Characters: Antony and Cleopatra (1607)

Characters: Antony and Cleopatra (1607)

1. Antony

   • Critics
     • ‘Dependent on the political system for his personal identity’ (Jonathan Dollimore, 1994) – political decline mirrored by personal decline and death.
   • Egyptian
     • Abandons Rome: 'Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch / Of the ranged empire fall'
     • 'Antony, leaving the fight in height, flies after her'
     • 'The tripple pillar of the world'
   • Roman
     • Fallen
       • Changes from God to fool: 'Goodly eyes... have glow'd like plated Mars .... now turn... Upon a tawny front'
     • Still Roman
       • is nothing without his political honour: 'If I lose my honour, / I lose myself. Better I were not yours so branchless'
       • Brave in death: 'a Roman by a Roman / Valiantly vanquished'
       • 'Enobarbus, Antony hath after thee sent all thy treasure, with his bounty overplus'

2. Cleopatra

   • Critics
     • '...devouring sexuality... diminishes her power' (T. S. Eliot)
     • 'Unlike Antony, she never melts, but sublinates from her very earthy flesh to ethereal fire and air' (Donald Freeman, 1999)
     • 'The 'feminine' world of love and personal relationships is secondary to the 'masculine' world of war and politics, [and] has kept us from realizing that Cleopatra is the play's protagonist' Gayle Greene (1981),
     • 'In handing over to Cleopatra almost the whole last act, Shakespeare accords her the structural privilege conventionally granted to the male protagonist.' (Michael Neill 1994)
     • Almost every scene in Antony and Cleopatra generates new identities for her (Clare Kinney 1990)
   • Strong leader/ rational
     • Mocks Caesar's childish methods: ‘Do this, or this; / Take in that kingdom, and enfranchise that; / Perform ‘t, or else we damn thee.’
     • (Antony:) ‘Grates me: the sum.’ However, Cleopatra responds saying, ‘Nay, hear then Antony’ and later, again says ‘Hear the ambassadors’.
   • Emotional
     • Manipulates Antony:‘… if you find him sad, / Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report / That I am sudden sick; quick and return.’
     • ‘Where be the sacred vial thou shouldst fill / With sorrowful water? Now I see, I see, / In Fulvia’s death, how mine shall be received shall be.’
     • ‘Pray you, stand further from me.’

3. Enobarbus

   • Critics
     • 'Fails to understand the value of loyalty' (Rowland Wymer, 1986)
     • 'Our response to Enobarbus' desertion is entirely a sympathetic one' (Dr Ronnie Bai, 2010)
     • 'Noble loyalty' (Caldwell Titcomb, 1960)
     • 'The sole tragic aspect of the play' (Caldwell Titcomb, 1960)
     • 'Equally at home in Rome and Egypt' (Robin Sowerby, 1999)
   • The tragic hero
     • Aristotle's 'De Poetica' (335BC): tragic error
       • Deserts Antony
         • 'the wounded chance of Antony. though my reason / sits in the wind against me'
     • Death
       • 'this blows my heart / ... no, I will go seek / some ditch wherein to die'
     • Morality
       • Loyalty: 'Oh Antony / Nobler than my revolt is infamous', 'I'll yet follow/ The wounded chance of Antony, though my reason/ Sits in the wind against me'.
       • Post death, play becomes darker, stressing his own moral code
   • Choral voice
     • 'Will to his Egyptian dish again'
     • 'They'll grind the one the other'
   • Respectful soldier
     • Poetic
       • '...the poop was beaten gold; / purple sails, and so perfumed' (reference to North's Plutarch (1579)
         • Appreciation of beauty
           • e.g Cleopatra's 'infinite variety'
     • Advises Antony

4. Caesar

   • Machiavel
     • Octavia's politically motivated marriage: ‘Let her live / To join our kingdoms and our hearts’ – political pawn
     • Attitude towards Triumvirate: ‘It is not Caesar’s natural vice to hate / Our great competitor’ ‘Lepidus was grown too cruel’
     • Battle of Actium: ‘Plant those that have revolted in the van, / That Antony may seem to spend his fury / Upon himself’
   • Not a machiavel
     • Moral superiority to Antony: ‘he fishes, drinks, and wastes / The lamps of night in revel’. ‘You have broken / The article of your oath’.
     • Love for his sister: ‘A sister I bequeath you, whom no brother / Did ever love so dearly’ (genuine affection) ‘My most wronged sister’ (empathises with her ruin)
     • Sympathy and respect after A&C's death: ‘She shall be buried by her Antony. / No grave upon the earth shall clip in it / A pair so famous’ ‘Bravest at the last / She levelled at our purposes and, being royal, / Took her own way’.
   • Critics:
     • ‘Antony’s passion for Cleopatra… is sympathetic against Octavius’s voidness of feeling, yet on a political plane Octavius is the better Emperor’ (Michael Steppat, 1980)
     • 'Antony's language of command grows weaker as Caesar's grows stronger’ (Paul Yacchin, 1993)