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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.2897  Thursday, 27 December 2001

From:           Jim Slager <jslager12@attbi.com>
Date:           Saturday, 22 Dec 2001 19:42:52 -0800
Subject:        Re: Great Caesar's Ghost

Thanks to everyone to contributed to my understanding of "Thy evil
spirit, Brutus."

Also aided by Asmiov's explanation concerning the ghost of Hamlet's
father I have come to the following conclusions:

Modern people’s image of ghosts is that each person has a spirit which,
after the person’s death, may appear in the form of the dead person’s
body.  Elizabethan’s image of ghosts is that there are any number of
spirits which may appear in any number of forms.  In fact each person
may have a good spirit and a bad (evil) spirit and either could appear
in the person’s form or in any other form including the form of another
dead person.

When the stage direction says “Enter the Ghost of CAESAR” it means that
some spirit is appearing in the form of Caesar.  Brutus asks “Art thou
some god, some angel, or some devil, ...” which indicates that, although
Brutus can see the shape of Caesar’s body he does not know what spirit
is inhabiting it.  When the ghost identifies itself as “Thy evil spirit,
Brutus” we see that it is the bad spirit of Brutus and not Caesar’s
spirit at all.  I think that this interpretation is in certain harmony
with Bill Godshalk’s venture that “Caesar’s ghost represents (or
symbolizes) the evil part of Brutus himself” and with Sophie Masson’s
suggestion that “Thy evil spirit as in thy bad conscience” although I’d
be happy if they would speak for themselves on this.

I’m a little bit troubled about my interpretation due to Brutus’
statement in the final scene that “The ghost of Caesar hath appear’d to
me.”   But then “My evil spirit in the form of Caesar’s ghost hath
appear’d to me” wouldn’t fit the meter. <g>

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