Vivian Thomas's accessible study treats Julius Caesar as a profoundly political play: a fascinating examination of history and culture, with an intriguing psychological analysis of characters both as men and as political beings. Following an account of the stage history of the play and a reappraisal of the critical debates and controversies to which it has given rise - particularly amongst new historicist critics - Vivian Thomas offers a multi-faceted approach to Julius Caesar. He explores the way in which Shakespeare utilised and transformed his source material - Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans. He also subjects to close critical scrutiny its peculiar stylistic features such as imagery and rhetoric, and relates the dynamics of the drama, its tragic, political and historical dimensions, to Shakespeare's portrayal of a Roman world. In this way, characters and actions are analysed in relation to the myths, mystery and history in which the drama is embedded.