An Invogue Myth of Dear Brutus

Authors

  • Poornima S V Assistant Professor Of English, Government First Grade College & P G Study Centre, Bapujinagar, Shivamogga, Karnataka -577201 Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47392/irjash.2020.162

Keywords:

Dear Brutus, modern literary theories, Victorian period

Abstract

Shakespeare has made Brutus a renaissance humanist. He is identifiable with Plato, Aristotle, Thomas
More or Francis Bacon. He is a republican and an idealist. He is made to love the nation and to love the
individualism. In this way Shakespeare makes him the image of the renaissance embodying all the beams of
the spirit. In course of time, Brutus becomes a knowledge center and who undergoing a change to fit an
ideal to the changing situation. The image of Brutus also changes in due course. The image is socialized
and secularized to represent the meaning of freedom and liberty in different versions. In this regard, one
can bring an analogy between the character of Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and any character in
Barrie’s play Dear Brutus. The thoughts of the Elizabethan Brutus are reminded and practiced by the
common men and women in their routine existence. During the transition, the new knowledge is spread as if
it is the Christian knowledge which can brighten the human condition pushing aside the dark ignorance.
The brightness of Brutus is now distributed in the form of the practicable human activities preserving the
same values of liberty, equality and the brotherhood. The renaissance Brutus symbolizes the love of the
nation, the love of new knowledge, the love of justice and above all the love of freedom. These ideas become
the main forces in the formation of Brutus myth. Brutus continues to live propagating these values even to
the modern periods. Being an archetype Brutus passes on through the path of art and through the doctrines
relevencing the path to the path human construct in society.

Published

2020-09-01