SOURCE: Charney, Maurice. Introduction to Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare, edited by Maurice Charney, pp. ix-xvii. New York: Applause, 1996.

In the following essay, Charney offers an overview of Julius Caesar. The critic examines the way in which Shakespeare compressed historical events, the relation of the play to Shakespeare's English history plays, and the play's treatment of the conflict between public and private life, particularly the way this conflict affects Brutus.

The historical events on which Julius Caesar is based cover a period of about three years, from October, 45 b.c., to October, 42 b.c. But Shakespeare compressed and transposed what he found in Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (1579), so that one has the impression that everything takes place in a few days. The play begins with Caesar's triumph, celebrated in October, 45 b.c., for his defeat of Pompey's sons in...