Julius Caesar and Shakespeare

Julius Caesar

by

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Bill Long, M. Div., Ph. D., J. D.

Julius Caesar was probably written and performed in 1599, being the first Shakespeare play performed in the new Globe theater on the South Bank of the Thames. Four background points are important to understand.

1) Historical Background

Elizabeth I had been monarch over England since 1559 but was in her mid-60s in 1599, and speculation was rife regarding a successor. She had no heir, and there was considerable worry that her death might lead to warfare such as had consumed the houses of Lancaster and York in the 15th century. Julius Caesar is a play exploring the chaos that results when a monarch dies without obvious successors. When she died in 1603, the Scottish House of Stuart took the throne with James I (James VI of Scotland) ruling.

Julius Caesar is the one of Shakespeare's earliest tragedies, with only Titus Andronicus (early 1590s) and Romeo and Juliet (mid 1590s) being earlier, and he wrote it mid-way through his career. Following quickly on its heels will be Hamlet, and some scholars see Brutus in Julius Caesar as a prototype or "first draft" of Hamlet. In addition, Julius Caesar is the first of Shakespeares' three Roman plays, the others being Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra. Plutarch, the 1st-2nd century A.D. biographer, in a 1579 translation by North, is his major source for these plays. Thus, Shakespeare is feeling his way both in a new genre of playwriting as well as a new subject matter. The play that results, Julius Caesar, is of uneven quality: the first three Acts are among Shakespeare's most accomplished, but the literary power of Acts IV and V is less compelling.

2) Collapsing Time

One of the literary devices employed by Shakespeare to make the action more vivid is to collapse the actual historical time between scenes and acts. For example, the historical event contemplated by 1.1 is the defeat by Caesar of Pompey's sons at Munda in Spain in September 45 B.C. The celebration of Caesar's triumph is in February 44 B.C., and his assassination is in March 44. Yet, all these things happen in the first three Acts without any time apparently having passed. That is, the scenes go right from one to the next, with only a night passing between them. In addition, there was more than a year between the funeral of Caesar and the formation of the 2nd triumvirate (Mark Antony, Lepidus and Octavian), and then there was another year before the battle at Philippi (42 B.C.). Nevertheless, Acts IV and V of Julius Caesar follow directly on the heels of the assassination. All happens rapidly and intensely. We are caught up in the rapid pace of it all by Shakespeare's method.

3) Literary Style

The style of Julius Caesar has always made it popular. The language is sturdy and straightforward, like the Romans it describes. There is little word-play beyond the banter between the plebians and the Tribunes in 1.1. In addition, the play has been popular for secondary schools because there is no sex in it. Therefore, teachers can talk about the "greatness" of Shakespeare and have students read every line of the play without worrying about which parts of the male and female anatomy are being described. Finally, the language is vivid and memorable. Antony's vicious description of Lepidus, Cassius' resentful characterization of Caesar, Brutus's reference to tides in the affairs of men to spur action, Caesar's insufferable self-descriptions, Antony's masterful speech at Caesar's funeral, all of these make Julius Caesar not just a play of "one-liners," but a play of sustained eloquence. Many passages are worth memorizing, reciting and incorporating into educated conversation on subjects quite distinct from this play.

4) Themes

Many of the standard treatments talk about a "clash" of great themes in Julius Caesar, such as predestination vs. free will or the public vs. the private life, but I choose to see the themes not as presenting tensions between virtues or philosophical positions but as single words that are fraught with significant meaning. In this regard, the notions of betrayal or loyalty or ambition or the the penalties for ignorance of the self seem to have a greater resonance with me than supposed "tensions" between values. I think it is far more useful to talk about the nature and psychology of betrayal (with respect to Caesar) or the costs of lack of self-knowledge (with respect to Brutus). I think the portrait of Caesar's authority as "Christlike" or the vulnerability as well as resentment of Cassius call for comment. As with so much of Shakespeare's tragic works, the most fruitful issues to explore are in the area of the emotions or character growth. Finally, I think that Portia, Brutus's wife, is often overlooked but in fact is a crucial person in the play. By not having words shared with her by her husband at the right time, she cannot help him. By having those words shared with her at the wrong time, she cannot speak. Ultimately she dies in a manner that demonstrates her inability to speak: by swallowing hot coals.

Julius Caesar is a richly textured work whose complexity belies the apparently straightforward presentation of assassination and civil war.