Compare And Contrast Brutus And Antony’s Speech | Julius Caeser | William Shakespeare | facexor

Contrast Brutus and Antony as orators

Answer: Brutus's style of speech is entirely different from that of Antony's. Brutus avoids all artifices. He is terse and pointed. “He addresses a Roman crowd as if he were reasoning with the scholars in a rational school.” His manner is that of a pedagogue who expects his word of authority to carry conviction. He states arguments, suggests principles. He never appeals to personal emotion, but to patriotism, to love of liberty, to political idealism. If the Roman mass is impressed, it is not by his public speaking, but by his overwhelming personality and moral greatness. They accept him not because he convinced them but because they honor him.
 
On the other hand, Antony is the practised speaker. He avoids political reasoning completely. He depends totally on appeals to individual sentiments and emotions. He strengthens these by citing actual facts. Here he is superior to Brutus. He starts by evoking the admiration of the crowd for Caeser, the hero of hundred wars, who had raised the dignity of Rome and replenished her empty treasury. These are facts. With such pleas alternating gradually with increasing irony towards the conspirators, he wins over the sympathy of his audience. Then with adroit skill, he holds up to them Caeser's love for the Roman citizens, displays to them Caeser's cruel wounds, and reads out to them Caeser's will. “From first to end, it is to fervent sentiments that he appeals; not as an intellectual debater like Brutus, but as an orator who seeks not to convince but to excite."