Rome and Rhetoric : : Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
Book - 2011 None on shelf No requests on this item
Sign in to request
AADL has no copies of this item
Caesar: mighty yet -- Brutus: rhetoric verbal and visual -- Antony: the fox knows many things -- Cassius: parallel lives.
Renaissance plays and poetry in England were saturated with the formal rhetorical twists that Latin education made familiar to audiences and readers. Yet a formally educated man like Ben Jonson was unable to make these ornaments come to life in his two classical Roman plays. Garry Wills, focusing his attention on Julius Caesar, here demonstrates how Shakespeare so wonderfully made these ancient devices vivid, giving his characters their own personal styles of Roman speech. Shakespeare also makes Rome present and animate by casting his troupe of experienced players to make their strengths shine through the historical facts that Plutarch supplied him with. The result is that the Rome English-speaking people carry about in their minds is the Rome that Shakespeare created for them. And that is even true, Wills affirms, for today's classical scholars with access to the original Roman sources.--From publisher description.
REVIEWS & SUMMARIES
CHOICE ReviewBooklist Review
Publishers Weekly Review
Summary / Annotation
Fiction Profile
Author Notes
COMMUNITY REVIEWS
No community reviews. Write one below!
SERIES
The Anthony Hecht lectures in the humanities.
PUBLISHED
New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, c2011.
Year Published: 2011
Description: 186 p. ; 21 cm.
Language: English
Format: Book
ISBN/STANDARD NUMBER
9780300152180
0300152183
SUBJECTS
Shakespeare, William, -- 1564-1616.
Caesar, Julius -- In literature.
Rhetoric, Renaissance.
Rome -- In literature.