gedy
closes as with a chant of victory for the hero of defeat.

VI. MANAGEMENT OF TIME AND PLACE

1. _Historic time._ Caesar's triumph over the sons of Pompey was
celebrated in October, B.C. 45. Shakespeare makes this coincident with
"the feast of Lupercal" on February 15, B.C. 44. In the play Antony
delivers his funeral oration immediately after Caesar's death;
historically, there was an interval of days. Octavius did not reach Rome
until upwards of two months after the assassination; in III, ii, 261,
Antony is told by his servant immediately after the funeral oration that
"Octavius is already come to Rome." In November, B.C. 43, the triumvirs
met to make up their bloody proscription, and in the autumn of the
following year were fought the two battles of Philippi, separated
historically by twenty days, but represented by Shakespeare as taking
place on the same day.

2. _Dramatic Time._ Historical happenings that extended over nearly
three years are represented in the stage action as the occurrences of
six days, distributed over the acts and scenes as follows:

Day 1.--I, i, ii.
Interval.
Day 2.--I, iii.
Day 3.--II, III.
Interval.
Day 4.--IV, i.
Interval.
Day 5.--IV, ii, iii.
Interval.
Day 6.--V.

This compression for the purposes of dramatic unity results in action
that is swift and throbbing with human and ethical interest.

3. _Place._ Up to the second scene of the fourth act Rome is the natural
place of action. The second and third scenes of the fourth act are at
Sardis in Asia Minor; the last act shifts to Philippi in Macedonia. The
only noteworthy deviation from historical accuracy is in making the
conference of the triumvirs take place at Rome and not at Bononia. See
note, p. 116. But there is peculiar dramatic effectiveness in placing
this fateful colloquy in the city that was the center of the political
unrest of the time.

VII. VERSIFICATION AND DICTION

BLANK VERSE

The characteristics of Shakespeare's blank verse--the rhymeless, iambic
five-stress (decasyllabic) verse, or iambic pentameter, introduced into
England by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, about 1540--and its proportion
to rhyme and to prose have been much used in recent years to determine
the chronological order of the plays and the development of the poet's
art. In blank verse as used by Shakespeare we have really an epitome of
the development of the measure in connection with the English dra