Each book ends with a complete list of Shakespeare's plays and a brief chronology of the Bard's life.

Scene synopses and character summaries clarify confusing plots, while incisive essays explore the historical context and Shakespeare's sources.

Every book is well illustrated, and starts with a commentary and character summary. Presented complete and unabridged, in large print. This exclusive collection of the Bard's best works has been designed specifically for readers new to Shakespeare's rich literary legacy. After all, Rome was founded as a republic, i.e., a state that isn’t ruled by a king and yet Julius Caesar has set himself up as an absolute ruler much like a king in all but name.The Oxford School Shakespeare has become the preferred introduction to the literary legacy of the greatest playwright in the English language. (Legend states that Lucius Junius Brutus founded the Roman Republic in around 509 BC.) This earlier Brutus would have let a devil rule in Rome before he let a king rule. The eternal devil to keep his state in RomeĬassius concludes his speech by reminding Brutus, his companion, that his namesake founded the city of Rome centuries before. There was a Brutus once that would have brook’d The implication is that Caesar will allow for no one else to take his mantle or power away from him. Cassius’ point is that, as far as Rome and Caesar are concerned, there is room for only one man: Julius Caesar himself. There is a pun here on ‘Rome’ and ‘room’, which could be homophones in Shakespeare’s time: Rome was rhymed with both dome and doom. That her wide walks encompass’d but one man?Ĭassius employs rhetorical questions to drive his point further home: when has there ever been such a time in the history of the world, ever since the biblical flood (the story of which we have analysed here), when one man alone dominated the political scene? (Note: some editors amend ‘wide walks’ to ‘wide walls’, but Daniell advises against that, on the basis that we can find references to ‘wide walks’ elsewhere in Shakespeare, but never wide walls.) When could they say till now, that talk’d of Rome, When went there by an age, since the great flood,īut it was famed with more than with one man? Rome, a once-great city and empire, appears to have lost its noble lineage, that such an ordinary man as Caesar (who wasn’t born into a family of good name) could have become so powerful. Cassius laments that the age in which they live has become so debased (‘Age, thou art shamed!’), that a general like Caesar could have raised himself to such a status.

Shakespeare book julius caesar