Using 'old scene[s]' to make new comments: the adaptogenic power of Julius Caesar Anonymous College

Shakespeare is perhaps the best-known name in the world. Naturally so, since his plays have been a part of the canon for a long time, with Julius Caesar among them. There have been thousands of adaptations of Julius Caesar let alone Shakespeare’s other plays. However, my burning question is this: what makes Shakespeare’s plays so attractive to adaptors? Hutcheon borrows Groensteen’s term ‘adaptogenic’ to describe why texts are attractive to adaptation. Let us develop this term and discuss adaptogenic power - that is, what makes Julius Caesar so powerfully attractive to adaptation? What is the source – or sources – behind this adaptability? To answer this, this essay will explore Shakespeare’s source material as well as specific adaptations: Welles’ production of Julius Caesar and the Taviani brothers’ Caesar Must Die.

Elements of Plutarch’s Lives, such as the infamy of the narrative, might explain the eternal adaptability of Julius Caesar. The masses would have known the story which Daniell argues was “the most famous historical event in the West outside the Bible” (p1) and thus, likely a familiar tale passed through word of mouth. Additionally, then, as now, school children would have been familiar with both Plutarch, whose...