Caesar, Julius | John Jump (lecture date 1974)
John Jump (lecture date 1974)
SOURCE: "Shakespeare and History," in Critical Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 3, Autumn, 1975, pp. 233-44.
[In the following lecture, Jump compares Julius Caesar with Shakespeare's English history plays, arguing that in none of these plays does Shakespeare question the "Tudor myth," which justified Queen Elizabeth I's right to the throne.]
I first read Julius Caesar at the age of fourteen or fifteen. Even then I was surprised to find that the character who gave his name to the play was killed early in Act III, that is, before the play was half over. Was Shakespeare playing fair when he called it The Tragedy of Julius Caesar?
Granted, he gives us a memorable portrait of an ailing dictator. Caesar has been an able and courageous soldier and is evidently an able and courageous political leader. But he has serious weaknesses. We do not depend upon the malice of Cassius for our knowledge of...
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