The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Cæsar. William Shakespeare

the first Shakespearian draft of which is now generally conceded to date from the first months of 1602. The diction of Julius Cæsar, the quality of the blank verse, the style generally (see below, Versification and Diction), all point to 1601 as the probable date of composition. It has been said that a true taste for Shakespeare is like the creation of a special sense; and this saying is nowhere better approved than in reference to his subtile variations of language and style. He began with what may be described as a preponderance of the poetic element over the dramatic. As we trace his course onward, we may discover a gradual rising of the latter element into greater strength and prominence, until at last it had the former in complete subjection. Now, where positive external evidence is wanting, it is mainly from the relative strength of these elements that the probable date of the writing may be argued. In Julius Cæsar the diction is more gliding and continuous, and the imagery more round and amplified, than in the earlier dramas or in those known to belong to Shakespeare's latest period.

      These distinctive notes are of a nature more easily to be felt than described, and to make them felt examples will best serve. Take then a passage from the soliloquy of Brutus just after he has pledged himself to the conspiracy:

      'Tis a common proof,

      That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,

      Whereto the climber upward turns his face;

      But when he once attains the upmost round,

      He then unto the ladder turns his back,

      Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees

      By which he did ascend. [II, i, 21–27.]

      Here we have a full, rounded period in which all the elements seem to have been adjusted, and the whole expression set in order, before any part of it was written down. The beginning foresees the end, the end remembers the beginning, and the thought and image are evolved together in an even, continuous flow. The thing is indeed perfect in its way, still it is not in Shakespeare's latest and highest style. Now take a passage from The Winter's Tale:

      When you speak, sweet,

      I'ld have you do it ever: when you sing,

      I'ld have you buy and sell so, so give alms,

      Pray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,

      To sing them too: when you do dance, I wish you

      A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do

      Nothing but that; move still, still so,

      And own no other function. [IV, iv, 136–143.]

      Here the workmanship seems to make and shape itself as it goes along, thought kindling thought, and image prompting image, and each part neither concerning itself with what has gone before, nor with what is coming after. The very sweetness has a certain piercing quality, and we taste it from clause to clause, almost from word to word, as so many keen darts of poetic rapture shot forth in rapid succession. Yet the passage, notwithstanding its swift changes of imagery and motion, is perfect in unity and continuity.

      III. EARLY EDITIONS

      Folios

      On November 8, 1623, Edward Blount and Isaac Jaggard obtained formal license to print "Mr. William Shakespeere's Comedyes, Histories, and Tragedyes, soe many of the said copies as are not formerly entered to other men." This is the description-entry in The Stationers' Registers of what is now known as the First Folio (1623), designated in the textual notes of this edition F₁. Julius Cæsar is one of the plays "not formerly entered,"[17] and it was first printed, so far as is known, in this famous volume. It is more correctly printed than perhaps any other play in the First Folio and, as the editors of the Cambridge Shakespeare suggest, "may perhaps have been (as the preface falsely implied that all were[18]) printed from the original manuscript of the author."[19] It stands between Timon of Athens and Macbeth, two very badly printed plays. The running title is The Tragedie of Julius Cæsar, but in the "Catalogve of the seuerall Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies contained in this Volume," the title is given as The Life and Death of Julius Cæsar.

      The Second Folio, F₂ (1632), the Third Folio, F₃ (1663, 1664), and the Fourth Folio, F₄ (1685), show few variants in the text of Julius Cæsar and none of importance.

      The Quarto of 1691

      In 1691 Julius Cæsar appeared in quarto form. This Quarto contained one famous text variant, 'hath' for 'path' in II, i, 83. Though the Folio text here offers difficulties, and modern editors have suggested many emendations, no one has been inclined to accept the commonplace reading of the Quarto.

      Rowe's Editions

      In the Folios and in the Quarto of 1691 the play is divided into acts, but not into scenes, though the first act is headed Actus Primus, Scæna Prima. The first systematic division into scenes was made by Nicholas Rowe, poet laureate to George I, in the edition which he issued in six octavo volumes in 1709. In this edition Rowe, an experienced playwright, marked the entrances and exits of the characters and introduced many stage directions and the list of dramatis personæ which has been the basis for all later lists. A second edition in eight volumes was published in 1714. Rowe followed very closely the text of the Fourth Folio, but modernized spelling, punctuation, and occasionally grammar. These are the first critical editions of Shakespeare's plays.

      IV. THE TITLE

      It has been justly observed that Shakespeare shows much judgment in the naming of his plays. From this observation several critics have excepted Julius Cæsar, pronouncing the title a misnomer, on the ground that Brutus, and not Cæsar, is the hero of it. It is indeed true that Brutus is the hero, but the play is rightly named, for Cæsar is not only the subject but also the governing power of it throughout. He is the center and springhead of the entire action, giving law and shape to everything that is said and done. This is manifestly true in what occurs before his death; and it is true in a still deeper sense afterwards, since his genius then becomes the Nemesis or retributive Providence.

      V. DRAMATIC CONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT

      Julius Cæsar is a tragedy of a normal Shakespearian type, in which is represented a conflict between an individual, or group of individuals, and certain forces which environ, antagonize, and overwhelm. The unity of action and of interest is the personality of Julius Cæsar. In dramatic technique the play is simple and effective. Out of masses of detail and historical incident the dramatist has shaped a symmetrical and well-defined plot marked by (1) the exposition, or introduction, (2) the complication, or rising action, (3) the climax, or turning point, (4) the resolution, or falling action, and (5) the catastrophe, or conclusion. It is almost a commonplace of criticism that the opening scene of a Shakespeare play strikes the keynote of the action. It certainly does in a remarkable way in Julius Cæsar, introducing, on the one side, a group of excited citizens friendly to Cæsar, and, on the other, two tribunes hostile to him. It foreshadows the character-contrasts in the play and the conflict between the state and the individual. The exposition continues through the second scene, in which are introduced the leading characters in significant action and interaction. At the close of this scene Cassius lays his plans to win Brutus over to the conspiracy, and the complication, or rising action, of the drama begins. Through the last scene of the first act and the four scenes of the second act the growth of the complication is continued, with brief intervals of suspense, until, in the first scene of the third act, the climax is reached in the assassination of Cæsar and the wild enthusiasm of the conspirators. With the entry of Antony's servant begins the resolution, or falling action (see note, p. 89, l. 123), and from now, through intervals of long suspense and many vicissitudes,[20] the fortunes of the chief conspirators fall inevitably to the catastrophe.

      Analysis by Act and Scene [21]

      I.