Antony and Cleopatra - Wikipedia. Antony and Cleopatra is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The play was performed first circa 1. Blackfriars Theatre or the Globe Theatre by the King's Men. The major antagonist is Octavius Caesar, one of Antony's fellow triumvirs of the Second Triumvirate and the first emperor of the Roman Empire. Antony: Milk Toast Comes to Mind by ReadingShakespeareby450th, October 15, 2013 In the Bard's hands and the amorous arms of Egypt, the courageous, gifted Antony of Julius Caesar becomes the doting fool of Antony and Cleopatra. I just finished A&C in my. Antony is one of the three leaders of the Roman Empire and a proven soldier. We know him from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar as a former party guy who made his soldierly fortunes at Philippi, when he bested Brutus and Cassius, Julius Caesar’s murderers. He’s regarded as a noble and formidable. Antony and Cleopatra tells the story of a romance between two powerful lovers: Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt, and Mark Antony, who rules the Roman Empire with Octavius Caesar and Lepidus. Although he is needed in Rome, Antony lingers in Egypt with. In Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare draws on true events to tell the story of Antony and Cleopatra's love. Cleopatra first joins forces with Antony, but then betrays him. In the end, he falls on his sword, and Cleopatra kills herself with a poisonous asp. Antony, one of the triumvirs, has been. Antony and Cleopatra were pretty much the Brangelina of ancient times, only a whole lot more dramatic. In this tragedy—written by none other than Shakespeare himself around 1608—Mark Antony (no, not that Marc Anthony) and Cleopatra fall in love. Cleopatra was an Egyptian queen who had affairs with Rome's Julius Caesar and Marc Antony. She and Antony were defeated by Octavian in the battle at Actium. The tragedy is mainly set in Rome and Egypt, and is characterized by swift shifts in geographical location and linguistic register as it alternates between sensual, imaginative Alexandria and a more pragmatic, austere Rome. Many consider Shakespeare's Cleopatra, whom Antony describes as having . These contradictory features have led to famously divided critical responses. It can be described as a history play (though it does not completely adhere to historical accounts), as a tragedy (though not completely in Aristotelian terms), as a comedy, as a romance, and according to some critics, e. All one can say with certainty is that it is a Roman play, even a sequel to another of Shakespeare's tragedies, Julius Caesar. Characters. He ignores Rome's domestic problems, including the fact that his third wife Fulviarebelled against Octavius and then died. Octavius calls Antony back to Rome from Alexandria to help him fight against Sextus Pompey, Menecrates, and Menas, three notorious pirates of the Mediterranean. At Alexandria, Cleopatra begs Antony not to go, and though he repeatedly affirms his deep passionate love for her, he eventually leaves. Back in Rome, a general brings forward the idea that Antony should marry Octavius's younger sister, Octavia, in order to cement the friendly bond between the two men. Antony's lieutenant Enobarbus, though, knows that Octavia can never satisfy him after Cleopatra. Mark Antony is supposed to be ruling the eastern Roman Empire. Cleopatra, however, has all of his attention as the two carry on a torrid affair in Egypt. The death of his wife, Fulvia, and the threat of a war by Pompey bring him back to Rome. Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare. Discuss with other readers. The Other Hello people. After reading Antony and Cleopatra, I concluded that, along with other Shakespearian plays like Othello, Shakespeare presents a certain. In a famous passage, he describes Cleopatra's charms: . She grows content only when her courtiers assure her that Octavia is homely: short, low- browed, round- faced and with bad hair. At a confrontation, the triumvirs parley with Sextus Pompey, and offer him a truce. He can retain Sicily and Sardinia, but he must help them . After some hesitation Sextus agrees. They engage in a drunken celebration on Sextus' galley, though the austere Octavius leaves early and sober from the party. Menas suggests to Sextus that he kill the three triumvirs and make himself ruler of the Roman Republic, but he refuses, finding it dishonourable. Later, Octavius and Lepidus break their truce with Sextus and war against him. This is unapproved by Antony, and he is furious. Antony returns to Alexandria and crowns Cleopatra and himself as rulers of Egypt and the eastern third of the Roman Republic (which was Antony's share as one of the triumvirs). He accuses Octavius of not giving him his fair share of Sextus' lands, and is angry that Lepidus, whom Octavius has imprisoned, is out of the triumvirate. Octavius agrees to the former demand, but otherwise is very displeased with what Antony has done. Antony prepares to battle Octavius. Enobarbus urges Antony to fight on land, where he has the advantage, instead of by sea, where the navy of Octavius is lighter, more mobile and better manned. Antony refuses, since Octavius has dared him to fight at sea. Cleopatra pledges her fleet to aid Antony. However, during the Battle of Actium off the western coast of Greece, Cleopatra flees with her sixty ships, and Antony follows her, leaving his forces to ruin. Ashamed of what he has done for the love of Cleopatra, Antony reproaches her for making him a coward, but also sets this true and deep love above all else, saying . She hesitates, and flirts with the messenger, when Antony walks in and angrily denounces her behavior. He sends the messenger to be whipped. Eventually, he forgives Cleopatra and pledges to fight another battle for her, this time on land. On the eve of the battle, Antony's soldiers hear strange portents, which they interpret as the god Hercules abandoning his protection of Antony. Furthermore, Enobarbus, Antony's long- serving lieutenant, deserts him and goes over to Octavius' side. Rather than confiscating Enobarbus' goods, which he did not take with him when he fled, Antony orders them to be sent to Enobarbus. Enobarbus is so overwhelmed by Antony's generosity, and so ashamed of his own disloyalty, that he dies from a broken heart. Antony loses the battle as his troops desert en masse and he denounces Cleopatra: . Cleopatra decides that the only way to win back Antony's love is to send him word that she killed herself, dying with his name on her lips. She locks herself in her monument, and awaits Antony's return. Her plan fails: rather than rushing back in remorse to see the . He begs one of his aides, Eros, to run him through with a sword, but Eros cannot bear to do it and kills himself. Antony admires Eros' courage and attempts to do the same, but only succeeds in wounding himself. In great pain, he learns that Cleopatra is indeed alive. He is hoisted up to her in her monument and dies in her arms. Octavius goes to Cleopatra trying to persuade her to surrender. She angrily refuses since she can imagine nothing worse than being led in chains through the streets of Rome, proclaimed a villain for the ages. She gives Octavius what she claims is a complete account of her wealth but is betrayed by her treasurer, who claims she is holding treasure back. Octavius reassures her that he is not interested in her wealth, but Dolabella warns her that he intends to parade her at his triumph. Cleopatra kills herself using the poison of an asp. She dies calmly and ecstatically, imagining how she will meet Antony again in the afterlife. Her serving maids, Iras and Charmian, also kill themselves. Octavius discovers the dead bodies and experiences conflicting emotions. Antony's and Cleopatra's deaths leave him free to become the first Roman Emperor, but he also feels some kind of sympathy for them: . This translation, by Sir Thomas North, was first published in 1. Many phrases in Shakespeare's play are taken directly from North, including Enobarbus' famous description of Cleopatra and her barge: I will tell you. The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed that. The winds were love- sick with them; the oars were silver,Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made. The water which they beat to follow faster,As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,It beggar'd all description: she did lie. In her pavilion. And now for the person of her selfe: she was layed under a pavilion of cloth of gold of tissue, apparelled and attired like the goddesse Venus, commonly drawn in picture: and hard by her, on either hand of her, pretie fair boys apparelled as painters do set foorth god Cupid, with little fans in their hands, with which they fanned wind upon her. Historical facts are also changed: in Plutarch, Antony's final defeat was many weeks after the Battle of Actium, and Octavia lived with Antony for several years and bore him two children: Antonia Major, paternal grandmother of the Emperor Nero and maternal grandmother of the Empress Valeria Messalina, and Antonia Minor, the sister- in- law of the Emperor Tiberius, mother of the Emperor Claudius, and paternal grandmother of the Emperor Caligula and Empress Agrippina the Younger. Date and text. The Folio is therefore the only authoritative text we have today. Some scholars speculate that it derives from Shakespeare's own draft, or . His play is articulated in forty separate 'scenes', more than he used for any other play. Even the word 'scenes' may be inappropriate as a description, as the scene changes are often very fluid, almost montage- like. The large number of scenes is necessary because the action frequently switches between Alexandria, Italy, Messina in Sicily, Syria, Athens and other parts of Egypt and the Roman Republic. The play contains thirty- four speaking characters, fairly typical for a Shakespeare play on such an epic scale. Analysis and criticism. Such influence should be expected, given the prevalence of allusions to Virgil in the Renaissance culture in which Shakespeare was educated. Moreover, as is well- known, the historical Antony and Cleopatra were the prototypes and antitypes for Virgil's Dido and Aeneas: Dido, ruler of the north African city of Carthage, tempts Aeneas, the legendary exemplar of Roman pietas, to forego his task of founding Rome after the fall of Troy. The fictional Aeneas dutifully resists Dido's temptation and abandons her to forge on to Italy, placing political destiny before romantic love, in stark contrast to Antony, who puts passionate love of his own Egyptian queen, Cleopatra, before duty to Rome. As Janet Adelman observes, . James emphasises the various ways in which Shakespeare's play subverts the ideology of the Virgilian tradition; one such instance of this subversion is Cleopatra's dream of Antony in Act 5 (. James argues that in her extended description of this dream, Cleopatra . Perhaps the most famous dichotomy is that of the manipulative seductress versus the skilled leader. Examining the critical history of the character of Cleopatra reveals that intellectuals of the 1. This phenomenon is illustrated by the famous poet T. S. Eliot's take on Cleopatra. Throughout his writing on Antony and Cleopatra, Eliot refers to Cleopatra as material rather than person. He frequently calls her . Eliot conveys the view of early critical history on the character of Cleopatra. Other scholars also discuss early critics' views of Cleopatra in relation to a serpent signifying . Doris Adler suggests that, in a postmodern philosophical sense, we cannot begin to grasp the character of Cleopatra because, . However the isolation and microscopic examination of a single aspect apart from its host environment is an effort to improve the understanding of the broader context.
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