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by Gwen Heart

Every scholar and critic, past or present, accepts Shakespeare as the undisputed peer of literature and dare question the credibility of his work. He remains the greatest writer, muse of drama and poetry and Master of his own language, the 'Shakespearean' English. However, behind all his writings were inspirations and reasons best known to himself. They were held in recess of his heart and when he died they were buried in the ash and dust of Stratford.

Shakespeare rarely made up his own plots for his stories and never bothered about the shackle of time. He was never the historian of his time or rigidly true to events of time. Often he borrowed stories from other writers or from the pages of history.

Let us look at Julius Caesar one of his most successful and beloved of tragedies. It tells the story of a Roman General and statesman who was assassinated at the height of his career by a group of senators.

Et tu Brute? (Act III, Scene 1)

The reason for them to do this heinous crime was that they feared Julius Caesar would eventually become very powerful and find his way to be the Emperor of Rome.

Strangely, the man who plays the title role in this play, is but a small character as Shakespeare put it across. A powerful story with a powerful character but in Shakespeare's hands, in a tiny role. It is Mark Antony who steals the limelight and who delivers the famous oration;

'Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do live after them.
The good is often interred with their bones:
So, let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious
If it were so, it was a grievous fault.
And grievously hath Caesar answ'rd it.
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept.
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious.
And Brutus is an honourable man.'

Act III Scene II. Like many of his plays, Julius Caesar is an adaptation from Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans.

This was translated into English by Sir Thomas North. Though Shakespeare knew Latin, he had not the time to read books about Caesar in both in Latin and English. Sir Thomas's book was exactly what he needed and had the theme Shakespeare had in mind about the nature and feelings that were confined to Roman heroes.

He was a busy man with theatre in hand, writing two or three plays a year. By the time Shakespeare was ready to write Julius Caesar, he had already finished with Richard III and Henry V. Writing on good and bad kings was his forte and they may have prompted him to write about another great ruler from history into a play.

At the time he wrote this tragedy, his audiences were aware of the story of Caesar as the most famous ruler of ancient Rome and how he was assassinated by his loyal Brutus and conspirators. Shakespeare knew that retelling the story of Caesar to the then Elizabethan people at that time was going to be a success because they all opted for good stories, murders, bloodshed and battles in their theatre. It was a great triumph the moment it debuted.

Thrilled

Shakespeare also knew exactly when Julius Caesar was written. The year being 1599 because later in the year around September a Swiss doctor by the name of Thomas Platter visited London to see the play at the Globe Theatre. He was thrilled at the performance and wrote to a friend immediately 'After lunch on September 21 at around two p.m. I and my party crossed the river and there in the house with a thatched roof we saw an excellent performance of the tragedy of the first Emperor Julius Caesar with about 15 characters.'

The spectacular Globe Theatre built on the south bank of Thames, had been opened only a few months before and Julius Caesar was among the first plays to go on the boards.

Rome was ruled as a republic until Julius Caesar's time. It meant that the administration of the government was the Senate. Their members were drawn from the mobility and the ordinary citizens were represented by the tribunes. They were so strong that at times they overran the decisions taken by the Senate. In the struggle for power Caesar's conquests made him a very powerful man with Pompey as his trusted and popular general.

By now a rich nobleman by the name of Crassus gained control of the Senate and virtually ruled Rome until he was killed in a battle Pompey and Caesar became bitter rivals in the struggle for power.

As war broke out, Caesar defeated Pompey and put him to death in Egypt. Caesar became the virtual ruler of Rome and used the Senate to pass new laws and introduce reforms. He is the one who introduced the calendar with 365 days per year and 12 months. Caesar always wore a crown in the shape of a laurel wreath which denoted victory as a symbol. He was a brilliant general who conquered almost the whole of Rome and was accepted as the greatest ruler of the ancient world. He single handedly created the Roman Empire which dominated the world for centuries.

Crown

Strangely and for reasons known only to Shakespeare, he makes Julius Caesar a vain, foolish coward with almost none of the qualities of the real Caesar.

Shakespeare had reasons to make Caesar a lesser hero because it was Brutus who was to light up the audiences. He also wanted to convey that it was Brutus who paved the way for his downfall. From most of the events in the play, it is obvious Shakespeare was not telling a good story about Caesar.

As I said before, Shakespeare was not rigid to authenticity in history. Shakespeare began this play with the scene of the triumphant entry into Rome after he defeated Pompey the Great and welcomed by all Romans. the Bard surfaced instances like this to the credibility of Caesar but at the end, the reader will realise that Julius Caesar has been reduced to a puppet.

The story is centred around the genuine characters and Shakespeare upheld their individual identities and built up the story to a brilliant climax. There was Brutus, Cassius, and Mark Antony who played key roles. Even Caesar's wife Calpurnia and Brutus's wife, Portia, make their brilliant dialogues contribution to supersede the main characters at several points of the play.

.... And I am yourself.
But, as it were, in sort of limitations
To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed
And talk to you sometimes.' (Portia to Brutus)
ACT II, Scene 1.

Next we find a distraught Calpurnia having a nightmare where she dreams Caesar's statue pouring with blood and begs Caesar not to go to the Capital but he explains to her that people should not be afraid of death.

'Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
To all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear:
Seeing that death: a necessary end,
Will come when it will come...' (ACT II, Scene II).

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