Julius Caesar: Tyrannicide Made Unpopular

The late Elizabethan Period was marked by socio-economic discontent. Amid this, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (1599) featured a prominent debate: whether or not tyrannicide could solve problems. Around 1599, Essex formulated a like-minded political revolution only to dismiss it until 1601. Yet, as providentialist and republican debates failed to provide solutions against misgovernment, the 1601 Essex rebellion also proved abortive. Essex was considered another regicide Brutus rather than a saviour. Contrary to the majority of apolitical or ahistorical critical analyses about tyranny in the play, a historicized analysis of Julius Caesar, therefore, illustrates how tyrannicide might have been perceived by Elizabethan playgoers.