julius caesar play written by william shakespeare

Historically, the events of the play cover a period of about two and a half years…” and Shakespeare takes this historical data and crams it into the space of a few short weeks.

Zander continues, “It has frequently been demonstrated how effectively Shakespeare manages to condense an action that stretches over a considerable time and takes place at various sites into a tight temporal and spatial textual web. As a consequence of this enormous popularity-the image of Caesar created by Shakespeare is quite dominant in the public view, and one has to remind oneself that Shakespeare, not Caesar, gasped “Et tu, Brute?” It has been continually recalled to the stage for four hundred years-a play for all times and all audiences. Unique in the canon, Julius Caesar has never been out of vogue. has introduced generations of school children to Shakespeare and to Roman society. That hasn’t stopped Caesar from being one of the single most successful of all Shakespeare’s plays, and, surprisingly, it is one of Shakespeare’s plays that people are most familiar with: Zander writes, “Shakespeare’s Roman tragedy has run through more editions, and more copies, than any play in any language.

Zander writes, “Although the case is not as bad as that of Richard III, where generations of historians have struggled in vain to revise the portrait dramatized by the playwright, attempts by historians to present a “faithful” picture of Caesar often seem to be marred by the one popularized in Shakespeare’s drama.” As Horst Zander in Julius Caesar, New Critical Essays, writes, Shakespeare was so successful at painting a picture of the fictional Julius Caesar, he nearly eclipsed the historical facts about the real Julius Caesar.

Like most of Shakespeare’s work, he played incredibly fast and loose with facts, details, nuances and history in favor of a good story that resonated with his particular audience. Julius Caesar is categorized as a history play, but it is not history. Artistic Director Scott Palmer talks about his approach to Shakespeare’s “history” play, Julius Caesar.

Julius caesar play written by william shakespeare