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Julius Caesar (Folger Shakespeare Library)

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As an experienced high school English teacher, I always advise my students and their parents to purchase a Folger's edition of Shakespeare's plays. The notes, summaries, and other commentary serve the novice Shakespearean reader well and make the classical allusions and denotations of unfamiliar and common words and phrases from the Elizabethan age much easier for 21st Century readers to understand.

Gaius Julius Cęsar is the Caesar we think of when we hear the word "Caesar" -- he conquered Gaul, bedded Cleopatra, and died a pretty dramatic death. And while he only appears in a few scenes of "Julius Caesar," he's the nucleus that William Shakespeare's taut conspiracy play revolves around -- his murder, his legacy, and the bitter jealousy he inspired.

Julius Caesar is returning to Rome in triumph, only to be stopped by a strange old soothsayer who warns him, "Beware the ides of March." Caesar brushes off the warning, but he has no idea that a conspiracy is brewing under his nose. In a nutshell, a group of senators led by the creepy Cassius are plotting against Caesar because of his wild popularity, suspecting that he wants to become KING.

And Cassius' latest target: Brutus, one of Caesar's best buddies. Brutus is slowly swayed over to the conspiracy's side, beginning to believe that Caesar as a great man corrupted by power. Everything comes to a a devastating assassination on... guess when... the ides of March, which will elevate some men to greatness and destroy others.

Though the story is supposedly about Julius Caesar, Caesar himself only has a few scenes -- but his charismatic, dominating presence hangs over the play like a heavy tapestry. What he does, what he plans, what he thinks and who he is are constantly on people's minds, and even after his death he is a powerful presence in the memories of the living.

And Shakespeare cooks up a dialogue-heavy play that is a bit on the slow side, but whose speeches are so powerful and intense that you don't quite notice. There's a lot of those speeches here -- not only Antony's famous speech to the Roman people ("The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones"), but Brutus' impassioned argument with Portia ("You have some sick offence within your mind") and Cassius' oily slanted editorials about Caesar.

Shakespeare's depiction of Brutus is also a beautifully nuanced one -- Antony calls him the "noblest Roman of them all" at the very end, despite the fact that Brutus calmly murdered his friend and leader. He's basically a gullible guy who follows his passions rather than his brain, and bounces into the conspiracy rather than trying to find out the truth about Caesar. You feel sorry for him, and at the same time you want the much smarter Antony to kick him like a soccer ball.

"Julius Caesar" is rather slow-moving, but Shakespeare's powerful writing and nuanced depiction of Brutus more than make up for that. Friends, Romans, countrymen...

This is actually my favorite of Shakespeare's works. The product itself is nicely laid out with a decent introduction and afterword. Each page has notations of any language that may need explaining.

If you are just starting to read Shakespeare on your own, and want a good starting point, look no further than this Folger Library treatment of his great political drama.

It was the Folger edition of "Julius Caesar" that grabbed me back in the ninth grade, when I was failing all my classes and hardly hitting my assigned reading. This has it all: Indelible characters, hard-hitting action scenes, tricky "what-would-you-do" moments, and text that you can grasp readily thanks to the Folger practice of laying out the tricky parts on the opposite page. Guess what: There aren't so many "tricky parts" in "Julius Caesar" as you might expect from reading "Hamlet" or even "Midsummer Night's Dream."

There are many, many great lines, some quite famous and instantly recognizable to anyone with a bit of cultural awareness. "Beware the ides of March!' "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,/But in ourselves..." "Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look." "...it was Greek to me." "Cowards die many times before their deaths;/The valiant never taste of death but once..." And that's just in the first two acts.

The great speech everyone remembers, the one which begins "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears," is especially powerful when read in context. It is delivered by the play's most fascinating character, Mark Antony. At this point in the play, the title character is [Big Spoiler Coming] terminally indisposed, and most of the people who have been doing the talking are fine with this. Then Mark Antony comes on stage, and with that line, and the next several that follow, he effects a tremendous turnabout in the storyline, among the most memorable ever devised. It's a riveting, passionate, and snarkishly satirical scene, as the cynical-yet-somehow-admirable Mark Antony winds up a crowd of passive Romans into complete bloodlust.

The scenes are sharp like that throughout, something that can't always be said of Shakespeare. He's often ambiguous, but seldom as effectively as here. The dilemma of Brutus, who sees a man whose power is going to his head, is one we can relate to, as we see that side of Caesar, too, but is the prescribed cure better than the sickness, or is Brutus just the wrong physician? We get one unalloyed villain in Cassius, whose very name is snakelike and who seems to operate on Brutus like a proto-Iago, but different readers will come away with different perspectives on his plotting.

Probably written in 1599, just as Shakespeare was entering his decade of greatest accomplishment, "Julius Caesar" may be with "Romeo & Juliet" and "MacBeth" the safest bet for a high-school or junior-high-school English teacher. I can't think of an easier play of Shakespeare's to read, or maybe even enjoy. Add to that the levels of deception, subtle characterization, and satirical realpolitik to be discovered, and you have a play that satisfies as much as it draws you in.

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was first acted in the early years of the seventeenth century. It is another in the brilliant series of plays by the greatest playwright who ever lived. It is a play which is often taught in high school courses but bears reading again by more mature readers. Every time a reader or playgoer experiences the beauty and wonder of a Shakespearean work new insights are discovered.
Julius Caesar is a five act tragedy revolving around the assassination of Julius Caesar the dictator of Rome who
was assassinated in 44 BC. Caesar is a complex man who has been warned about entering the Senate on "the ides of March." He disregards the advice not to go the Senate by his wife Calpurnia and a soothsayer. Caesar is deaf in one ear, epileptic yet a great leader.
His chief opponents are Brutus and Cassius who are Senators and come from noble Roman stock. They and other conspirators stab Caesar to death as they seize power. A blood purge of their political opponents swiftly ensues.
They are defeated and commit suicide at the Battle of Philippi where they are defeated by Mark Antony (he of the immortal "Friends, Romans, Countrymen lend me your ears:) speech to the mob in Act III. In that clever speech he turns the proletariat against the Brutus conspirators. Antony reveals how Caesar has granted 75 drachmas to every Roman citizen and also provided public walkways and parks for the inhabitants of the seven hill city. Brutus is a good man who is tormented by the murder of his quondam friend Caesar. On the night before the battle he is visited by the ghost of Caesar who tells him of his impending defeat and death.
Julius Caesar is one of Shakespeare's many great plays. It is high political and military drama with some of the best poetry ever wriitten. Brush up your Shakespeare and pick up a paperback!