Names and sources in "Julius Caesar"

Resumen

Shakespeare’s central plots usually rely heavily on primary source plots. At the same time, he often renamed characters and added characters to modify the themes and actions of his source plots, especially in his comedies. However, he usually added far fewer names in his histories and tragedies. Thus, his relative use of names from source plots compared to his addition of new names, the subject of my research, is a useful indicator of his partial reliance on plot sources and of his apparent presumption of their non-fictive status. In Julius Caesar, Shakespeare closely follows the action described in Plutarch’s chapters on Marcus Brutus and Julius Caesar in his Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romanes (North’s 1579 translation). He adds a few names from other sources and coins a few of his own. Thus, Julius Caesar typifies Shakespeare’s use of names in his histories and tragedies and reflects his apparent presumption of Plutarch’s non-fictive status. At the same time, Shakespeare uses far more names from Plutarch’s life of Brutus than from his lives of Julius Caesar or Mark Antony. Thus, his thematic emphasis is on Brutus and on his sense of ‘honour’ as a tragic strength. It is Shakespeare’s first great tragedy, typified by the irony of the protagonist’s virtue.