Julius Caesar • 2013 - Chicago Shakespeare Theater

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1500s
1600s
1800s
1900s
...ON HISTORY AND PLOT
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY
Againe, of signes in the elements, the great comet which seven nightes together was seene very
bright after Caesar’s death, the eight night after was never seene more. Also the brightness of the
sunne was darckned...and shined not out... therefor the ayer being very clowdy and darke, by the
weakness of the heate that could not come foorth, did cause the earth to bring foorth but raw and
unrype frute, which rotted before it could rype.
—pluTarCh, hisTorian, 46-120 aD (sir Thomas norTh’s TranslaTion)
After dinner on the 21st of September, at about two o’clock, I went with my companions over the
water, and in the strewn roof-house saw the tragedy of the first Emperor Julius with at least fifteen
characters very well acted.
—Thomas plaTTer, sCholar, 1599
I remember, the Players have often mentioned it as an honor to Shakespeare, that in his writing,
(whatsoever he penn’d) hee never blotted out line. My answer hath beene, would he had blotted a
thousand.... His wit was in his owne power; would the rule of it had beene so too.
—Ben Jonson, playWriGhT, 1637
I confess I cou’d never get a true account of [Shakespeare’s] Learning, and am apt to think it more
than Common Report allows him. I am sure he never touches on a Roman Story but the Persons, the
Passages, the Manners, the Circumstances, the Ceremonies, all are Roman.
—nahum TaTe, poeT, 1680
In [Othello, Shakespeare] might be bolder, the persons being all his own creatures, and meer fiction.
But [in Julius Caesar] he sins not against Nature and Philosophy only, but against the memory of the
Noblest Romans, that ought to be sacred to all Posterity.
—Thomas rymer, hisTorioGrapher, 1692
For surely...nothing can seem more discordant with our historical preconceptions of Brutus, or more
lowering to the intellect of this Stoic-Platonic tyrannicide, than...that he would have no objection to
a king, or to Caesar, a monarch in Rome, would Caesar be as good a monarch as he now seems
disposed to be.
—samuel Taylor ColeriDGe, liTerary CriTiC, 1834
But what can justify apparitions and spirits in an historical drama? Is it not a mere claptrap for the
gallery?...[Brutus] was the very soul of the conspiracy: if his mental energies should be paralyzed...
the whole enterprise must fail. And so in truth it went to pieces, because it was against the will of
history—i.e. against the will of God. It was to signify this great lesson that Shakespeare introduced
the ghost upon the stage.”
—hermann ulriCi, philosopher, 1839
The poet, if he intended to make the attempt of the republicans his main theme, could not have ventured
to create too great an interest in Caesar; it was necessary to keep him in the background to
present that view of him which gave a reason for the conspiracy.
—G.G. Gervinus, hisTorian, 1849-50
At Her Majesty’s, it is not the historic band of conspirators that strikes the key note of the play. It is not
even the mighty figure of Caesar treacherously brought low. It is the feverish pulsing life of the city.
—proGram noTe, herBerT BeerBohm Tree proDuCTion, 1898
It is really Caesar’s presence...that dominates the story. Brutus is first among the struggling mortals
who obey him even while resisting their fate, but the fate itself is the imperialist inspiration which
makes up the significance of Caesar, and the play therefore is fitly named after him.
—m.W. maCCallum, auThor, 1910
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