“Time … Come Round”

Julius Caesar is one of the most taut, economical, and briskly paced of Shakespeare’s plays. Although it cannot be said to possess the elegant symmetry of a play like Richard II or the bold narrative counterpoint of such double-plot plays as 1 and 2 Henry IV or King Lear, it nonetheless bears everywhere the marks of careful and deliberate composition. In its clear, forward-moving, linear thrust and avoidance of embroidery or digression, the play reflects precisely those Roman values its characters seek to represent—spareness, lucidity, decisiveness, and restraint. Here, as in so many of Shakespeare’s greatest plays, dramatic architecture and thematic intention move hand-in-hand.