Full title   The Tragedy of Julius Caesar

Author  William Shakespeare

Type of work  Play

Genre  Tragedy

Language  English

Time and place written   1599, in London

Date of first publication  Published in the First Folio of 1623, probably from the theater company’s official promptbook rather than from Shakespeare’s manuscript

Publisher  Edward Blount and William Jaggard headed the group of five men who undertook the publication of Shakespeare’s First Folio

Narrator  None

Climax  The climax of the play comes when Antony, by juxtaposing Caesar’s accomplishments, his generous will, and his corpse’s brutal wounds with the repeated statement that “Brutus is an honorable man,” persuades the people of Rome that Brutus and his co-conspirators aren’t honorable at all.

Protagonists  Brutus and Cassius

Antagonists  Antony and Octavius

Setting (Time)   44 BCE

Setting (Place)  Ancient Rome, toward the end of the Roman republic

Point of view  The play sustains no single point of view; however, the audience acquires the most insight into Brutus’s mind over the course of the action

Falling action  Titinius’s realization that Cassius has died wrongly assuming defeat; Titinius’s suicide; Brutus’s discovery of the two corpses; the final struggle between Brutus’s men and the troops of Antony and Octavius; Brutus’s self-impalement on his sword upon recognizing that his side is doomed; the discovery of Brutus’s body by Antony and Octavius

Tense  Present

Foreshadowing  The play is full of omens, including lightning and thunder, the walking dead, and lions stalking through the city (I.iii). Additionally, the Soothsayer warns Caesar to beware the Ides of March (I.ii); Calpurnia dreams that she sees Caesar’s statue running with blood (II.ii); and Caesar’s priests sacrifice animals to the gods only to find that the animals lack hearts (II.ii)—all foreshadow Caesar’s impending murder and the resulting chaos in Rome. Caesar’s ghost visits Brutus prior to the battle (IV.ii), and birds of prey circle over the battlefield in sight of Cassius (V.i); both incidents foreshadow Caesar’s revenge and the victory of Antony and Octavius.

Tone Serious, proud, virtuous, enraged, vengeful, idealistic, anguished

Themes  Fate versus free will; public self versus private self; misinterpretation and misreading of signs and events; commitment to ideals versus adaptability and compromise; the relationship between rhetoric and power; allegiance and rivalry among men

Motifs  Omens and portents, letters, sickness

Symbols  Women and wives; the crown; the Ghost of Caesar

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