I continued our introduction to Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" by discussing the historical events leading up to opening act of the play. We looked at the text's historical introduction ,and noted the term "triumvirate" as describing the power structure in Rome until Caesar defeated Pompey making Caesar the sole ruler of Rome. The play opens with Caesar's triumphant return to Rome.We then studied the language and style of Shakespeare ,and I provided instruction on how to best read the play's verse structure by not stopping at the end of each line but instead reading until there is some final form of punctuation such as a period or question mark. I explained the line breaks are somewhat arbitrary and are designed to preserve the iambic pentameter meter or 5 stressed syllables per line . I then explained the term "iambic pentameter" which characterizes Shakespeares' plays and sonnets. We read through some lines so Bobby could hear the repeated rhythm of the 5 stressed and 5 unstressed syllables per line. Before reading the play,I showed Bobby how the book provides a modern language synopsis of each scene at the beginning of each scene ,and in detail , explained how to read the adjacent annotations which provide modern English language equivalents to any phrases of the text where the meaning may be obscure. As we began reading the play,I made Bobby stop and demonstrate that he knew how to interpret and use the annotations with the modern English language versions of certain phrases. As the opening scene contains many puns, I spent some time explaining the puns and the double meanings that provided a light touch and humor to what will become a tragedy. For homework due Monday read the next 4 pages of the play.