"Men, at times, are masters of their own fates" ( )

I love all the characters, and they portrayed a tragic hero so well. The story itself is amazing and fun to read. It does get just a little hard to follow/boring at very little times so that’s why it’s 4 and a half. Would recommend to overthinkers and anarchists. ( )

The editor suggests that Shakespeare has kept the story close to Plutarch's truth. I haven't read any Plutarch, but this is a good yarn, better than I expected. If we accept it as history, humans have always been stupid, and we need not be too frightened by today's whacked out world - someone will survive to reinvent another stupidity. This book includes a useful Introduction and several elucidating commentaries to help explain its construction. It's a treasure. ( )

Not my favorite Shakespeare play, but mainly because this is one where the Bard was more concerned with moving the pieces around than creating those great Shakespearean moments of pathos. His audience-goers would have all been familiar with the details of Caesar's death, along with its central irony: that Octavius Caesar becomes the dictator that Brutus and Cassius were trying to stop by murdering Julius.

Contemporary audiences don't necessarily know this context, and I would have liked to see more character development: at the end of the play, I didn't have a good handle on the personalities of the conspirators.

After another reading, I agree with some commentators that what is key is the skill of the Roman orators and their attempts to convince each other (and themselves) of the justice of their cause. Especially interesting is the use of (and lapses in) iambic pentameter. ( )

This was a re-read from high school days. While certainly a classic, filled with memorable passages, it's hard to give a play a high reading rating. The joy and wonder of it is in its performance. ( )