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    Julius Caesar
    Julius Caesar
    Julius Caesar
    Audiobook2 hours

    Julius Caesar

    Written by William Shakespeare

    Narrated by Andrew Buchan, Sean Barrett and Full Cast

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    About this audiobook

    Julius Caesar is one of Shakespeare’s most compelling Roman plays. The plot against Caesar and the infamous assassination scene make for unforgettable listening. Brutus, the true protagonist of the play, is mesmerising in his psychological state of anguish, forced to choose between the bonds of friendship and his desire for patriotic justice.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaxos Audiobooks
    Release dateApr 1, 2012
    ISBN9781843795803
    Author

    William Shakespeare

    William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest dramatist in the English language. Shakespeare is often called England’s national poet and the “Bard of Avon.”  

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    Reviews for Julius Caesar

    4/5

    2,334 ratings52 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I know it's not his best, and it's not as much fun as Tamburlaine, the Marlowe play Shakespeare was ripping off, but I have a soft spot for it.
    • 3/5
      I had tried delving into the Divine Comedy, but it just wasn't doing it for me after the first handful of cantos in Inferno. "I need something more violent right now," thought I. So I decided to read Titus, which I somehow never read (though I heart the movie intensely). Dang! Why isn't Lavinia as held up as Ophelia? She doesn't even have her own little Wikipedia page. I always thought of Ophelia as kind of a bleeding heart, and here is Lavinia, fighting to get her family to comprehend her, overcoming her wounds to see her rapists punished and then suiciding by father (or whatever you call it, despite how Titus puts it, she's willing and unable to commit the act herself) once revenge is carried out.This is now in my top three Shakespeare plays (Richard III and Julius Caesar being the others). It's got some weird shit going on, if you don't mind the colloquial vagueness of that. It was nice reading ol' Shakey again, I haven't really delved into his stuff since that advanced class years ago sort of wore me out on it.
    • 5/5
      A gruesome look at the Roman conquest of the Goths. Revenge, crueltly, loyalty-it's all considered in this early Shakespeare play. It is (as with all his work) best viewed, too-the Anthony Hopkins movie version, Titus, is amazing. Have the play at hand to read, because sometimes it helps.
    • 4/5
      did an adaptation of a scene of this! love it!
    • 4/5
      Incredibly bloody, even by modern standards.
    • 3/5
      Summary:This book was about the comedies, tragedies, histories, and romances about Ancient Heroes, bloody wars, and magical creatures. This was a book of power and drama. The theme was set in black and white.Personal Reaction:My personal reaction to this story was that how could one man rule the way Caesar did in Rome and lead his army to countless victories.Classroom Extension:I would use this book in my class to teach children on the power that one individual can have over others.
    • 5/5
      I think everyone knows parts of this play: "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears." The first part of it is maybe not so well known, but I think most people know something of Mark Antony's speech after Caesar's death. I think this might be my favourite Shakespeare play so far -- possibly partly due to already loving to read about Caesar, but also because of the strength of the rhetoric in it.

      I have actually seen parts of this performed -- the speech I referred to, actually -- and when I'd read it, I looked on youtube for performances of my favourite parts. I'd go see this play in a heartbeat.

      So, anyone remember why I disliked Shakespeare before...? I do wish schools wouldn't shove Romeo and Juliet down people's throats: it's far from my favourite.
    • 3/5
      When I initially attempted to read this, I couldn't understand what was going on, but after careful study and rereading, I was very proud to see I could comprehend it. I found it exciting and dramatic!
    • 3/5
      Julius Caesar is the first Shakeaspeare I ever read (in English I). I didn't remember much of it when I picked it up again in preparation for a performance at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, but was pleasantly surprised by how modern and relevant it seemed.
    • 3/5
      My reaction to much of this book was, "Wow, this is Shakespeare?" "Titus Andronicus" is simply brutal... and definitely the most violent play of Shakespeare's that I've ever read. There is a hardly a scene that goes by that someone isn't murdered, raped or dismembered. The play, at its heart, is a tale of revenue in its most violent form.As such, this isn't one of my favorite plays... there isn't much subtle or playful here. But it also managed to keep my attention, as I wondered how Shakespeare was going to top the prior scene with something even more horrible. Overall, I found it interesting and much darker than a typical Shakespearean tragedy.
    • 3/5
      1599, meest klassieke tragedie, bron is Plutarchus; perfecte tekst (bijna helemaal rijm), later verketterd als schooltekstBrutus is de hoofdrolspeler, maar Caesar beheerst wel de handeling. Brutus is een idealist die ten onder gaat door een gebrek aan praktisch doorzicht; het tegendeel is Cassius, maar toch meer medevoelen met hem; Antonius is de gehaaide opportunist, demagoog. Brutus? motieven: II,1 (p 820)Moord III,1Verheven pathetiek van Marcus Antonius na de moord, p 826, 827 (maar wel vals)Redevoeringen bij begrafenis III,2 vormen het hoogtepunt, vooral die van Antonius (p 828-29): opruiend door details over de dood van Caesar en een verwijzing naar zijn testament, tegelijk vriendelijk ten aanzien van de samenzweerders.
    • 4/5
      I recently sat down with Titus as part of my undergraduate degree and found it thoroughly enjoyable in a gruesome kind of a way. Shakespeare's understanding of how drama works is in full evidence, and although it all smacks a bit of Marlowe's work, the young Shakespeare still produced a play that is shocking and dark, but that also has moments of odd compassion. It reminded me of humanitie's unfortunate habit of destroying itself in the name of perpetual concepts like love, honor, and dignity. Violence is part of the human condition, and that is why I think the play still speaks to us today.
    • 3/5
      A violent and bloody tragedy, that may well have been a dark comedy in its time.
    • 5/5
      The first Shakespeare I ever read. I am wildly in love with Marc Antony (odd, because I actively despise him in [book: Antony and Cleopatra]).
    • 4/5
      This revenge play might not be one of Shakespeare's best crafted plays from a literary perspective, but it has its merits from a theatrical point of view- namely, two of his best villians. In particular, Tamora is for my money Shakespeare's best role for a woman after Lady MacBeth. Of course he can hardly be blamed for not writing more great roles "for women," as he didn't write *anything* for them- there were no actresses and the women would be played by young boys, not seasoned, mature performers. However, from the perspective of a modern woman whose appreciation of a play can be swayed by how much she would want to be in it, it is hard not to read this gore-fest and think how much fun it could be.
    • 5/5
      Just a marvelous edition - the new Arden Shakespeares really are incomparable. The editions as a whole are designed more at the serious academic, but their "Julius Caesar" will cater for people of all levels.
    • 4/5
      Not my favorite Shakespeare play, but mainly because this is one where the Bard was more concerned with moving the pieces around than creating those great Shakespearean moments of pathos. His audience-goers would have all been familiar with the details of Caesar's death, along with its central irony: that Octavius Caesar becomes the dictator that Brutus and Cassius were trying to stop by murdering Julius.

      Contemporary audiences don't necessarily know this context, and I would have liked to see more character development: at the end of the play, I didn't have a good handle on the personalities of the conspirators.

      After another reading, I agree with some commentators that what is key is the skill of the Roman orators and their attempts to convince each other (and themselves) of the justice of their cause. Especially interesting is the use of (and lapses in) iambic pentameter.
    • 4/5
      This was a re-read from high school days. While certainly a classic, filled with memorable passages, it's hard to give a play a high reading rating. The joy and wonder of it is in its performance.
    • 5/5
      This was great fun, although it was quite hard keeping all the characters straight in my mind because so many of them had unfamiliar Roman/Latin names.
    • 4/5
      Reason to read: Shakespeare Category Challenge, ROOTThis was actually enjoyable to listen to. Some great lines that are very familiar and of course the story is as well. Caesar, Anthony, Brutus, the Ides of March. One should probably read this one in March..
    • 4/5
      This is one of two of Shakespeare’s better-known plays that I somehow missed in high school and college (the other is [King Lear], which I have yet to read). Despite the title, most of the action centers around Brutus, his decision to throw in with the conspirators, Caesar’s death, and the aftermath.Perhaps the most famous lines in this play come from Mark Antony, mourning Caesar’s death and allowed by the conspirators to eulogize, as long as Antony does not blame them for the act. He does so, brilliantly getting the plebeians on his side while he talks about his friend, all the while repeating variations of “But Brutus says, he {Caesar} was ambitious; / and Brutus is an honorable man.” A couple of other phrases I was delighted to discover were “it is Greek to me” and “give up the ghost,” neither of which I realized were so old. I read it in one sitting, as is my wont, with a fair amount of help from the notes. I have the “Wordsworth Classics” edition which, instead of having notes on the opposite page or footnotes, had them in the back, so I had to keep a finger there and keep glancing back and forth. The glossary was separate and alphabetically rather than by line number, which was irritating, but despite that I mostly followed the meaning on my own from the context.I would include the play among the history plays rather than calling it an all-out tragedy. Certainly there is a lot of death, but unlike [Hamlet] where audiences have sympathy for the main character yet everybody dies, no one comes out completely sympathetic in [Julius Caeser]. The conspirators are not great people, yet Antony and the others taking over government after Caesar’s death can also be ruthless and bicker among themselves. All in all, it’s rather unsettling and as modern as any current book with unlikable characters. The introduction to my edition discusses this and also has some pointed things to say about politics that could have been written today rather than 2004: “To this day, human beings are, all too often, sacrificed pointlessly on the altar of one political ideology or another. Again and again, men of slogans and ambition seduce and delude their more decent auditors; the many are swayed by the hypocritical rhetoric of the few. Repeatedly, violence generates yet more violence.” Not much has changed since 1599 - or 44 BCE, for that matter.
    • 5/5
      I am doing some preliminary research and decided to start with Shakespeare.
    • 5/5
      One of Shakespeare's greatest and most accessible plays. Marc Antony's speech is one of Shakespeare's best, especially as it follows what would otherwise seem a pretty good speech by Brutus. Cutthroat politics goes back a long way....
    • 3/5
      Not Shakespeare's best, but then even his lesser works are better than 99% of the rest out there. Not my favorite, but still recommended.
    • 4/5
      It's Shakespeare, so pretty much everyone dies.
    • 4/5
      I liked this one. There is some good banter at the beginning, the speeches over Caesar’s body are wonderful, and the scenes set at the battle of Philippi felt appropriately hopeful or despondent. Caesar is a bit of a non-entity, though, and I’d have wanted a little more friction between Mark Antony and Octavian Caesar. But a very enjoyable play on the whole.
    • 5/5
      One begins to understand cultural references the more one reads Shakespeare, and Julius Caesar is no exception to this rule (this is perhaps especially true for Star Trek fans). The fault being not in our stars but in ourselves is a great bit of poetry that everyone should heed.
    • 5/5
      I love the Folger editions w awesome illustrations from the library. This is a larger sized paperback which is easy on the eyes. I have to say that Shakespeare is fairly neutral in presenting the main characters.Was happy to see "Let loose the dogs of war", though I previously thought that was from one of the Henry's.
    • 5/5
      A wonderful classic that truly speaks to the duality of man and his eternal search for not only power, but those that are truly pure at heart. Amazing how many quotes and sayings have come from this piece of literature.
    • 3/5
      Enh I don't know what I can tell you about this. Antony's funeral oration is fairly amusing.