Word: cleopatras
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...MUST begin with Homer, for both Antony and Cleopatra will be more intelligible in comparison with the characters of the Hiad, especially Achilles. The Hiad's hero strives to live life intensely in a brilliant world without falsifying his self-esteem. He is finely aware of what is owed to the self as warrior, yet he attempts to dissolve this self in allegiance to something greater. He scorns the esteem of men, for the honor which only the gods can confide. He will have honor from Zeus. His vision is the expression of his inner gloriousness. The Hiad presents...
...Renaissance viewed the history of Antony and Cleopatra as a story of a great man's degradation due to the "Unreined lust of concupiscence," as North put it in his translation of Plutarch. But Shakespeare recognized that enormous passion is the essence of heroic drama. If Antony's blood batters down his mind in Shakespeare's source, in the play Antony's heart struggles toward reconciliation with his will. Antony and Cleopatra includes the traditional Renaissance argument of noble mind and temperate valor, but does not accept its sagacity...
...Antony and Cleopatra explores the themes that the soldier in love is liable to betray himself as a soldier, that the hero in love is at war with himself. It gives pause when these themes are charitably considered in light of the seeming abyss between war and love throughout history. Shakespeare's original theme is that love can also serve to redeem the fallen soldier as it humanizes him. The power of Antony's death seene, as well as Cleopatra's, is provided by the knowledge that command depends on devotion as well as self-esteem. In Troilus and Cressida...
Enobarbus, in the august Renaissance robes of right reason, tells Cleopatra that Antony is at fault...
ANTONY'S death seen is especially complex because he acts in the fire of heroic pride as well as the fire of self-dissolving love. He commits suicide as an act of love- self-love and love for Cleopatra. The fact that she is dissimulating shows that, as at Actium, she cannot comprehend manly honor until it demands the man's death. She will require the sad spectacle of Antony's expiration to realize her implication in his fate, his in hers, and their common destiny as honorable lovers. Antony, at death, finally associates honor with the divine nobility...