This book grew out of a doctorate in Classical Reception studies, and it must be assessed as a contribution to this field. It considers aspects of Caesar's image as he himself shaped it in his Commentaries, their transformations in Lucan and ancient historians, and their reincarnation in a number of plays and one opera composed by English playwrights or for the English stage. This fairly eclectic selection comprises Shakespeare's Tragedy of Julius Caesar (1599), Nicola Haym's libretto for Handel's Cesare in Egitto (1724) and George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra (1898, published 1901), as well as lesser-known Elizabethan and Jacobean dramas. In this category fall Thomas Kyd's Cornelia (1594); the anonymous Oxford play Caesar's Revenge (performed late 1590s, published 1607); George Chapman's Caesar and Pompey (c. 1605, published 1631); William Alexander's Julius Caesar (1607); John Fletcher and Philip Massinger's The False One (c. 1619, published 1647); and Jasper Fisher's Fuimus Troes (1607–1625, published 1633). Of this latter group, five have also been examined in D. Lovascio's recent monograph Un nome, mille volti: Giulio Cesare nel teatro inglese della prima età moderna (2015), but D.’s angle is quite different. In her words, ‘Instead of extensive contextualization aimed at elucidating how the circumstances under which these works have been created have shaped their representation of Caesar, my approach is to suggest an alternative, “Caesarean”, context’ (p. 26).
To this end, after an introduction surveying the primary texts and outlining the structure of the book, D. devotes the first chapter to Caesar's self-representation in the Gallic and the Civil Wars. Here she identifies three areas of interest, whose afterlife in English drama forms the subject matter of the next three chapters: Caesar's key characteristics of clemency and speed or efficiency; the relationship between Caesar-the-author and Caesar-the-protagonist; and what D. calls ‘Caesar's self-institutionalisation’, which applies to his self-promotion in the Commentaries and his larger-than-life stature in the plays. Moreover, each of the final three chapters begins with a study of the development of these themes in intermediary authors, primarily Lucan, Suetonius and Plutarch. As such the book is undeniably ambitious in the literatures it seeks to embrace.
This structure, however, also causes tensions in the level of coverage. While D. is well-versed in the recent historiography on the Caesarean corpus, her chapter's discussion of these texts is synthesising rather than original – as is fair if her real interest is in the plays. This applies even more to the sections on Lucan and the ancient historians that start off the subsequent chapters, so that the reader has to wait until well into Chapter 2 (p. 74) to read the fruit of D.’s own research. One also wonders if the structure is best suited to accommodate the many aspects of the plays that fall beyond the scope of Caesar's own writings: not only, obviously, his assassination, but also his affair with Cleopatra, which so fascinated later audiences. The Egyptian queen is now fitted in, rather awkwardly, as a factor compromising Caesar's speed. Naturally it is true that, in the plays, these events befall a character who has taken shape in interaction with a general cultural awareness of his namesake in the Commentaries, but the same could be said for the influence of Cicero's Caesarean speeches: these have done more than any source to cement Caesar's reputation for clemency, yet are hardly mentioned in this book. This, indeed, points to the methodological crux. D. makes the transmogrifications of the figure of Caesar her guiding principle and simultaneously posits the formative effect of her chosen Classical sources. But in the absence of a study of the external factors (other sources ancient and modern, political circumstances, intellectual cultures) that informed the ways in which these texts were understood, that latter claim can be neither proven nor disproven. To forge a tighter link between the ancient sources and the plays, D. might have considered citing Caesar's Commentaries in Arthur Golding's translation (reprinted 1590) and Lucan's Pharsalia in the versions of Christopher Marlowe (1593, published 1600, Book 1) or Sir Arthur Gorges (1614), instead of using the modern Penguin and Oxford Classics editions, respectively. This would not only have provided insights into how these works were read by contemporary audiences, but could also yield linguistic clues regarding borrowings indicative of dependencies.
Meanwhile, the former part of D.’s remit – the juxtaposition of Caesar's variegated dramatic images and his ‘self-dramatization’ in the Commentaries – produces some interesting continuities and contrasts. It is striking, for instance, that Shakespeare bypasses Caesar's two quintessential qualities – efficiency and clemency – to produce an unusually static and hollowly hubristic protagonist. It is also entirely plausible to see in this portrayal a reflection of the objectivising and self-aggrandising use of the third person – D. calls it ‘illeism’ – in the Gallic and the Civil Wars. Moreover, Shakespeare, and even more so Shaw, invent physical and emotional weaknesses for Caesar that undercut, to comic effect, the rationality and control conveyed in the Commentaries, although in this respect Suetonius’ recollections of Caesar's epilepsy and vanity are perhaps more immediate prompts. Another provocative observation concerns the fact that Elizabethan and Jacobean dramas – but not Handel's opera nor Shaw's play – tend to take the perspective of Caesar's opponents, from the conspirators to Cato (Chapman), Pompey's wife Cornelia (Kyd) or the Britons (Fisher). However, D. does not probe the reasons behind this, which presumably lie in political philosophies regarding tyranny, regicide and civil war on the one hand, and romanticised strongmen and ‘world historical figures’ on the other, which she excludes from consideration.
A shortcoming of the book, taken as a study of literature, is the scant attention paid to the literary features of the dramatic works it examines. D. states that the inclusion of Cesare in Egitto adds generic variation, but does not in fact consider what difference the operatic medium makes to the role of Caesar. Likewise, the plays themselves are quite diverse in genre, plot and tone. Kyd's Cornelia and Alexander's Julius Caesar are both closet dramas, intended for private reading rather than staging. D. mentions this, but does not offer thoughts on how this genre, which is perhaps better seen as dialogic than dramatic, informs the message of the plays or their representations of Caesar. Moreover, the works’ different timeframes are significant for the Caesar they cast. Cornelia, set in the year of Caesar's triumph, is a neo-Stoic moral and political debate about liberty's destruction by unchained ambition, and the titular heroine's contemplation of suicide in response. By contrast, Alexander's Julius Caesar unfolds during the dictatorship and demonstrates Caesar's development into an overly powerful monarch. Both are different again from Fletcher and Massinger's stage play The False One, which is set in Egypt, and juxtaposes the romance between Caesar and Cleopatra with Pompey's downfall at the hands of a traitor among his own men. Yet D.’s focus on Caesar is such that she all but detaches him from the works in which he appears, which compromises the notion of a ‘dramatic image’.
To conclude, this is not a book targeted at students of early modern literature or intellectual history, but it contains stimulating aperçus for those interested in the afterlife of Caesar.
