Julius Caesar (play)

I

Introduction

Julius Caesar (play), tragic play about political rivalries, written by English playwright William Shakespeare in about 1599. The play’s full title is The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. It was probably one of the first of Shakespeare’s plays to be performed at the Globe Theatre by his acting company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, following their move to the theater in 1599. The play is based on translations of Plutarch’s Parallel Lives (1579), specifically from the passages on the lives of Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony), Marcus Brutus (Brutus), and Julius Caesar, whose military and political exploits and subsequent assassination were subjects of considerable interest during the Renaissance. Although Caesar himself is not the hero of the play, he is the catalyst of the action and the person around whom the plot revolves.

II

Plot

Julius Caesar opens on the eve of Caesar’s assassination. Caesar is already one of Rome’s highest officials and is about to be crowned king. Jealous of Caesar for personal reasons, Roman senator Cassius convinces another senator, Brutus, that Caesar must die. The lofty-minded, idealistic Brutus fears that Caesar will destroy the Roman republic by having himself crowned king. After Brutus joins the conspiracy against Caesar, Cassius, despite his sounder judgment, defers to Brutus’s wishes and makes the mistake of sparing the life of Mark Antony, Caesar's protégé.

As Caesar walks to the Senate forum the next morning, a soothsayer attempts to alert him, warning “Beware the Ides of March.” Caesar ignores the message. At the forum the conspirators stab Caesar to death. A dying Caesar sees Brutus among the killers and delivers the famous line, “Et tu, Brute?” (thou too, Brutus?).

At Caesar’s funeral, the conspirators try to rationalize their reasons for slaying Caesar. Brutus addresses the populace in a fine, reasoned tone, giving a sound but uninspired explanation of his reasons for killing Caesar. He says that it is not that he “loved Caesar less,” but that he “loved Rome more.” The crowd is swayed by the obvious purity and sincerity of Brutus's motives, but unfortunately for the conspirators, his restrained prose is followed by Mark Antony's impassioned speech.

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Over the objections of Cassius, Mark Antony has gained permission from Brutus to speak at Caesar's funeral.

he exclaims. With mounting sarcasm Mark Antony gradually turns Caesar’s faults into attributes and belittles the motives of the conspirators by repeatedly referring to them as honorable men, until the epithet becomes a curse. He sentimentalizes Caesar's blood-soaked cloak until he has the multitude weeping with sorrow. With masterful ease and without offering a single rational argument against Brutus's calm statement, Mark Antony turns the populace into a raging mob, howling for revenge against the conspirators.

The citizens chase the conspirators out of Rome. Mark Antony, Octavius Caesar (Caesar’s nephew and adopted son), and Lepidus are selected as the new leaders, known as a triumvirate. The remainder of the play traces the battles between the triumvirate and the former conspirators, especially Cassius and Brutus, who meet their enemies on the plains of Philippi. There, when the battle turns against them, both Brutus and Cassius—the first with an expected nobility and the latter with a nobility that makes one forget his earlier opportunism—commit suicide.

III

Critical Analysis

There are two primary themes in Julius Caesar. The first explores the idea of political tyranny, as evidenced in the elevation of Julius Caesar. Shakespeare obviously felt scorn for the pompous and vainglorious Caesar. Yet, as in all of his political plays, Shakespeare is opposed to the assassination of rulers because of the ruinous political disorder that inevitably follows. At the same time, Shakespeare's distrust of unjust or unscrupulous leaders is matched by his cynicism about the mob's ability to act wisely.

The second theme is the use of rhetorical persuasion to influence action. This theme is demonstrated especially in the use of speeches throughout the play. Mark Antony's funeral oration is the emotional high point of the play. Filled with insinuation and lacking logic, it is a chilling example of the power of demagoguery—divorced from any consideration of right and wrong, truth and falsehood—to sway people's minds.

Since its first production, Julius Caesar has enjoyed immense and enduring popularity. The play forms part of the repertoire of most Shakespearean stock companies. A notable production, with the actors in modern dress, was directed by Orson Welles for the Work Projects Administration (WPA) in 1937. There have been several motion picture productions of Julius Caesar as well as a number of television presentations.

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