Caesar, Julius | T. J. B. Spencer (lecture date 1955)
T. J. B. Spencer (lecture date 1955)
SOURCE: "Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Romans," in Shakespeare Survey: An Annual Survey of Shakespearian Study and Production, Vol. 10, 1957, pp. 27-38.
[In the following lecture, Spencer surveys criticism regarding Shakespeare's treatment of the details of ancient Roman life and culture, commenting on the playwright's influence on modernjconceptions of ancient Rome.]
Shakespeare has, at various times, received some very handsome compliments for his ancient Romans; for his picture of the Roman world, its institutions, and the causation of events; for his representation of the Roman people at three critical stages of their development: the turbulent republic with its conflict of the classes; the transition from an oligarchic to a monarchic government which was vainly delayed by the assassination of Julius Caesar; and the final stages by which the rule of the civilized world came to lie in the hands...
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