Ben Jonson and Julius Caesar

Summary

If we neglect Titus Andronicus as pseudo-classical, and only his by adoption and not by grace (of which it has little enough), Julius Caesar was Shakespeare’s earliest attempt to try his fortune in the perilous arena of Roman tragedy. And a very bold attempt it was, made by a man equipped with but ‘small Latin’, under the keenly censorious eye of a learned friend alert for every slip or sign of weakness, to say nothing of a learned enemy, as many suppose Chapman to have been.

When the play was produced in the autumn of 1599 the friendship was probably little more than a year old; for in 1598 Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour had been performed by the Chamberlain's Company, with Shakespeare taking part; and it was Shakespeare who, according to a story which Rowe reports, had “by a remarkable piece of humanity and good nature” introduced the still comparatively unknown dramatist to his fellow-actors and induced them to accept the play. “After this”, Rowe continues, “they were professed friends, though I don't know whether the other ever made him an equal return of gentleness and sincerity.” Rowe appears to have momentarily forgotten the magnificent laudatio which Jonson wrote for the posthumous edition of his 'beloved' friend's plays; but it cannot be denied that his immediate 'return' was rather sincere than gentle. In his next play, Every Man out of his Humour, performed in 1599, once again by Shakespeare's fellows, he mocks, not necessarily ill-naturedly, at two passages from Julius Caesar.