"That we shall die we know": Historical Fetters and Creative Liberation in William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

Julius Caesar (Play : Shakespeare); Self-deception in literature; Literary characters; Assassination in literature; Translations

In his tragedy Julius Caesar, Shakespeare builds largely on the 1579 translation of Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, usually referred to as Parallel Lives. Shakespeare's rendering of the events around the assassination, however, diverges substantially from his source material. Nor does his tragedy end with the death of Caesar: it is located right in the middle of the play, and more than half of the action follows afterwards, with a focus on Brutus and his suicide. The very fact that the eponymous hero dies halfway through the performance and the focus shifts to one of his murderers, Brutus, suggests that this play has two heroes rather than one. In our paper, we take these reconfigurations as a starting point to reflect on the tension that arises from the collation of historical matter on the one hand and generic restraints of tragedy on the other. The tragedy is a double one, and the double constraint thus reveals itself to be a creative liberation from the fetters presented by history and the main source text: where in the Parallel Lives, Plutarch sets up Julius Caesar in comparison the Alexander the Great, and Brutus in comparison to Dion, we find Julius Caesar and Brutus in the play posited as foils to one another and thus presenting another set of "parallel lives." In Shakespeare's play both characters are marked by fatal self-deception, which is underscored by structural parallels throughout the play. By showing the parallel moments of personal choice that lead to historical events, Shakespeare triggers a reflection on historical thruth as well as tragic recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]