SOURCE: Girard, René. “Collective Violence and Sacrifice in Julius Caesar.” In New Casebooks: Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare, edited by Richard Wilson, pp. 108-27. Hampshire, U.K.: Palgrave, 2002.

In the following essay, originally published in 1991, Girard argues that “Julius Caesar is the play in which the violent essence of the theatre and of human culture itself are revealed.”

The theatre deals with human conflict. Curiously, dramatic criticism discusses the subject very little. Can we automatically assume that Shakespeare shares the commonsense view according to which conflict is based on differences? Can we assume that tragic conflict is due to the different opinions or values of the various protagonists? This is never true in Shakespeare. Of two persons who do not get along, we say: they have their differences. In Shakespeare the reverse is true: the characters disagree because they agree too much.

Let me explain this paradox. Why...