Customer Reviews

Julius Caesar (Cliffs Notes)

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James Vickers' Cliffs Notes for Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" begins with a short biography of the Bard that focuses on what little the historical record tells us about the man. A Brief Synopsis of the Play is followed by a List of Characters that not only tells us who they are but their primary roles in the play. The Summary and Commentary section of the volume breaks down the play scene by scene, and the best way of using this or any other little yellow book with the black stripes is to read the commentary after you have read each scene of the play. This is especially important with Shakespeare because the dialogue is so important and Vickers does not work in as many choice lines as some of the other Cliffs Notes for Shakespeare plays. You cannot deal with Shakespeare if you do not know the key lines. The last section dealing with Character Analyses looks as Caesar, Antony, Octavius, Brutus and Cassius, referring back to the analysis already established regarding the individual scenes. What you will not get from this volume if you are teaching/reading "Julius Caesar" is how the play touches upon the political realities of Elizabethean England. But Vickers does an excellent job throughout of capturing how Shakespeare uses the play to manipulate the audience. Remember, the celebrated funeral oration by Marc Antony is being listened to on stage by a Roman mob that is being watched by an audience of Londoners in the theater. This is one of the better jobs at capturing how Shakespeare constructed a play.

CliffsNotes are absolutely necessary if you are going to read Shakespeare. I had to read it to help my teenage daughter with her reading assignment and I think the CliffsNotes helped me more than her. I used to think it was cheating but it's not. It is set up to help you keep up with the characters, the development of the plot and all the side stories that you might either forget about or miss the slight nuances of with out this great resource.

I am not in to explaing, but lets just say son who hates Shakespear was able to understand it with the help of Cliffnotes! Enough to get me to purchase these for almost every book he has to read for help on plots, etc.