In the play Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, Mark Antony delivers a very strong and persuasive funeral oration in Caesar's honor. Antony himself was a trusted friend of Caesar and manipulated the conspirators of the play in thinking that he approved of their deed. With his influential tone and methods of verbal communication, Antony had his audience in an awe of disgust and hate. Mark Antony's funeral speech: A soliloquy that changed the play of Julius Caesar.
Antony's vocalizations are a triumph all on their own. He used many literary techniques that would set the boundaries of public speaking for centuries to come. Perhaps repetition was one of the strong points of his speech. Mark says the words "noble" and "honor" throughout it several times. The repetition of the words sends out an intense vibe to the audience. The way he puts his words are just about mocking Brutus's previous speech, thus sending his message clearly to the people.
English: Map of the Roman Republic in 40 BC after ...
English: Modern bronze statue of Julius Caesar, Ri...
Bust of Gaius Julius Caesar in the National Archae...Every time he would repeat something, it made the audience even more riled and boisterous then before. Repetition of words and phrases was a great element to Antony's speech.
Another technique of persuasion that Mark Antony used was parallelism. When he spoke, he basically kept on changing his words, but kept to the same point. He repeated what he said, but changed the words around a little differently every time it was spoken. This makes the audience think. He twists and turns the words around but yet, he insists on Caesar's death being conducted because of ambition. Then again, he only insists on it because of Brutus's previous words (which consisted of Caesar's ambition). Antony kept his speech equal to Brutus's words, and by doing that, clearly got his point across to the people- a genius technique indeed.
While Antony's...