Et tu, Brute?

This class in some ways is the completion of a full circle for me and my Regis English career.  The first text that really intrigued me freshman year was 'Julius Caesar,' which I read in Mr. Quinn's English class.  It was the first encounter I had ever had with reading plays, and it did not disappoint.  To this day one of the highlights of freshman English was Mr. Quinn's rendition of Antony's funeral oration.  "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears."  Of course no fellow student in that class would have had the confidence to perform such a feat as reading with emotion like Mr. Quinn did in his best Brando-esque impression; for, after all, we were freshmen.  I think it's safe to say, however, that most of this class, as seniors, now has the nerve to perform such a daunting task as letting passion fill the vocal chords.  This is very fortunate, for, since I have learned since first reading 'Julius Caesar,' Shakespeare is without a doubt meant to be performed.  Language, wordplay, feeling, these are all lost when Shakespeare's words are simply read in a monotone voice while sitting in a desk.  Mark Antony's funeral oration, in my opinion the most powerful piece of rhetoric in the entire play, certainly would not have affected the mood of the mob if he had dictated it in a boring fashion.  These lines are dripping with raw feeling and that must always be remembered.  Even though the feeling in Antony's voice was a faked feeling, it makes no difference.  Charlton Heston sounded pretty convincing to me in his rendition of the oration, and I know for a fact that he wasn't the person of Mark Antony.  Similarly, Antony, in the world existing as we imagine the plot in our minds, nonetheless sways the crowd, directly because of the passion with which we have to assume he invoked in his speech.  This is why Shakespeare caught me. Without seeing one of his plays performed, it really requires a rather large invitation for the imagination to work double-time.