The more or less agreed order of composition of the plays shows Julius Caesar coming after Henry V. Since the latter might be seen as the culmination of a process that had begun with The First Part of the Contention of the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster (2 Henry VI), continuing via Richard III, Richard II, King John and the two parts of Henry IV, Julius Caesar might be seen as Shakespeare's move from English to Roman history - an interest manifested earlier in Titus Andronicus, first printed in 1594, and the poem The Rape of Lucrece, entered into the Stationers' Register on 9th May of the same year.

English popular interest in Roman history was

This article in full comprises 2820 words but only the first 150 or so words are available to non-members.

All our articles have been written recently by experts in their field, more than 95% of them university professors. To read about membership, please click here.

Published 28 October 2000

Citation: Parker, Kenneth. "Julius Caesar". The Literary Encyclopedia. 28 October 2000.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4303, accessed 9 February 2010.]