Julius Caesar is Shakespeare's historical tragedy recounting the events surrounding the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. As in all of his plays, Shakespeare employs a variety of literary devices to tell the story.
Tragedy: Tragedy deals with sad and often terrible events and usually ends with the death of at least one of the main characters. In the end of Julius Caesar, Brutus commits suicide and is the third main character of the play to die (Caesar and Cassius precede Brutus in death). Brutus's death is tragic because, as Antony suggests at the end of the play, Brutus was "the noblest Roman of them all."
Simile: A simile is a comparison of two unlike things using the words like or as. In Act V, Scene 1, Antony uses similes in his description of the conspirators who killed Caesar. He compares them to apes and dogs:
Villains, you did not so when your vile daggers
Hacked one another in the sides of Caesar.
You showed your teeth like apes and fawned like
hounds
And bowed like bondmen, kissing Caesar’s feet,
Whilst damnèd Casca, like a cur, behind
Struck Caesar on the neck. O you flatterers!
Idiom: An idiom is common expression that may be figurative ("Break a leg") but could also have a literal meaning. A common idiom which is both literal and figurative is "The early bird gets the worm." In Julius Caesar, one of the most famous idioms is offered by Casca in Act I, Scene 2 when he says, "it was Greek to me" to describe what Cicero is saying to Caesar. The phrase is literal because Casca could not understand Greek. It's also figurative because Shakespeare suggests that Cicero's words were beyond the limited thinking of Casca.
Dramatic Irony: Dramatic irony occurs when the audience knows more than one or more of the characters on stage. The entire premise of Julius Caesar is based on dramatic irony as the audience already knew what fate awaited Caesar and that he should have given more attention to the warning "Beware the Ides of March."
Personification: Personification is when a non-human subject is given human qualities. One example occurs in Act II, Scene 2 when Caesar gives human qualities to danger by suggesting that "Danger knows full well/That Caesar is more dangerous than he."
Blank Verse: Blank verse is defined as unrhymed verse written in iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter, the preferred mode of speech in Shakespeare's plays and sonnets, involves alternating stressed and unstressed syllables. Lines of verse usually contain five stressed and five unstressed syllables (Dr. Seuss uses iambic pentameter in his famous children's story Green Eggs and Ham). Probably the most famous line of blank verse in Julius Caesar is in the opening of Marc Antony's funeral oration:
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears
Metaphor: Metaphor is a comparison of two unlike things in order to give greater meaning to one of those things. In Act V, Scene 3, Titinius compares Cassius, who has just committed suicide, to a setting sun. He also likens the end of the Roman Republic to that same setting sun:
But Cassius is no more. O setting sun,
As in thy red rays thou dost sink to night,
So in his red blood Cassius’ day is set.
The sun of Rome is set. Our day is gone;
Clouds, dews, and dangers come. Our deeds are
done.
Mistrust of my success hath done this deed.
Suspense: Suspense is the feeling of curiosity or uncertainty about the outcome of events in a piece of literature. Shakespeare establishes suspense in Act I by having the soothsayer utter the words "Beware the Ides of March" and direct them at Caesar.
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