Shakespeare: The Roman Plays.

288 p. Schutzumschlag mit leichten Gebrauchsspuren, sonst ein gutes Exemplar ohne Anstreichungen / Dust jacket with slight signs of handling, otherwise a good copy without markings. - Contents Preface 5 1. Introduction 9 2. Julius Caesar 21 3. Antony and Cleopatra 79 4. Coriolanus / SHAKESPEARE THE ROMAN PLAYS Derek Traveri One of the most perceptive and and illumi nating Shakespeare scholars writing today discusses the Roman chronicle plays, uli Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Gorio lanus, placing them in relation to each other and to the whole body of the dramatic works. Shakespeare's Roman plays span the greatest creative years of his dramatic ca- reer. The earliest of the three, Julius Caesar, was written about the same time as the two parts of Henry IV and Henry V, and is con- centrated, like those plays, upon the interplay of personal motives and public necessity. Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus be long to the dramatist's last years, and com- bine the acute understanding of historical processes of the English chronicle plays with the tragic vision of the great plays of the in- tervening years. In Julia Caciar, the dominating political figure in the action is not, as he would have been in a later tragedy, its hero. The di- lemma, whether to kill or not to kill the dic tator, is concentrated upon Brutus, who thus becomes the nearest approach. a central tragic protagonist. Antony is much more firmly at the center of his tragedy, faced as he is with the necessity of choosing between self-indulgence and dedication to his public destiny In Coriolanus the relationship between the hero and his surroundings is more closely and subtly dovetailed than, perhaps, in any preceding play. The conflicting elements of Coriolanus' nature, of which it is his tragedy to be imperfectly aware, are placed in direct relation to a society also divided against it- self.