For our final session on Shakespeare's ,"Julius Caesar", we examined the role of harmartia in Brutus' tragic fall. We noted Brutus' blind idealism as an atypical character flaw and then measured to what extent outside forces or fate controlled Brutus' destiny. In that regard, we parsed the speech wherein Brutus proclaims ,"There is a tide in the affairs of men/...that leads to Fortune. "We discussed the analogy of mankind afloat on a ship controlled by tides as not truly descriptive of Brutus' tragic outcome as he has exercised free will and made numerous misjudgments . We noted how Shakespeare's tragedies often end in a carnival of suicides , here , Cassius, then Titinius,, and last, Brutus. Nina did well in class discussion commenting on how the text reveals that both Cassius and Brutus at the end of the play feel remorse for the assassination of Caesar as Brutus concedes that Caesar was the only man who was ever"true" to him .Others merely used him. Last, we discussed Antony's famous quote that Brutus was the "noblest Roman of them all." HW- Test on play Monday.Read distributed handout- introduction to of Mice and Men.