Julius Caesar: Third Series (The Arden Shakespeare Third Series) - Softcover

William Shakespeare

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1903436214 ISBN 13: 9781903436219

Publisher: The Arden Shakespeare, 1998

Synopsis

This edition of one of Shakespeare's best known and most frequently performed plays argues for Julius Caesar as a new kind of political play, a radical departure from contemporary practice, combining fast action and immediacy with compelling rhetorical language, and finding a clear context for its study of tyranny in the last decade of the reign of Elizabeth 1. The richly experimental verse and the complex structure of the play are analysed in depth, and a strong case is made for this to be the first play to be performed at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.'Daniell's edition is a hefty piece of serious scholarship that makes a genuine contribution.'Eric Rasmussen, University of Nevada at Reno, Shakespeare Survey'This is a stimulating new look at a play which is too often exhibited in a critical museum.' Paul Dean, English Studies

About this title

Review:

One of Shakespeare's most political plays, Julius Caesar continued Shakespeare's interest in Roman history, first developed in Titus Andronicus. Drawing on Plutarch, the great historian of Rome, Shakespeare dramatises one of the most crucial moments in Roman history--the assassination of Julius Caesar. Loved by the Roman crowd but increasingly feared by the Senators, Caesar increasingly shows signs of his desire to abolish the Republic and crown himself emperor. A conspiracy is hatched, led by Cassius and Brutus, who murder Caesar on the steps of the Capitol. Mourning over his dead friend's body, Mark Antony gives one of the famous rhetorical speeches in literature, asking "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" to lament Caesar's death, privately vowing to "let slip the dogs of war" against those who have shed Caesar's blood. Antony joins forces with Caesar's son Octavius to defeat Cassius and Brutus in battle, and establish an uneasy alliance whose collapse is dramatised in Shakespeare's later play Antony and Cleopatra. Written at the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign, Julius Caesar has been seen by many as a radically pro-Republican play which sailed close to the political wind of the time. --Jerry Brotton

Review:

"Daniell's edition is a hefty piece of serious scholarship that makes a genuine contribution." --Eric Rasmussen, University of Nevada at Reno, Shakespeare Survey

"This is a stimulating new look at a play which is too often exhibited in a critical museum." --Paul Dean, Review of English Studies

About this edition

• Publisher: The Arden Shakespeare
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1903436214
• ISBN 13: 9781903436219
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 416
• Editor: David Daniell