Murullus
Notes on Murullus
Politics and the People
Read the NoteShakespeare often wrote about politics but he usually dealt with political infighting at court. Two of his Roman plays, however, deal specifically with politicians’ relationship with the people, the fickle masses. Julius Caesar and Coriolanus offer observations about these fraught relationships, which are as true today as they were both in Elizabethan and Roman times.
Like many of Shakespeare’s plays,
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Pandering, Contempt and the Masses
Read the NoteMany of Shakespeare’s plays deal with political intrigue at court between political leaders. However, in Julius Caesar and Coriolanus, more than in other plays, the themes address the relationships between political leaders and the masses. Since both plays are set in historic Rome and not in Shakespeare’s England, they can deal with the themes of democracy and the wisdom of the populace to govern themselves through a republican form of representation.
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Quotes spoken by the character Murullus
Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?
Read the QuoteWherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?
What tributaries follow him to Rome,
To grace in captive bonds his chariot-wheels?Pysma
You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!
O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,
Knew you not Pompey?Anaphora Many a time and oftHendiadys
Have you climb’d up to walls and battlements,
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