Books by Cedric Watts

What is the play really about? Tragedy, history, problem play - what is its genre? Who, if anyone, is the play's hero? Is the murder of Caesar justified? Is Brutus a hypocritical Stoic? How does posthumous characterisation work? What makes the play so topical? "Julius Caesar" has long been regarded as one of Shakespeare's greatest dramas. Some of its phrases live on famously: "Beware the Ides of March"; "Et tu, Brute?"; and "Friends, Romans, countrymen: lend me your ears!". When Cassius says, "How many ages hence / Shall this our lofty scene be acted over, / In states unborn and accents yet unknown?", his question is indeed prophetic: history's answer has transformed the question into a boast. This concise, clear introduction explains just why. Professor Cedric Watts, M.A, Ph.D., is the editor of the Wordsworth Classics' Shakespeare Series.

This volume gathers poems, recollections and fictional items written by Cedric Watts between 1966 and 2017. Some have been published, some have not. The resultant medley should gratify nostalgia, while providing ironic instruction and mild entertainment.

Cedric Watts, Emeritus Professor of English at Sussex University, gathers here fifteen of his literary essays which were previously published in a diversity of locations. They include some of his most popular and controversial pieces, notably: ' The Semiotics of Othello'; 'Bakhtin's Monologism'; 'Haunting Conrad's Under Western Eyes'; and 'Jews and Degenerates in The Secret Agent'. Several of the essays concern Shakespeare and Conrad, but there are also discussions of Keats, Sterne, Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, and Edward FitzGerald's translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.

An entertaining and erudite guide to Shakespeare’s great sequence of history plays, culminating in Henry V, and to what the plays tell us about the public and private lives of politicians.

Widely recommended, this guide to Conrad offers a vivid and incisive account of his life and literary career, and gives detailed attention to the contexts, themes, problems and paradoxes of his works.

Preface Books are a series of scholarly and critical studies of major writers intended for those needing modern and authoritative guidance of their work, in order to reach intelligent understanding and enjoyment of it. This work focuses on Grahame Greene.