William Shakespeare - Playwright, Poet, Julius Caesar

William Shakespeare

Table of Contents

Introduction & Top Questions
Shakespeare the man
- Life
  - Early life in Stratford
  - Career in the theatre
  - Private life
  - Sexuality
- Early posthumous documentation
  - The tributes of his colleagues
  - Anecdotes and documents
Shakespeare the poet and dramatist
- The intellectual background
- Poetic conventions and dramatic traditions
  - Changes in language
  - Shakespeare’s literary debts
- Theatrical conditions
- The dating of Shakespeare’s plays
- Publication
Shakespeare’s plays and poems
- The early plays
  - Titus Andronicus
  - The early romantic comedies
  - The early histories
- The poems
- Plays of the middle and late years
  - Romantic comedies
  - Completion of the histories
  - Romeo and Juliet
  - The “problem” plays
  - Julius Caesar
  - The tragedies
  - The romances
  - Collaborations and spurious attributions
Shakespeare’s sources
Understanding Shakespeare
- Questions of authorship
- Linguistic, historical, textual, and editorial problems
- Literary criticism
  - Seventeenth century
  - Eighteenth century
  - Romantic critics
  - Twentieth century and beyond
    - Increasing importance of scholarship
    - Historical criticism
    - New Criticism
    - New interpretive approaches
    - Feminist criticism and gender studies
    - Deconstruction
Chronology of Shakespeare’s plays

Quotes References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics

Images, Videos & Interactives

William Shakespeare explained in five questions

Learn about William Shakespeare's early boyhood and path to London to become a playwright and actor

See an illustrated manuscript of 16th-century coats of arms, including commentary on whether Shakespeare is worthy of one

Interactive: A Tour of the Rebuilt Globe Theatre

Shakespeare's house in Stratford-upon-Avon

For Students

William Shakespeare summary

Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England: William Shakespeare's birthplace

William Shakespeare Timeline

William Shakespeare’s Important Works

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Written in 1599 (the same year as Henry V) or 1600, probably for the opening of the Globe Theatre on the south bank of the Thames, Julius Caesar illustrates similarly the transition in Shakespeare’s writing toward darker themes and tragedy. It, too, is a history play in a sense, dealing with a non-Christian civilization existing 16 centuries before Shakespeare wrote his plays. Roman history opened up for Shakespeare a world in which divine purpose could not be easily ascertained. (Click here for a video clip of Caesar’s well-known speech.) The characters of Julius Caesar variously interpret the great event of ...(100 of 21986 words)

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