Presents historical and contemporary views of tyranny.

Julius Caesar is one of the most popular plays of William Shakespeare, read, anno¬tated and played in schools and colleges in India. In India, the first edition of Julius Caesar was written by Sir Mark Hunter, in 1900, from Madras and Hugh Macmillan, writ

"Brilliant, beautifully organized, exceedingly readable."—Philip Roth World-renowned Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt explores the playwright’s insight into bad (and often mad) rulers. Examining the psyche—and psychoses—of the likes of Richard III, Macbeth, Lear, and Coriolanus, Greenblatt illuminates the ways in which William Shakespeare delved into the lust for absolute power and the disasters visited upon the societies over which these characters rule. Tyrant shows that Shakespeare’s work remains vitally relevant today, not least in its probing of the unquenchable, narcissistic appetites of demagogues and the self-destructive willingness of collaborators who indulge them.

Shakespeare's dramatization of the assassination of Julius Caesar sees rhetoric give way to cruelty, revenge and war. The tragedy is a complex treatment of the conspiracy, prompting discussions about power, tyranny, rivalry, gender, religion, the Elizabethan understanding of the Roman world and the continued interpretation of character: is Caesar a hero or a tyrant? Is Brutus a patriot or a murderer? There are no extant quartos of 'Julius Caesar'; this text comes out of the Folio of 1623.