Previous
Genre
Definition of Hyperbole
Hyperbole is a figure of speech in which a writer or speaker exaggerates for the sake of emphasis. Hyperbolic statements are usually quite obvious exaggerations intended to emphasize a point... read full definition
Hyperbole is a figure of speech in which a writer or speaker exaggerates for the sake of emphasis. Hyperbolic statements are usually quite obvious exaggerations... read full definition
Hyperbole is a figure of speech in which a writer or speaker exaggerates for the sake of emphasis. Hyperbolic statements... read full definition
Act 1, scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—Cry Me a River:
In Act 1, Scene 1, Favius rebukes a crowd of commoners for their celebration of Caesar's defeat of Pompey. He hyperbolically instructs them to head to the Tiber and weep until even the streams of the river reach the bank:
Go, go, good countrymen, and for this fault
Assemble all the poor men of your sort,
Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears
Into the channel, till the lowest stream
Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.
This is, effectively, a primitive predecessor to the idiom "cry me a river," and a prime example of the sort of wordplay that suffuses the rest of Julius Caesar—the play's various characters resort to all manner of figurative language to make their points clear.
This is also an early introduction to Caesar himself, whose reputation precedes him by quite a bit. The general public is seen to be in full support of Caesar, though he remains a divisive figure amongst the tribunes and senators. Even so, any such favor is bound to be fickle: Flavius himself is quick to observe, as he instructs the crowd to cry him the Tiber, that the very people now rejoicing in Caesar's victory once celebrated Pompey in much the same fashion.
Related Themes:
Act 5, scene 5
Explanation and Analysis—The Nod from Nature:
In Act 5, Scene 5, as Julius Caesar draws to a close and Brutus lies dead on the stage, Antony offers his tribute to the tragic hero. Antony uses personification to communicate the depth of his admiration for Brutus:
This was the noblest Roman of them all.
All the conspirators save only he
Did that they did in envy of the great Caesar.
He only in a general honest thought
And common good to all made one of them.
His life was gentle and the elements
So mixed in him that nature might stand up
And say to all the world “This was a man.”
Antony’s praise of Brutus is effusive past the point of reality: nature itself could spring up and, in testament to Brutus's virtue, deliver a eulogy. While it may sound like a hyperbolic statement to make, Antony's personification of nature is one more reminder of the times in which Julius Caesar takes place—for a Roman population, practicing their polytheistic religion, nature could indeed be personified in one of the representative gods of the world.
The depth of Antony's admiration of Brutus centers around his observation that Brutus struck against Caesar out of a genuine hope for Rome's future, rather than out of envy. Throughout the crash-course in political ambition and moral relativism that is Julius Caesar, Brutus is the only one of the conspirators able to keep his honor intact: though the murder of a political rival seems a horrific thing to do, Brutus's motivations were pure. Ιn the final moments of the play, it is Brutus, and not Caesar, whom Antony exalts as a tragic hero.
Related Themes:
