A keynote on Antony and Cleopatra: Shakespeare

William Shakespeare’s tragedy Antony and Cleopatra (First Folio title: The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra) is set in Egypt. In roughly 1607, the play was first performed by the King’s Men at either the Blackfriars Theatre or the Globe Theatre; it was first printed in the Folio of 1623.

The plot recounts Cleopatra and Mark Antony’s relationship from the time of the Sicilian uprising through Cleopatra’s suicide during the War of Actium, and is based on Thomas North’s 1579 English translation of Plutarch’s Lives (in Ancient Greek). One of Antony’s colleague triumvirs of the Second Triumvirate and the first ruler of the Roman Empire, Octavius Caesar, is the main opponent. The play is set primarily in the Roman Republic and Ptolemaic Egypt, and it is marked by rapid swings in geographical location and grammatical register as it alternates between sensual, imaginative Alexandria and pragmatic, austere Rome.

Analysis and criticism

The Aeneid, Virgil’s first-century Roman epic poem, had a significant influence on Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, according to several critics. Given the prominence of allusions to Virgil in the Renaissance society in which Shakespeare was trained, such impact should be expected. The historical Antony and Cleopatra were Virgil’s Dido and Aeneas’ prototypes and antitypes: Dido, the ruler of Carthage in North Africa, tempts Aeneas, the legendary example of Roman pietàs, to abandon his mission of creating Rome following Troy’s collapse. In sharp contrast to Antony, who puts his own Egyptian queen, Cleopatra, before loyalty to Rome, the mythical Aeneas defies Dido’s allure and abandons her to forge on to Italy, putting political destiny before romantic love. It’s no wonder that Shakespeare inserts numerous allusions to Virgil’s epic in his historical tragedy, given the well-established conventional ties between the fictitious Dido and Aeneas and the historical Antony and Cleopatra. “Almost all the major themes in Antony and Cleopatra may be found in the Aeneid,” writes Janet Adelman, “the clashing values of Rome and a foreign passion; the political necessity of a passionless Roman marriage; the concept of an afterlife in which the passionate lovers meet.” Shakespeare’s allusions to Virgil’s Dido and Aeneas, however, are far from slavish imitations, as Heather James argues. James underlines the multiple ways in which Shakespeare’s play subverts the Virgilian tradition’s world-view; one such example is Cleopatra’s dream of Antony in Act 5. (“I dreamt there was an Emperor Antony” [5.2.75]). Cleopatra “reconstructs the heroic manhood of an Antony whose identity has been fragmented and scattered by Roman opinion,” according to James, in her extensive depiction of this dream. Shakespeare’s story destabilized and potentially challenged the Roman ideology inherited from Virgil’s epic and personified in the fabled Roman ancestor Aeneas in a number of ways.

Summary

Act I

The Roman Empire was ruled by three individuals after Julius Caesar’s death: Mark Antony, Octavius Caesar, and Lepidus.

Mark Antony, who dwells in Egypt, is the ruler of the eastern Mediterranean. He’s also smitten with Cleopatra, the Egyptian Queen. Antony is forced to flee to Rome after the death of his wife, Fulvia, and Pompey’s insurrection against his fellow ruler Octavius. He travels with Enobarbus, a friend.

Act II

Antony and Octavius Caesar argue in Rome about Antony’s adventures in Egypt. They eventually conclude that a political marriage between Antony and Octavia, Caesar’s sister, will seal their partnership. Enobarbus refuses to think Antony will abandon Cleopatra, and informs his Roman acquaintances about the Egyptian court. The rulers, including Lepidus, reach an agreement with the renegade Pompey, who entertains them aboard his port ship. Pompey refuses to let his troops assassinate the triumvirate during the feast (Lepidus).

Act III

The word of Antony’s marriage reaches Cleopatra. She realises that Octavia offers no true romantic challenge after a bout of wrath and envy. When Antony and Octavia arrive in Athens, they discover that Caesar has broken his peace arrangement with Pompey and attacked him. By imprisoning Lepidus, he also breached the triumvirate agreement. Antony dispatches Octavia to Rome in an attempt to restore peace.

Antony travels to Egypt with Cleopatra to organise an army. Caesar launches war on Antony and Cleopatra, enraged at Antony’s abandonment of Octavia. Against Enobarbus’ advice, Antony chooses to battle at Actium at sea. Cleopatra’s ships flee the Roman fleet during the conflict, and Antony is beaten.

Act IV

Antony, humiliated by his love for Cleopatra, decides to attack Caesar on land. After repeated foreshadowings of Antony’s presumably certain demise, his army begins to lose faith in him. Antony is disappointed, not enraged, when Enobarbus deserts Antony and joins Caesar’s army. Enobarbus is consumed by guilt for betraying Antony and dies alone in his misery.

Act V

Cleopatra can’t stand the prospect of becoming a Roman prisoner. She has a countryman bring her deadly snakes in a basket when Caesar assumes she is now his prisoner. Her waiting women put on state robes for her before she puts an asp on her breast and dies alongside her women. When Caesar finds the bodies, he orders Antony and Cleopatra to be buried together. Caesar returns to Rome and becomes Emperor, unimpeded in his ambition for Egypt and fortunately free of political foes.

Conclusion

William Shakespeare’s tragedy Antony and Cleopatra (First Folio title: The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra) is set in Egypt. In roughly 1607, the play was first performed by the King’s Men at either the Blackfriars Theatre or the Globe Theatre; it was first printed in the Folio of 1623.

The Roman Empire was ruled by three individuals after Julius Caesar’s death: Mark Antony, Octavius Caesar, and Lepidus.

Antony and Octavius Caesar argue in Rome about Antony’s adventures in Egypt. They eventually conclude that a political marriage between Antony and Octavia, Caesar’s sister, will seal their partnership.

The word of Antony’s marriage reaches Cleopatra. She realises that Octavia offers no true romantic challenge after a bout of wrath and envy. When Antony and Octavia arrive in Athens, they discover that Caesar has broken his peace arrangement with Pompey and attacked him.

Antony, humiliated by his love for Cleopatra, decides to attack Caesar on land. After repeated foreshadowings of Antony’s presumably certain demise, his army begins to lose faith in him.

Cleopatra can’t stand the prospect of becoming a Roman prisoner. She has a countryman bring her deadly snakes in a basket when Caesar assumes she is now his prisoner.