Chapter Structure of Julius Caesar - Study Guide by William Shakespeare

Structure

From a reading of Julius Caesar it is quite obvious that the play is principally divided into two parts: before and after the assassination. The re-entry of Mark Antony after the assassination (III.1.146.1) marks the exact centre of the play. This is by no means coincidental; from that point Mark Antony shifts the nature of the action against Brutus and Cassius. Julius Caesar, like Henry V and Hamlet, has a solid five-act structure. Transcending these acts are three long episodes. The first is the populace's reaction to the assassination; the second is the reestablishment of Brutus and Cassius, which after the Quarrel has a different emotional tone; and the last, the battle of Philippi and the four rapid deaths of Cassius, Titinius, Cato, and Brutus. The climax is obviously Brutus' own death. The conflict between Brutus and Cassius has a parallel with that between Hamlet and Laertes. In the same way that Hamlet and Laertes fight in the presence of the dead Ophelia, Brutus and Cassius clash over Portia's body.

It has been argued that Julius Caesar falls into the late Elizabethan and Jacobean genre of revenge tragedy. The play does have some of the tenets of the revenge tragedy: a noble victim, the pursuit of vengeance, supernatural visitation, and the sense of accomplishment or the fulfilment of retribution with the final deaths. However the avenger of Julius Caesar is not a prince as in Hamlet, rather it is the cyclical processes of Roman history. This, a historical concept or principle, is insufficient for Julius Caesar to be classified as true revenge tragedy. It is the opposition of Caesar and Brutus that dominates the action of the play, continuing even after the death of the former.