The New Hudson Shakespeare · William Shakespeare
V. DRAMATIC CONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT
_Julius Cæsar_ is a tragedy of a normal Shakespearian type, in which is represented a conflict between an individual, or group of individuals, and certain forces which environ, antagonize, and overwhelm. The unity of action and of interest is the personality of Julius Cæsar. In dramatic technique the play is simple and effective. Out of masses of detail and historical incident the dramatist has shaped a symmetrical and well-defined plot marked by (1) the exposition, or introduction, (2) the complication, or rising action, (3) the climax, or turning point, (4) the resolution, or falling action, and (5) the catastrophe, or conclusion. It is almost a commonplace of criticism that the opening scene of a Shakespeare play strikes the keynote of the action. It certainly does in a remarkable way in _Julius Cæsar_, introducing, on the one side, a group of excited citizens friendly to Cæsar, and, on the other, two tribunes hostile to him. It foreshadows the character-contrasts in the play and the conflict between the state and the individual. The exposition continues through the second scene, in which are introduced the leading characters in significant action and interaction. At the close of this scene Cassius lays his plans to win Brutus over to the conspiracy, and the complication, or rising action, of the drama begins. Through the last scene of the first act and the four scenes of the second act the growth of the complication is continued, with brief intervals of suspense, until, in the first scene of the third act, the climax is reached in the assassination of Cæsar and the wild enthusiasm of the conspirators. With the entry of Antony's servant begins the resolution, or falling action (see note, p. 89, l. 123), and from now, through intervals of long suspense and many vicissitudes,[1] the fortunes of the chief conspirators fall inevitably to the catastrophe.
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