

 

If students were engaged and on task during these activities, the lesson was successful.  This activity will help student to recognize the importance of the rhetorical appeal and delivery of speeches.  It should also cue students to pay attention to speeches and/ or soliloquies by characters during future readings.

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Riggins, Sundai

How to Move the Crowd: The Persuasive, Powerful Rhetoric of Mark Antony

Editing Handout #1

 

JC Act III, Scene II

Lines 82-151

 

Antony’s speech – Part I, p. 122-123, lines 82-117

 

 

Antony

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.

 

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

 

The evil that men do lives after them;

 

The good is oft interred with their bones.

 

So let it be with Caesar.  The noble Brutus

 

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious.

 

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

 

And grievously hath Caesar answered it.

 

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest

 

(For Brutus is an honorable man;

 

So are they all, all honorable men),

 

He was my friend, faithful and just to me,

 

But Brutus says he was ambitious,

 

And Brutus is an honorable man.

 

He hath brought many captives home to Rome,

 

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.

 

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?

 

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept;

 

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

 

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,

 

And Brutus is an honorable man.

 

You all did see that on the Lupercal

 

I thrice presented him a kingly crown,

 

Which he did thrice refuse.  Was this ambition?

 

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,

 

And sure he is an honorable man.

 

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,

 

But here I am to speak what I do know.

 

You all did love him once, not without cause.

 

What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for

 

            Him? –

 

O judgment, thou [ art ]  fled to brutish beasts,

 

And men have lost their reason! – Bear with me;

 

My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,

 

And I must pause till it come back to me.  [ He weeps. ]

 

 

 

Part II -  p.125, lines 130 - 149

 

But yesterday the word of Caesar might

 

Have stood against the world.  Now lies he there,

 

And none so poor to do him reverence.

 

O masters, if I were disposed to stir

 

Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,

 

I should do Brutus wrong and Cassius wrong,

 

Who (you all know) are honorable men.

 

I will not do them wrong.  I rather choose

 

To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you,

 

Than I will wrong such honorable men.

 

But here’s a parchment with the seal of Caesar.

 

I found it in his closet.  ‘Tis his will.

 

Let but the commons hear this testament,

 

Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read,

 

And they would go and kiss dead Caesar’s wounds

 

And dip their napkins in his sacred blood –

 

Yea, beg a hair of him for memory

 

And, dying, mention it within their wills,

 

Bequeathing it as a rich legacy

 

Unto their issue.

Definitions:

 

 

Ambitious –

 

 

Honorable –

 

 

Ethos –

 

 

 

Pathos –

Riggins, Sundai

How to Move the Crowd: The Persuasive, Powerful Rhetoric of Mark Antony

Editing Handout #2

 

 

Note:  Each group only needs one copy of each excerpt.  To conserve paper, cut each passage after the line.  This handout can be edited to divide the speech in longer or shorter excerpts if needed.

 

 

Group #1

 

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.

 

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

 

The evil that men do lives after them;

 

The good is oft interred with their bones.

 

So let it be with Caesar.  The noble Brutus

 

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious.

 

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

 

And grievously hath Caesar answered it.

 

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest

 

(For Brutus is an honorable man;

 

So are they all, all honorable men),

 

Come I to speak at Caesar’s funeral.

_____________________________________________________________

 

Group #2

 

He was my friend, faithful and just to me,

 

But Brutus says he was ambitious,

 

And Brutus is an honorable man.

 

He hath brought many captives home to Rome,

 

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.

 

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?

 

Group #3

 

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept;

 

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

 

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,

 

And Brutus is an honorable man.

 

You all did see that on the Lupercal

 

I thrice presented him a kingly crown,

 

Which he did thrice refuse.  Was this ambition?

 

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,

 

And sure he is an honorable man.

_____________________________________________________________

 

Group #4

 

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,

 

But here I am to speak what I do know.

 

You all did love him once, not without cause.

 

What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for

 

            Him? –

 

O judgment, thou [ art ]  fled to brutish beasts,

 

And men have lost their reason! – Bear with me;

 

My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,

 

And I must pause till it come back to me.  [ He weeps. ]

Group #5  

 

But yesterday the word of Caesar might

 

Have stood against the world.  Now lies he there,

 

And none so poor to do him reverence.

 

O masters, if I were disposed to stir

 

Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,

 

I should do Brutus wrong and Cassius wrong,

 

Who (you all know) are honorable men.

 

_____________________________________________________________

 

Group #6

 

I will not do them wrong.  I rather choose

 

To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you,

 

Than I will wrong such honorable men.

 

But here’s a parchment with the seal of Caesar.

 

I found it in his closet.  ‘Tis his will.

 

 

_____________________________________________________________

 

Group #7

 

Let but the commons hear this testament,

 

Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read,

 

And they would go and kiss dead Caesar’s wounds

 

And dip their napkins in his sacred blood –

 

Yea, beg a hair of him for memory

 

And, dying, mention it within their wills,

 

Bequeathing it as a rich legacy

 

Unto their issue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Riggins, Sundai

How to Move the Crowd: The Persuasive, Powerful Rhetoric of Mark Antony

Handout #3 – Essential Questions

 

Directions:  Answer these questions BEFORE you decide how you will deliver your portion of the speech.  This will help you to make directorial choices.

 

1)   How did Mark Antony feel about Caesar assassination? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2)  What words does he use to express his feelings?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3)  How do you think he would have delivered this speech?  Consider his   tone of voice, mood and attitude.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4)  Note the order of the speech when considering all of the above.  Did his tone of voice and / or mood change?  Does he yell, cry, whisper?