Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III MATTER IN THE DRAMA The objective of the vital study of literature is to realize the truth of the definition of art as a picture and an interpretation of human life; to secure increased knowledge of and sympathy with our fellow men; to learn more about ourselves, our tendencies, our prospects, our environment, our potentialities; to grasp a little better some conception of God's plan in dealing with man and with men. So much for theory. Now, let us apply the theory of vital appreciation to Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," select certain aspects of the drama susceptible of correlation with human life as we see it and know it, and frame a few suggestions regarding the study of the play from the point of view of matter. Like unto Us. Despite the fact that this play was written more than three hundred years ago about people who lived more than two thousand years ago, it is distinctly up-to-date. Fashions in clothes have changed, and social customs may have varied somewhat, and methods of warfare have grown more death-dealing and intensive, but in every essential—and in very many non-essentials —life is much the same in the play as in our own day and place and generation. Then as now the game of politics consisted largely in plotting to overthrow a ruler on the pretext that he had taken too much power unto himself. Then as now conspiracy thrived best in the dark, and yet news of it managed to leak out. Then as now mobs were swung hither and yon by means of appeals to their emotions—then by orations, now by newspapers. Then as now grave misunderstandings arose between friends and brothers-in-arms. Then as now great men like Caesar and Brutus were most appreciated after they were dead. Idealist and Politician. Dozens of men like Brutus and Cassius walk our str...