Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

by David Daiches

63 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 1976

About the author

David Daiches was a Scottish literary historian and literary critic, scholar and writer. He wrote extensively on English literature, Scottish literature and Scottish culture.

He was born in Sunderland, into a Jewish family with a Lithuanian background - the subject of his 1956 memoir, Two Worlds: An Edinburgh Jewish Childhood. He moved to Edinburgh while still a young child, about the end of World War I, where his father, Rev. Dr. Salis Daiches was rabbi to Edinburgh's Jewish community. He studied at George Watson's College and won a scholarship to University of Edinburgh where he won the Elliot prize. He went to Oxford where he became the Elton exhibitioner, and was elected Fellow of Balliol College in 1936.

During World War II, he worked for the British Embassy in Washington, DC, producing pamphlets for the British Information Service and drafting speeches on British institutions and foreign policy.

Daiches' first published work was The Place of Meaning in Poetry, published in 1935. He was a prolific writer, producing works on English literature, Scottish literature, literary history and criticism as well as the broader role of literature in society and culture.

Daiches was the father of Jenni Calder, also a Scottish literary historian.

Reviews

[Malcolm Hebron · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Daiches was a prolific scholar of Scottish and English literature, who moved around a good deal in his distinguished career. This little guide to Julius Caesar is part of the old Arnold Studies in English Literature series, which espouses patient and attentive reading of a text, line by line. Daiches's thoughtful commentary on this play pays attention to its ambiguity and multi-layered presentation of situation and character: he shows us how it is quite impossibe to abstract the dramatic work into some abstract generalization about politics. The play is a mirror to human nature, not a dramatized message about how individuals or societies should conduct themselves. Written as a continuous essay, Daiches's book is also a relief after the chopped-up sections (and prose) of so many revision guides which despair of anyone concentrating for more than three telegrammed sentences without graphic help and photographic distraction. I found reading this very helpful in preparing a piece on the play, and I enjoyed finding out more about the life and works of Professor Daiches, who also wrote a book on whisky, covered literature of many genres and varieties and altogether sounds a genial old cove.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

good.

[iu65x · Rating 4 out of 5]

its not hamlet, but still a decent Shakespearean play.

[Hendrix]

nice peoty