The Connell Guide To Shakespeare's Julius Caesar by Andrew James Hartley

The Connell Guide To Shakespeare's Julius Caesar by Andrew James Hartley

By 1599, when he wrote the play, he had penned only two experimental tragedies (Romeo and Juliet and Titus Andronicus), neither of which had the profound richness of those he would write next--Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, and King Lear. There is a scale to Caesar which is unmatched by anything he had written before it and it lays the groundwork for the master works to follow. As such, it stands not just at the turn of the century, but at the point in which its author emerged as the language's foremost writer. Our sense of the play has evolved over the centuries, and we tend to be less overawed by all the characters' claims to personal nobility and quicker to see the darker side of their political machinations. We are also less likely to see the Roman model of life and virtue as something being offered up for emulation. Indeed it now seems to most critics that Shakespeare was deeply critical of ancient Rome, seeing much of what its characters celebrate as principle as the root cause of all that goes wrong in the play. But that is the nature of scholarship and the theatre--each period finds in the play what interests it most--Julius Caesar remains a powerful study in political gamesmanship, the morality of assassination, and the ways in which people build a sense of who they are.

Andrew James Hartley is the Robinson Professor of Shakespeare Studies at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, specialising in performance theory, theatre history, and dramaturgy.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781911187394
ISBN 10	1911187392
Title	The Connell Guide To Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
Author	Andrew James Hartley
Series	The Connell Guide To
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	CONNELL PUBLISHING LTD
Year published	2017-11-08
Number of pages	100
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.