Historical Inaccuracies In Julius Caesar

Some playwrights choose to write plays about historical events, among them there is The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, a play that describes the downfall of the rule of Julius Caesar, but is also a play that is not as truthful as it first impressionably is, a complete truthful account of Julius Caesar’s assassination and the events leading up to it. In order to greater attract the audience, Shakespeare, along with other playwrights, relied on adding historical inaccuracies to add the necessary suspense. Thus, Shakespeare strayed away from historical events occurring during Caesar’s lifetime, implementing inaccuracy into the story. Shakespeare based one of his most well-known plays, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, on historical events that includes

During the time period of Shakespeare writing Julius Caesar, Hana Layson, a School and Teacher Programs Specialist at Portland Art Museum, explains that “ [Queen] Elizabeth had no heirs, [and so] the question of who would succeed her was the source of considerable anxiety and political jockeying”. Through writing Julius Caesar, Shakespeare addresses political questions such as the consequences of political overthrow and roles of people and aristocracy in government. Since directly addressing the government of England through a play would create too much controversy, Shakespeare decided it would be best to alter the setting to ancient Roman history that would parallel the issues of English politics (Layson). Shakespeare based the play on the biographies of Plutarch and at times even copied exact words and phrases of Plutarch, incorporating much of Plutarch’s works in Julius Caesar (Jackson). Shakespeare narrating the accurate truth of Caesar’s story and also revealing the historical complexities and uncertainties during the time, caused Ace Pilkington, a professor of English and History at Dixie State University, to state that Julius Caesar is basically “a complex representation of historical truth” (Pilkington). Shakespeare had to implement

Although Caesar, as the upcoming ruler of Rome in Julius Caesar, should be portrayed as the ideal leader of the play, he actually has too arrogant of a character to be so. Therefore, Shakespeare places honor in Brutus and allows Brutus to have the role of the idealistic leader of the story. Although Shakespeare writes this play in a controversial time period during England’s political turmoil, he allows the audience to be able to choose the true ruler of loyalty to the crown or the honor of a noble man through the understanding of the two contrasting character