The fall of the Roman Republic is considered a touchstone for later thinking about how to craft a stable society. Shakespeare would be very skeptical of that, and instead suggest that we need checks and balances against each other. He was very influential in Hegel's account of what he later has come to be known as the master slave dialectic. The assassination of Lincoln by the man who killed Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, was an acclaimed Shakespearean actor.
In the second of two programmes marking In Our Time's 20th anniversary on 15th October, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's versions of history, continuing with the Roman plays. Rome was the setting for Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Coriolanus and parts of Antony and Cleopatra and these plays gave Shakespeare the chance to explore ideas too controversial for English histories. How was Shakespeare reimagining Roman history, and what impact has that had on how we see Rome today?
The image above is of Marlon Brando playing Mark Antony in a scene from the film version of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, 1953
With
Sir Jonathan Bate
Provost of Worcester College, University of Oxford
Catherine Steel
Professor of Classics and Dean of Research in the College of Arts at the University of Glasgow
And
Patrick Gray
Associate Professor of English Studies at Durham University
Producer: Simon Tillotson