Antony and Cleopatra

by William Shakespeare

Paperback, 1988

Status

Available

Call number

PR2802.A2 M26

Description

Drama. Fiction. HTML: Antony and Cleopatra is a tragic play by Shakespeare, which tells the ill-fated love story between Antony and Cleopatra and the antagonistic role played by Julius Caesar, future Emperor of Rome. "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.".

Publication

Bantam Books (1988), 186 pages

Pages

186

Genres

ISBN

0553212893 / 9780553212891

Collection

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

1623 (Folio)

Physical description

186 p.; 4.19 inches

Rating

½ (736 ratings; 3.7)

User reviews

LibraryThing member meandmybooks
Huh. I'd have put money on my having read this before, though quite a while back, but I sure don't remember finding Cleopatra so loathsome before. I've read enough histories that cover the whole Julius Caesar/Mark Antony/Cleopatra/Octavius/death by asps thing that maybe I hadn't read Shakespeare's
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version before. At any rate, history suggests that Cleopatra was canny, intelligent, and deliberate, but Shakespeare's Cleopatra is a silly, fickle, whining brat. Character after character tells us that she is bewitching, glorious, and desirable, but every time we meet her she is whimpering and simpering, telling silly lies to manipulate Antony, swanning around in a way that would embarrass a sensible teenager, much less a matronly queen. And Antony isn't much better. Far from taking his position in the triumvirate seriously, he tosses his responsibilities to Rome and his family there aside to frisk, puppy-like, around his Egyptian mistress. Yuck. Neither one comes off as grown-up, much less as noble figures whose tragic fates we should find regrettable. And yet...

Despite the characters' manifold flaws, the play is deeply compelling. Somehow both Antony and Cleopatra, for all their foolish choices and pettinesses, transcend all and appear, in the end, to be outsize, even archetypal figures. Their bad decisions, which so many other people must pay for, somehow end with a sort of grandeur and mythic feel that, logically, the details don't support. They are so convinced of the earth shattering significance of their lives that they convince us it is so. Having turned these historical figures into melodramatic children Shakespeare uses his art to transform them further into great tragic lovers.

Part of my extreme distaste for Cleopatra may be thanks to the very excellent Arkangel recording of the play that I listened to along with my reading of the Arden Shakespeare edition. Estelle Kohler, who plays Cleopatra, doesn't hold back anything in her emotional performance. All the weeping, whining, wheedling, and cattiness is going full throttle. The asp could have showed up in, say, Act 2, and Antony could have settled down with Octavia, who seemed a nice, sensible sort of woman, and things would have been much simpler. But that wouldn't have made much of a story, would it? Marjorie Garber's wonderful essay, in her “Shakespeare After All,” helped me appreciate the play, though she couldn't make the main characters any less annoying. Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member amerynth
"Antony & Cleopatra" is definitely not one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. It is a slow starter that sort of meanders about setting the scene for several acts before getting to the meat of the story. The ending, however, is terrific.... it just takes a long while to get there.

In the play,
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Cleopatra has fallen in love with Antony, one of the triumverate of Roman rulers. Of course, the rulers can't see to get along and end up in conflict with each other. War, destruction and death ensue.

It's an interesting story but not one of Shakespeare's most entertaining, unfortunately.
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LibraryThing member 391
Despite its length and myriads of scene changes and characters to keep track of, I really enjoyed this play. I feel like it's not performed often enough on the Shakepeare circuits, but that helps to keep it fresh for me when I read it. The Folger edition contains footnotes to explain some of the
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archaic language and references, which is extremely helpful when reading.
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LibraryThing member judye
It's growing on me but not my favourite tragedy.
LibraryThing member rampaginglibrarian
Not my favorite of the bard's work but he really can't write poorly. I am not as fascinated by this 'epic' love story as some may be.
LibraryThing member libraryhermit
The thing that struck me as most unusual about this play is the fact that rulers of two opposing countries fall in love with each other. I am trying to think if there is any example of that in the modern era of nation states. Since there have been principalities and kingdoms right into relatively
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recent times, I guess there could easily be an example or two to be found. In ancient times, I can see that it would be an extremely difficult situation to deal with, loyalty to your home country being what it is. Immediately Dido and Aneaeas come to mind. Is it true that the guy always goes for the glory of conquest and decides to obey his country or his destiny, over the priorities of love? I guess so. But it does make for good drama.
I am trying to think what the closest thing in the current world might be. When a guy leaves a girl to follow his own ambition, or to build his own company, it is quite rare that it would be because he was competing against a company owned by his girlfriend.
Anyway, this discussion is going nowhere, and it doesn't really matter. Dido and Cleopatra have some really good speeches, and as the old saying/cliche goes: "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." But of course she is not only furious, but sad too.
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LibraryThing member BrynDahlquis
I didn't like it as much as Shakespeare's other plays, probably because, for some reason, I had a harder time understanding it and it took me most of the first half of the play to really get into it. The very last scene is definitely my favorite, and I wish the rest of the play was that
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good.

Cleopatra is probably one of my favorite female Shakespeare characters, though, along with her maids.
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LibraryThing member David.Alfred.Sarkies
This is truly a play of epic proportions, moving from the centre of Rome to her periphery, including places such as Egypt and the borders of Parthia. It is one of Shakespeare's later works, and the skill in which he brings so much together onto the stage simply goes to show how skillful he was at
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producing historical drama. Now, some scholars like to argue that Shakespeare could not have been responsible for so many plays of such high quality, however I personally find such research and argument to be quite useless. In the end, I tend to, and have always tended to, lean towards the mythological than the scientific, and while it may be the case that Shakespeare was not responsible for the plays, I personally see no benefit in such argument and speculation.
One of the things that I struggle with these plays is that they can be difficult to follow at times with the poetical language of the 17th Century and the difficulties in determining which character is who (which in some cases involves flipping back to the dramatis personae). I have also been watching the series Rome, and the characters of Mark Antony and Cleopatra seem to invade my mind from that show making it a little difficult differentiating Shakespeare's characters. The Mark Antony of the TV series is a much more brutal and despotic character than is Shakespeare's. However, we must remember two things, and they are that Shakespeare is not attempting to give us an insight into the culture and lifestyles of Ancient Romans, while Bruno Heller is not trying to produce, or even rewrite Shakespeare. In fact it is very clear that Heller, in his TV series, is giving Shakespeare a very wide berth.
I find the topics of Shakespeare's plays quite interesting though because I have noted that Shakespeare seems to steer clear of writing any plays based upon biblical stories, even tragedies (and there are many stories in the bible that a skillful playwright could transform into a tragedy of Shakespearian proportions), but rather he seems to lean much closer to the secular world of Ancient Rome. Further, he does not seem to go to rewrite the ancient tragedies, even those of Seneca (Shakespeare did not know Greek therefore he only had access to Greek texts that had been translated, such as Plutarch's Lives). Even then, Shakespeare only borrowed three stories from Plutarch's Lives, that being Coriolanus, Julius Ceaser, and Mark Antony (even though Julius Ceaser is the tragedy of Brutus).
I am almost inclined to suggest that if it was not for this play or for Julius Ceaser, that the characters of Ceaser, Brutus, Antony, and Cleopatra, would probably not be as dominant in our culture as they are. In a way, Shakespeare took one of the defining periods of Roman History, namely the period in which the republic collapsed and was replaced by the empire, and placed them onto the stage. Whether this play is supposed to be a 'sequal' to Julius Ceaser is difficult to determine, though it is interesting to note that Bernard Shaw later wrote a third play, Ceaser and Cleopatra, to turn this into a trilogy.
The background of these events is when Ceaser Augustus defeated his enemies and ascended to the throne as the first emperor of Rome. However, it is also interesting that after this we have another great shift in European history: we shift from the west, back to the east, to the birth, life, and death, of the messiah - Jesus Christ. However, this is not mentioned in the play, though there are some hints to the appearance of Herod the Great.
It is difficult to tell whether there is truly a fatal flaw in Mark Antony, and it is also difficult to determine whether Cleopatra actually loved him. Her trick at the end of the play, where she feigns death, and as a result Antony kills himself, is not the action of somebody in love, even chivalrous love. In a way she has been testing Antony's love throughout the play, but whether she loved him, or simply lusted after him, is difficult to tell. Many of us like to see this as a love story, but to me, it is not. It is a story about a man who let himself become possessed by a wiry woman which in turn brought about his downfall. Remember two things about Egypt of this period: it was not a part of Rome, rather it was a protectorate, and secondly Cleopatra considered herself a god. While she was subservient to Rome, she still did not recognise Rome as her ruler. As such, by sinking her claws into Antony proved a way of enabling her to shift the balance of power back to her.
It is interesting that Shakespeare uses the serpent as the means of her death. It is almost as if the serpent is submitting herself to a serpent. She wrapped her coils around Antony and enchanted him, and in doing so set his downfall in motion (remembering that this is not the Mark Antony that is portrayed elsewhere). Ceaser tries everything to break her spell, including marrying him to his sister, but he fails. In the middle of an important battle with the pirates that are preventing wheat shipments from reaching Rome, Antony deserts and travels to Egypt. In Egypt he finds that his soldiers are deserting him, and even though he wins the first battle, he makes a tactical error, by fighting at sea instead of land, and as a result he is defeated.
However, it is interesting that Ceaser does not condemn or punish him for his crimes. It appears that Ceaser understands that it was Cleopatra's whiles that dragged him to this point and has his body carried off in honour and leaves his legacy intact. However Cleopatra, recognising that her life of luxury and as a queen of Egypt is over instead of going into slavery she poisons herself. We hear her speak of being a slave and of watching plays where she is turned into a whore and mocked on stage. It is not her position that leads her to her death, but her legacy. However, this is not the legacy that has come down to us because we, today, know of Cleopatra as the beautiful queen of Egypt.
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LibraryThing member jhudsui
I do like the bit where Antony gives a grandiose speech, stabs himself, and then is mortified with annoyed surprise at the fact that he's still alive afterward.
LibraryThing member AliceAnna
Although a classic story, the characters came across to me as very mono-dimensional. I didn't really care about any of them. Antony just seemed whipped and Cleo didn't seem to have anything to inspire his devotion. Too melodramatic without much substance.
LibraryThing member leslie.98
Read on my Kindle as part of Shakespeare's "The Complete Works".

While the plot of this tragedy had plenty of action, somehow it just didn't work for me. I don't know if it was the language, my mood, or reading it instead of watching a performance... I'll have to try this one again sometime
LibraryThing member AntT
I know it's anathema for an English major, but this play was ho hum to me. Probably the et tu Brute....
LibraryThing member hlselz
Had to read the play, cause I love the history. Im not a big fan of Shakespeare, but the loved the play because of the charectors.
LibraryThing member AntT
I know it's anathema for an English major, but this play was ho hum to me. Probably the et tu Brute....
LibraryThing member jms001
Why do men do what they do when they're totally in love with women? Read this to find out...or at least dwell on it. Maybe we'll never come to a conclusion.
LibraryThing member wealhtheowwylfing
Cleopatra: the fiercest, most fabulous queen in Shakespeare.
Marc Antony: can't even commit suicide right.
LibraryThing member katieloucks
I've never read the play before, and it was really interesting.
LibraryThing member john257hopper
First reading of this play. For me it is definitely a play of two halves. The first three acts felt rather tedious and the dialogue unmemorable. But the fourth act, divided into no less than 13 scenes, mostly very short, contained the famous meat of the drama. Act 5 scene 2 also served as a
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dramatic conclusion.
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LibraryThing member meandmybooks
Huh. I'd have put money on my having read this before, though quite a while back, but I sure don't remember finding Cleopatra so loathsome before. I've read enough histories that cover the whole Julius Caesar/Mark Antony/Cleopatra/Octavius/death by asps thing that maybe I hadn't read Shakespeare's
Show More
version before. At any rate, history suggests that Cleopatra was canny, intelligent, and deliberate, but Shakespeare's Cleopatra is a silly, fickle, whining brat. Character after character tells us that she is bewitching, glorious, and desirable, but every time we meet her she is whimpering and simpering, telling silly lies to manipulate Antony, swanning around in a way that would embarrass a sensible teenager, much less a matronly queen. And Antony isn't much better. Far from taking his position in the triumvirate seriously, he tosses his responsibilities to Rome and his family there aside to frisk, puppy-like, around his Egyptian mistress. Yuck. Neither one comes off as grown-up, much less as noble figures whose tragic fates we should find regrettable. And yet...

Despite the characters' manifold flaws, the play is deeply compelling. Somehow both Antony and Cleopatra, for all their foolish choices and pettinesses, transcend all and appear, in the end, to be outsize, even archetypal figures. Their bad decisions, which so many other people must pay for, somehow end with a sort of grandeur and mythic feel that, logically, the details don't support. They are so convinced of the earth shattering significance of their lives that they convince us it is so. Having turned these historical figures into melodramatic children Shakespeare uses his art to transform them further into great tragic lovers.

Part of my extreme distaste for Cleopatra may be thanks to the very excellent Arkangel recording of the play that I listened to along with my reading of the Arden Shakespeare edition. Estelle Kohler, who plays Cleopatra, doesn't hold back anything in her emotional performance. All the weeping, whining, wheedling, and cattiness is going full throttle. The asp could have showed up in, say, Act 2, and Antony could have settled down with Octavia, who seemed a nice, sensible sort of woman, and things would have been much simpler. But that wouldn't have made much of a story, would it? Marjorie Garber's wonderful essay, in her “Shakespeare After All,” helped me appreciate the play, though she couldn't make the main characters any less annoying. Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member Petroglyph
I found this so-so. Both Antony and Cleopatra are portrayed as fickle individuals absorbed in their love-making to the exclusion of everything else. Cleopatra in particular is whiny and manipulative; Antony plainly gives up on all duties. The play only becomes tragic and imbued with grandeur once I
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allow myself to not think of these people as, well, humans but as larger-than-life figures, household names straight out of Great (Wo)Man History. I’m not sure I want to do that.

The quality picks up towards the end, but the earlier acts contain some good back-and-forth banter and penis jokes.
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LibraryThing member MusicforMovies
Largely based on Plutarch, if I understand correctly, I enjoyed this historical based play by Shakespeare.

They say hindsight is always 20/20 and that is true in the case of Mark Antony; although one may not sympathize much with Mark Antony - especially in his awful treatment of Fulvia and then
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Octavia - I did feel somewhat for his subordinates that paid with their lives for his poor judgement.

I found Cleopatra a more interesting character; I'm not sure if her love for Mark Antony could probably be called that as it seems intermixed with hubris, but she stays with him to the end, or at least to her vision of her ideal of him.

Octavian, Mark Antony, and Cleopatra all display a shared hubris and lust for power combined with political maneuvering that was bound to end in tragedy at some point.
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LibraryThing member TobinElliott
I have to admit, this one did very little for me, primarily because the two main players, Antony and Cleopatra, seem to be quite shallow and whiny and often stupid throughout the play.

Definitely not a favourite.
LibraryThing member Helenliz
Inspired by having read Shakespearean earlier in the year, I determined to listen to those Shakespeare plays I could find in the library. This is the first alphabetically (you got to start somewhere).
It is also one I know next to nothing about and next time I would read the synopsis and character
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list first - that would have helped somewhat. Anyway on to the play. I think that Cleopatra deserves an epitaph along the lines of nothing in life became her so much as leaving. Through the play she doesn't always display in the best light, her behaviour towards the bearer of bad tidings is unkind and her jealousy towards Mark Antony's wives is beneath her. However she certainly comes into her own in the final scene and makes an exit that is nothing if not memorable.
Mark Antony doesn't quite finish on the same high. He takes an inordinate time to finish the deal. He comes over as torn between his desire and duty and never manages to make a decision which side he is actually on until the last - and even then he needs to be pushed.
It is highly likely that I've missed any amount of nuance and subtlety in this, but it was an enjoyable listen, I just know I need to do a smidge more home work next time.
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LibraryThing member Coach_of_Alva
Shakespeare here writes about two historical characters far more famous and important that Lear or Macbeth but he doesn't treat them in a monumental tragic fashion. He instead portrays them as rather ordinary mortals: Antony, a pliable politician and unfocused warrior; Cleopatra, a passionate but
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insecure cougar. The most interesting scene is a on-boat banquet where the shrewd politicos of Rome persuade a young revolutionary to abandon a rebellion he is winning. The most memorable character (to me) is Enobarbus, a close, intelligent friend of Antony who betrays him when he decides he has no chance to win and then cannot live with himself.
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LibraryThing member the1butterfly
We had a free-choice play for my Shakespeare class, so I thought this would be a good one because Cleopatra is a great character. I also attempted to make a beaded headpiece to wear during my presentation, which didn't entirely work. The play is long and goes all over the place, but it's one of the
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greatest romances of all time, and worth reading.
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PR2802.A2 M26
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