Key Facts

• Playwright: William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
• Titles of the Author: Bard of Avon, National Poet of England, “The World’s Greatest Dramatist,” and “Father of English Drama.”
• Written Time: Around 1599 (Late Elizabethan period)
• First Published: 1623 (in the First Folio, posthumously)
• Full Title: The Tragedy of Julius Caesar
• Genre: Tragedy (also historical and political drama)
• Form: Blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) mixed with prose
• (High-ranking characters speak in verse; commoners often speak in prose.)
• Language: Early Modern English
• Source: Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (translated into English by Sir Thomas North, 1579)
• Tone: Serious, political, tragic, and reflective. Shakespeare blends public drama with private emotion, exploring themes of power, loyalty, ambition, and moral conflict.
• Structure: Five Acts
• Point of View: Third-person dramatic perspective (no narrator; events unfold through dialogue and action).
• Style: Elevated, rhetorical, and poetic; marked by oratory, irony, and philosophical debate about morality and politics.
• Famous Lines: 

• “Cowards die many times before their deaths; / The valiant never taste of death but once.” — Caesar (Act II, Scene ii)
• “Et tu, Brute?—Then fall, Caesar!” — Caesar (Act III, Scene i)
• “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; / I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” — Antony (Act III, Scene ii)

• Publication History: First printed in the First Folio of 1623. The play was likely performed earlier by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men at the Globe Theatre, London.
• Tone and Mood: Noble yet tragic; full of tension between idealism and political realism.
• Famous Scene: Antony’s funeral oration at Caesar’s funeral (Act III, Scene ii), one of the greatest speeches in English literature.
• Setting:

• Time: 44 B.C. (end of the Roman Republic)
• Place: Ancient Rome and nearby locations (Capitol, Forum, battlefield at Philippi)