Julius Caesar's Self-Created Image and Its Dramatic Afterlife

The book explores the extent to which aspects of Julius Caesars self-representation in his commentaries, constituent themes and characterization have been appropriated or contested across the English dramatic canon from the late 1500s until the end of the 19th century. Caesar, in his own words, constructs his image as a supreme commander characterised by exceptional celerity and mercifulness; he is also defined by the heightened sense of self-dramatization achieved by the self-referential use of the third person and emerges as a quasi-divine hero inhabiting a literary-historical reality. Channelled through Lucans epic Bellum Civile and ancient historiography, these Caesarean qualities reach drama and take the shape of ambivalent hubris, political role-playing, self-institutionalization, and an exceptional relationship with temporality. Focusing on major dramatic texts with rich performance history, such as Shakespeares Julius Caesar, Handels opera Giulio Cesare in Egitto and Bernard Shaws Caesar and Cleopatra but also a number of lesser known early modern plays, the book encompasses different levels of dramas active engagement with the process of reception of Caesars iconic and controversial personality.