Edited by David Daniell
This edition of one of Shakespeare's best known and most frequently performed plays argues for Julius Caesar as a new kind of political play, a radical departure from contemporary practice, combining fast action and immediacy with compelling rhetorical language, and finding a clear context for its study of tyranny in the last decade of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
In his magisterial new edition, David Daniell celebrates Julius Caesar as Shakespeare's first great tragedy, arguing that it reveals both a compelling political and emotional range and a subtle sense of moral ambivalence. From its opening in 1599, the play has held the stage in almost every decade and across the world, and Daniel traces in detail its notable place in the history of the stage. The richly experimental verse and the complex structure of the play are analysed in depth, and a strong case is made for this to be the first play to be performed at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Daniel traces both Shakespeare's close reliance on and his creative reworking of his source, Plutarch's Lives, and relevant excerpts from Plutarch are included in an appendix.
