Anthony and Cleopatra Criticism

8/3/2019 Anthony and Cleopatra Criticism

1/7

Antony and Cleopatra seems to have a special place in Shakespeare's works because it is

at a crossroad between two types of play. It clearly belongs to what are generally called

the 'Roman' plays, along with Coriolanus andJulius Caesar. But it is also considered atragedy. The importance of history in the play cannot be denied, especially where it is

compared to Shakespeare's 'great' tragedies such asHamletandRomeo and Juliet. But

one might wonder what is specifically tragic inAntony and Cleopatra, and what can besaid about the tragic in a play which is so different from the other tragedies. It is clear

that the notion of 'tragic' in the everyday sense is not necessarily the same as the notion of

'tragedy', which is a philosophical notion whose definition depends on which philosophicsystem one takes into account. In this article I shall take the term tragic in its literary and

dramatic sense and try to define its main characteristics.

Taking into account a wide corpus of plays, from Antiquity as well as from France and

England, we can detect several constant features that can define the tragic. A tragedyusually shows a character that is outstanding by his rank or/and inner abilities, falling into

misfortune as a result of fate, and because of an error or a weakness for which he is not

really responsible. Several tragic elements can be detected inAntony and Cleopatra.First, we find characters that have high rank because they are outstanding figures; we alsosee a tragic situation because from the beginning of the play we see no hope of a happy

ending. In the end, even if it is hard to see a transcendence in action, the play shows a

failure of human freedom, a determinism in the character's fate that can be considered asthe essence of tragic.

The heroes ofAntony and Cleopatra have high rank and ability because they are above

the level of common people. This is a general characteristic in tragedies. Tragic heroes

are extraordinary specimens of mankind. They can be remarkable for their intelligence(as is Oedipus, the main character ofOedipus Rex by Sophocles), their cruelty (like

Medea, in the eponymous tragedy by Seneca), or their nobleness in mind, (like Caesar inCinna by Corneille). Very often the tragic hero is from royal blood. Antony, inShakespeare's play as well as in Roman history, is a military leader of incredible power,

intelligence and courage. Caesar himself shows his esteem for him when he reproaches

him for his present moral decay:

..................................................When thou onceWas beaten from Modena, where thou slew'st

Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel

Did famine follow, whom thou fought'st against(Though daintily brought up) with patience more

Than savages could suffer.

(...)..................................................And all this

(It wounds thine honour that I speak it now)

Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek

So much as lank'd not. (Act I, scene IV)


2/7

If Cleopatra does not have such a strong moral sense, she is remarkable for her royal rank

- she is the last queen of Egypt - her beauty, her intelligence and her audacity. Enobarbus

quotes the episode of her being brought to Antony in a carpet. Last but not least, hersense of honour and dignity gives her a special nobleness that is typically tragic.

Although she fears death - which is why she flees from the sea battle - she'd rather kill

herself than be exposed to Caesar's triumph. Cleopatra, even if she shows weakness andunpleasant traits, stands apart from other women. Even Octavia, who possesses all the

typical Roman virtues, cannot compete with her. Barely married to her, Antony comes

back to the Egyptian queen. Cleopatra and Antony are a mythic couple.

A tragic hero is usually outstanding, but not perfect. He/she is unwittingly guilty of somefault that makes him somehow deserve the disaster that happens to him. This view was

put forward by the first theoretician of drama, Aristotle, and elucidated by Racine, in the

XVIIth century:

Aristote, bien loigns de nous demander des hros parfaits, veut au contraire que les

personnages tragiques, c'est--dire ceux dont le malheur fait la catastrophe de la tragdie,ne soient ni tout fait bons, ni tout fait mchants. (...) Il faut donc qu'ils aient une bontmdiocre, c'est--dire une vertu capable de faiblesse, et qu'ils tombent dans le malheur par

quelque faute qui les fasse plaindre sans les faire dtester. (Racine, 1667, Premire Prface

d'Andromaque)

Aristote, who is very far from asking us to create perfect heroes, on the contrary wants

tragic characters, the ones whose unhappiness is the theme of the tragedy, to be neitherall good nor all wicked. (...) They must consequently have an imperfect goodness, that is

a virtue that is capable of weakness, and fall into distress because of some sin which

would make people feel sorry for them and not hate them.

This view is exemplified in the character of Antony. One cannot deny that his love forCleopatra is a weakness and even a fault. His passion makes him forget his duty, his

honour as a soldier. He leaves the battle against Caesar because of Cleopatra, and he is an

unfaithful husband to Fulvia and Octavia. On Cleopatra's advice he decides to fight at seaalthough his chances would be much better on land. On the other hand, his passion is not

voluntary. He tries to resist it - by marrying Octavia, he tries to give politics a higher

priority than love - but fails. As a result, the spectator - or reader - cannot but feelcompassion for him, even if he more or less 'deserved' his terrible end. Cleopatra, even if

many traits of hers are unpleasant (she mistreats the unfortunate messenger who

announces the marriage of Antony and Octavia, and she is particularly mean to her rival)

deserves our compassion too. Shakespeare creates in her a character that is much morelikely to awaken pity than the Cleopatra described in Plutarch, the main source of the

play. According to an article from Josette Hrou, 'Antony and Cleopatra: sources and

influences' (2000) [1] although Shakespeare followed very carefully the historical eventsdescribed by Plutarch, he took some liberties with his source, especially in the treatment

of Cleopatra's character. Plutarch describes her as a woman without scruples,

manipulative, ready to do anything to keep her throne. To her, Antony was nothing morethan a puppet she had to seduce for political reasons. She did not care about his person


3/7

but only about his power. In Shakespeare's play, she is truly in love with Antony. When

he is away, she asks for mandragora, 'That (she) might sleep out this great gap of time',

while 'My Antony is away' (Act I, scene V). We do not see any reason why she shouldfeign in the presence of Charmian. This true passion makes us sympathise with her.

Another characteristic feature of tragic heroes is that their personal fate is always linkedto the destiny of a community. Their unhappiness is not merely a domestic catastrophe,

but concerns many people. This is particularly clear when heroes have a political role,which is very often the case, especially in Greek tragedies. But even when the heroes are

not sovereigns or leaders, their fates have an impact on community life. In Romeo and

Juliet the two young heroes are of noble origin and their deaths is what eventually sealsreconciliation between their families. InAntony and Cleopatra, this characteristic is

particularly obvious: nothing less than the future of the Roman Empire - that is to say, the

whole world for Romans of the time - is at stake. The rivalry between Caesar and Antonyis a tragedy for Rome, since it leads to civil war. Antony's death is of great consequence

for the Roman Empire: 'The death of Antony / Is not a single doom, in the name lay / A

moiety of the world' (Act V, scene I) says Caesar as he hears about his rival's suicide. Thefall of Cleopatra is also the fall of Egypt, which becomes eventually a part of the RomanEmpire. By killing herself, Cleopatra does not only save her honour and dignity, but also

the dignity of her nation.

The fates of tragic heroes and heroines arouses compassion and terror, 'which are the trueeffects of tragedy (Racine, 1674, Preface of Iphignie en Aulide). But the situation itself

shows tragic features, because from the start of the play we see the characters in a

deadlock. There is no hope for a happy ending. We have a situation such as described by

Christian Biet in his definition of tragic: 'Les valeurs de l'homme tragique sontirralisables, contradictoires et aucun compromis n'est possible, ni aucun choix qui puisse

dboucher sur une situation heureuse ou harmonieuse'. (1997) 'The values of the tragicman are unrealisable and conflicting and no compromise can be made, nor any choicethat might lead to a happy or harmonious situation'. Antony's two great passions: his

ambition and his love for Cleopatra, are fundamentally impossible to reconcile. From the

first verse of the play, we see that Cleopatra is not accepted by Antony's soldiers, she isshown as incompatible with his honour. Philo begins the play by complaining about the

general's moral decline:

.............................................His captain's heart,

Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burstThe buckles on his breast, reneges all temper

And is become the bellows and the fan

To cool a gipsy's lust. (Act I, scene I)

The contrast between the greatness of Antony and the unworthiness of his love is shortlystressed again: Antony is 'The triple pillar of the world transform'd/ Into a strumpet's

fool'. This passion is shown as unworthy, and we see that it is dangerous since it causes

Antony to make serious strategic mistakes and lose a decisive battle against Caesar. Italso makes him neglect his new wife Octavia, which breaks the brief reconciliation


4/7

between the two rivals. A solution to the problem might be for Antony to give up

Cleopatra, but to do so is not in his power and would not make him happy: 'I'th'East my

pleasure lies' (Act II, scene III) he says soon after his wedding with Octavia. The lovebetweenAntony and Cleopatra is tragic because there is no way it could make them

happy.

If the conflict in Antony himself cannot be resolved, the political conflict cannot but have

a bloody end. Antony, Caesar and Pompey are in a struggle for power and the partyorganised by Pompey to seal reconciliation does not fool the spectator. After Pompey's

death, the struggle between Caesar and Mark Antony is inevitable. Two men of such

outstanding capacity and ambition cannot be satisfied with a half of the world each.Caesar sums up the situation after Antony's death:

.............................................I must perforce

Have shown to thee such a declining day,

Or look on thine: we could not stall together

In the whole world. (Act V, scene I)

Antony's death is fortunate for Caesar - from a strictly political point of view - but that

does not stop him from weeping for Antony, whom he esteemed and perhaps even loved:

'my brother, my competitor' he says. The merciless conflict is tragic because no one is toblame for it. The two characters try not to fight each other, but they cannot escape their

own nature. Neither of them is the 'good' or the 'bad' one. A situation where characters

have no other choice than fighting each other, without one being more innocent than theother, is typically tragic. This aspect of tragedy is wonderfully expressed by the French

dramatic author Jean Anouilh in his play Antigone (1944), in a passage spoken by the

Chorus:

C'est propre, la tragdie. C'est reposant, c'est sr... (...) Dans la tragdie on est tranquille.D'abord, on est entre soi. On est tous innocents en somme! Ce n'est pas parce qu'il y en a

un qui tue et l'autre qui est tu. C'est une question de distribution.

Tragedy is clean. It is restful, it is safe... (...) In a tragedy we have nothing to worry about.

First, we're between us. We are all innocents in fact! One killing and the other gettingkilled doesn't change anything. This is all about casting.

Caesar cannot be held responsible for Cleopatra's death either. It is true that he, 'though

he be honourable' as Dolabella says (Act V, scene II) intends to lead the queen in

triumph, which would be a great humiliation for her. But he does not really have achoice: not using the Egyptian queen to enhance his triumph would be a political mistake.

In this situation, Caesar and Cleopatra both do what they have to do in their respective

situations. As a fallen queen, Cleopatra does not have any other possibility than death.

If the conflict between the two leaders is inevitable, so is the decline of a country, and a

civilisation. The independence of Egypt is doomed from the beginning of the play.

Cleopatra tries to preserve it but she has no chance. The love between Antony and the


5/7

queen of Egypt may seem to offer some hope, but the submission of one nation to another

is as inevitable as the victory of one of the two competitors. When Antony leads the

battle by sea, it is because of his passion for Cleopatra; she makes him defend hercountry: 'I made these wars for Egypt', he says, believing himself betrayed by the queen

(Act IV, scene XIV). As soon as Antony has lost, Cleopatra has no political power and

has to submit herself to the master of Rome. The ambassador explains to Caesar, evenbefore Antony's death:

Cleopatra does confess thy greatness,

Submits her to thy might, and of thee craves

the circle of the Ptolemies for her heirs,Now hazarded to thy grace. (Act III, scene XII)

The tragic inAntony and Cleopatra is partially that the situation is from the beginning a

knot that can only be undone by the death of some characters, and even of a country as an

independent nation. No compromise can be found that would satisfy everyone. That

makes for an important feature of tragedy - an insoluble conflict between the hero and hisenvironment. But the main characteristic of tragic remains the fatum, a determinism that

does not allow the heroes to be masters of their own lives. We know from the beginningthat the end has to be disastrous, but do we really see how it is going to end? The length

of the play, the numerous incidents in it (Antony's marriage with Octavia, the battle won

by Caesar, Enobarbus's suicide, the death of Pompey, the false announcement ofCleopatra's death) make it difficult to see a logical chain of events in the play and

therefore a determinism.

As Christian Biet explains: 'La dfinition minimale du tragique serait peut-tre la suivante:est tragique tout ce qui relve du fatum, de la ncessit, et qui met radicalement en chec la

libert humaine, qui pourtant s'exerce'(1997). 'The minimum definition of what tragic ismight be the following: tragic is anything that belongs to fatum, to necessity, and makes

human freedom radically fail, although it is indeed exerted'. We do not hear (as we do in

Classical tragedy) about gods pursuing vengeance against one of the protagonists, butnevertheless we can see elements of a determinism that does not let the hero master his

fate. The first is the irresistible violence of passion, that Antony cannot resist, and against

which his free will fails. Antony is perfectly aware that his passion for Cleopatra wrongshim: 'These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,/ Or lose myself in dotage' (Act I, scene

II). He tries to escape the power she has on him, to use his freedom to be himself again.

His marriage with Octavia shows this: he is not compelled to marry her, but showsenthusiasm for the idea: 'I am not married, Caesar: let me hear / Agrippa further speak'

(Act II, scene II). This is an attempt to make use of liberty that fails. According to

Lepidus, Antony simply cannot change his nature:

His faults in him seem as the spots of heaven,More fiery by night's blackness ; hereditary

Rather than purchas'd : what he cannot change,

Than he chooses. (Act I, scene IV)


6/7

The determinism that works in the play is more psychological than transcendental.

Antony is not only the victim of his own nature: his will also fails against the power of

Cleopatra. This power is only human, but is no less mighty for that. It seems thatCleopatra is so cunning and attractive that there was absolutely no possibility for Antony

to resist her once she had set her mind to seduce him. Enobarbus - who, interestingly,does not particularly like Cleopatra - gives a description of the queen the first time

Antony saw her that clearly presents her as irresistible:

.............................For her own person,

It beggar'd all description: she did lie

In her pavilion, cloth of gold, of tissue,

O'er-picturing that Venus where we seeThe fancy overlook nature. (Act II, scene II)

In the same scene, Enobarbus says that Cleopatra is a women a man cannot get tired of:

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale

Her infinite variety: other women cloyThe appetites they feed, but she makes hungry

Where most satisfies. For vilest things

Become themselves in her...

When Antony fails in his military duty by following Cleopatra, who flees the sea battle,he confesses that he could not have acted differently. Cleopatra's power on him is so

strong it was impossible for him to resist it:

Egypt, thou knew'st too wellMy heart was to thy rudder tied by th'strings,And thou shouldst tow me after. O'er my spirit

Thy full supremacy thou knew'st, and that

Thy beck might from the bidding of the godsCommand me. (Act III, scene XI)

As Oedipus, who commits the most terrible crimes (killing his father, marrying his

mother) without knowing it, and all typical tragic heroes, Antony is guilty, but not

responsible.

Antony and Cleopatra also seem to have to submit to a force than makes Caesarinevitably triumphant. Here again, it is more about a psychological determinism than

about the traditional will of gods. Early in Act II, the winner of the struggle for Roman

power is foretold, since we hear the Soothsayer predicting to Antony that he has nochance to win against Caesar:

............................................But near him, thy angel

Becomes afeard, as being o'erpower'd; therefore


7/7

Make space enough between you.

(...)

If thou dost play with him at any game,Thou art sure to lose. And of that natural luck,

He beats thee 'gainst the odds. (Act II, scene III)

Caesar's victory may not be written in the stars, but it is ineluctable because he is a

winner, he has a quasi supernatural luck. Of course, the Soothsayer might have beenbribed by Caesar to discourage Antony (the hypothesis has often been put forward), but

the latter recognises himself the veracity of the prediction:

He hath spoken true. The very dice obey him,

And in our sports my better cunning faintsUnder his chance; if we draw lots, he speeds.

Antony notices here that it is really about Caesar's luck, and not about any superiority in

strategy or intelligence: there is no way to defeat him. It is almost futile to fight.

However, it cannot be said that the characters have no freedom at all. In their defeat theycan find a new way of expressing their freedom and escaping the worst. When she finds

out that Caesar will inevitably lead her in triumph, Cleopatra manages to avoid this

dishonour by killing herself. For this, she has to defeat herself, to master her fear ofdeath, although we saw her retreating from battle. Surpassing oneself is a common

feature among tragic heroes who have to overcome most common human feelings to

accomplish their fate. In the tragedies of Sophocles, and Antigone by Anouilh, the

heroine must renounce her love for Hemon, and her legitimate desire to accomplish herduty and bury her brother's corpse. In Polyeucte by Corneille, the main character has to

give up matrimonial happiness - although he is deeply in love with his wife Pauline - toaccept death as a martyr for his Christian faith. By giving up life to save her dignity,Cleopatra uses the little liberty she has left to surpass herself and raises herself to the rank

of the greatest tragic heroines.

We can say that the tragic takes a prominent place in Antony and Cleopatra and has

various aspects. The play is tragic in the greatness of the main characters, but also in thesituation that leaves no possibility of compromise or a happy ending. Eventually, even if

it is hard and probably hazardous to want to see a transcendence working through the

play, there are inAntony and Cleopatra many features that show a determinism whichconstrains the freedom of the characters, making their free will fail. In fact, we can

conclude that the tragic in this play is for the most part of a 'Classical' type, since several

features of it can be compared with classical Greek or French tragedies. In fact the tragicmight be more prominent in this hybrid play (both historical play and tragedy)Antony

and Cleopatra, than it is in some of Shakespeare's 'great tragedies' such as Othello.

Documents

Anthony and Cleopatra Criticism