thingkvm.blogg.se - The ides of march by thornton wilder

All Rome comes crowding through these pages - the Rome of villas and slums, beautiful women and brawling youths, spies and assassins. Wilder also resurrects the controversial figures surrounding Caesar - Cleopatra, Catullus, Cicero, and others.

In this inventive narrative, the Caesar of history becomes Caesar the human being. Thornton Wilder called it "a fantasia on certain events and persons of the last days of the Roman republic." Through vividly imagined letters and documents, Wilder brings to life a dramatic period of world history and one of history's most magnetic, elusive personalities. The Ides of March, first published in 1948, is a brilliant epistolary novel set in Julius Caesar's Rome.

Drawing on such unique sources as Thornton Wilder's unpublished letters, journals, and selections from the extensive annotations Wilder made years later in the margins of the book, Tappan Wilder's Afterword adds a special dimension to the reissue of this internationally acclaimed novel.

The case is otherwise solid and attractive, and with the chemise fully protects the first edtion copy. The morocco on the slipcase's spine is lightly sunned. The dust jacket has minor chips and wear along the edges, now fully protected with mylar. Being a virtuosic stylist, Wilder avoids the stiltedness that afflicts so many attempts to capture Ancient Rome, and this work deserves to be placed alongside the two modern classics of Robert Graves who depicted a slightly later phase of Roman history.

Wilder might not be strongly associated with historical fiction, but he was in fact a devoted classicist, and this foray into historical fiction found a receptive audience - the novel sold extremely well upon its publication.

As the title might suggest, this novel is a retellng of the story of Julius Caesar, his times and the society he occupied and dominated. Like the plays, though, Wilder is venturesome in approach, here embracing the hoary form of the epistolatory novel but applying it in a highly original manner. The Ides of March, first published in 1948, is a brilliant epistolary novel set in Julius Caesars Rome. This is Wilder's first novel after his string of big hits, and instant classics, on Broadway.