Spevack emphasizes the complexity of Julius Caesar's seemingly straightforward theatrical experience to focus on the inextricability of private desires and public affairs.

The play's stage history supports the work's rich design, and Spevack's commentary is remarkably attentive to questions of production, precise lexical glossing, and the peculiarities of Shakespearean grammar.

An extensive appendix, provides lengthy, coherent excerpts from Plutarch's Lives, Shakepeare's main source include images of Caesar from the Renaissance onwards as well as photographs of modern productions and reconstructions of likely Elizbethan stagings of Caesar's entry into Rome, his assassination, Anthony's funeral oration, and the Act 4 meeting between Brutus and Cassius.