"Sources and Contexts" presents possible sources as well as analogues toJulius Caesar, an account of Shakespeare's understanding of and approach to Roman history, and Ernest Schanzer's study of the narrative challenges posed by the play. "Criticism" includes early commentary--by, among others, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt, and Harley Granville-Barker--onJulius Caesar as well as modern interpretations. Among these are John W. Velz on role-playing in Julius Caesar; Jan H. Blits on Caesar's ambiguous end; Paul A. Cantor on rhetoric, poetry and the Roman republic;...

Fourteen scholars who work on campus or in the theater address this issue of what it means to play offstage. With their individual definition of what "offstage" could mean, the results were, predictably, varied. They employed a variety of critical approaches to the question of what happens when the play moves into the audience or beyond the physical playhouse itself? What are the social, cultural, and political ramifications? Questions of "how" and "why" actors play offstage admit the larger "role" their production has for the world outside the theater, and hence this collection's sub-title:...