Caesar, Julius | Robert S. Miola (essay date 1985)
Robert S. Miola (essay date 1985)
SOURCE: "Julius Caesar and the Tyrannicide Debate," in Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 2, Summer, 1985, pp. 271-89.
[In the essay that follows, Miola examines Shakespeare's portrayal of Caesar as a tyrant, noting that Shakespeare alters Plutarch's depiction of Caesar in order to emphasize the ambiguous nature of Caesar's rule.]
The rich and important debate over tyrannicide, in which Julius Caesar figures centrally, engaged the best political minds of antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance and raged with particular intensity during Shakespeare's time. The tremendous upheaval of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation ignited fiery polemics on the rights of subjects and on the nature and foundations of civil order. At various times Protestants and Catholics arose to challenge the authority of the earthly crown and to claim the right of deposition and tyrannicide. Monarchomachs like...
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