Shakespeare's Roman Trilogy: The Twilight of the Ancient World

Paul A. Cantor first probed Shakespeare's Roman plays—Coriolanus, Julius Caeser, and Antony and Cleopatra—in his landmark Shakespeare's Rome (1976). With Shakespeare's Roman Trilogy, he now argues that these plays form an integrated trilogy that portrays the tragedy not simply of their protagonists but of an entire political community.

Cantor analyzes the way Shakespeare chronicles the rise and fall of the Roman Republic and the emergence of the Roman Empire. The transformation of the anci...