Customer Reviews

Julius Caesar

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A further proof of the dumbing down of our society are this entire series. It is a shame and a disgrace that ever such as these were needed. For those who can't follow the text I suggest you get the Folger series. The only real problem with understanding Shakespeare would be the ancronistic words. The Folger series, in fact most editions of Shakespeare, provide notes explaining those words. Shakespeare is poetry. Changing the words to "modern" english is as futile as rewriting Robert Frost. It is pathetic.

Julius Caesar is probably one of the better plays written by Shakespeare. This play if full of intrigue, action, betrayal, and emotion. This play is not very long (5 acts), which makes it a quick and exciting read. The characters are built nicely, and what is nice about this version of the book, is that it is easy to read, and any words that may be unfamiliar are defined on the opposite page, making it easy to look them up, and understand Shakespeare's difficult writing style. This is definately a play worth checking out. It's a fun read, and with plenty of helpful tools built in to help along the way.

This is certainly one of Shakespeare's greatest works. Every individual character has been perfectly planned before the play was written, and each has his/her own unique characteristics. The plot is well-known, but Shakespeare adds the themes of betrayal, love, and distrust into the mix, making it a nonforgetable story. This is definately a masterpiece to be reread over and over again. LONG LIVE JULIUS CAESAR! GO SM!! WE ARE HIS #1 FANS!!!

This superb play by Shakespeare somehow reminded me of Antigona, the first play which directly examined the always complex interplay and usual confrontation between political reason and moral reason. This play is an excellent account of the immediately previous and subsequent days of Julius Caesar's assasination by Brutus, his best friend, and other conspirators. Brutus is persuaded by the resentful Cassius that Caesar has betrayed Rome by abandoning the Republic and turning to Dictatorship. Brutus gets to be convinced that, in order to save the Republic, Caesar must be killed. This puts him in a great dilemma, for he loves Caesar and he's his closest friend. Here we see in an acute form the way in which political power gets in conflict with morality and feelings. Friendship, power and betrayal are the basic subjects of this excellent piece of work.

"Julius Caesar", as a play, breathes the altogether purer air of antique virtues. The action centres around the ambitions and loyalties, both personal and political, of Shakespeare's supermen, Brutus, Caesar, Cassius and Mark Antony. The ending sees the suicide of Brutus, properly the play's dramatic hero. Sincere but blind, Brutus, is motivated by the greater good of restoring the Republic to such an extent that he is willing to sacrifice even his dearest friend, Caesar, to this design. Swayed by the spiteful malcontent Cassius, he unwisely underestimates Mark Antony, who emerges as a formidable adversary of Brutus's. Haunted by Caesar's spirit, which indicates that his influence will also prove to be posthumous, Brutus realises his error and submits to his fate. The notion of Brutus's "noble suicide", which is repugnant to Christian doctrine, is introduced in the end by Shakespeare, fully evoking Brutus's greatness of soul in avenging the friend he killed, Caesar, by killing himself: "Caesar now be still./I killed not thee with half so good a will." As a worthy character, he devises a grand plan but fails and so submits to his own code. He punishes Caesar for his ambition and then punishes himself for his own. Unlike "Hamlet", "Julius Caesar" is more compact, less complex. The action and psychological characterisation are simpler and the language is more hard-trimmed. The tragic elements of error and chance are present throughout the play and the ending neatly combines an address of the tragic hero's principal flaw and a meting out of justice.

I recently read this book in my 9th grade english class and to tell you the truth I was amazed by this piece of littiture that William Shakespear has written. This book impressed me so much I am going to read more of his work. This book is a tradgey on Julius Caesar. This book is basically about killing Caesar and when Caesar gets killed by the conspirators the readers get to read about Mark Anthony's revenge.

I like Shakespeare, but find his language hard to decipher at times. Standard texts have footnotes to help you to understand how he uses certain words, but after looking up a few dozen of these, I find myself starting to lose the thread of the story line. The "Shakespeare Made Easy" approach has been a godsend for me. Now, whenever I run into a difficult passage, I can glance over to the other side of the book and read the same passage in plain English. A light bulb blinks on, and I say, "Aha! That's what this means!" Unfamiliar words are instantly translated for me as I see them in the context of a passage which I now understand fully. I've read Julius Caesar three or four times previously, but never so fluidly and with such enjoyment and understanding as I just did with the help of the "Shakespeare Made Easy" book.

I've read the play several times, studied it in school, and seen it produced, but never have I been so struck by the contrast between word and deed as when I listened to this audiocassette. At every point the Romans speak beautifully of honor, virtue, courage, and other noble qualities. If we listened only to their words, we might think them noble, but when we see their deeds, we find the play thick with irony. The speakers must either be hypocrits or have no self-objectivity. Portia, Brutus' wife, emerges as the only admirable character, but the play still commands our full attention. Mighty words are match by mighty deeds, but noble thoughts are checked by ignoble actions. When Antony pronounces Brutus "the noblest Roman of them all", he merely recognizes Brutus as the best of a bad lot. Regardless of the villainy of the characters, the play is superb, and audio may well be the best medium for fully enjoying it.

Diana Sweeney is a teacher. She not only teaches Shakespeare, she teaches Shakespeare to students who have limited English skills. She also produces the works of Shakespeare with her students(including, can you believe it, a production of Titus?). I urge my students to use Cliff Notes because they too are limited in English. This new version of Julius Caesar is so readable. Sweeney writes with the student in mind at all times and this fact shows. What a valuable tool this work is!!

In the race among the major Shakespeare editors (Arden Third Series, Oxford, Cambridge), Arden has seriously lagged behind. Not so anymore. Prof. Daniell's edition is thorough, smart, concise, eminently readable and often highly provocative. His introductory material not only sums up four hundred years of thinking about the play both in the study and on the stage, but it also adds new insights and dimensions. Tiny criticisms: some of the explicatory material in the notes is a little to British for an American reader to comprehend, and one or two editorial choices ("Is tomorrow, boy, the first of March?") are simply wrongheaded. But these never seriously mar what is, and will remain, the best scholarly edition of JC for years to come.