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Shakespeare Ebooks Shakespeare - Antony And Cleopatra
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Shakespeare - Antony And Cleopatra |
Antony and Cleopatra is a historical tragedy by William Shakespeare, first performed in 1607 or 1608 and printed in the First Folio, 1623.
The major source for the story is Plutarch's "Life of Mark Antony" from "Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans Compared Together" in the translation made by Sir Thomas North in 1579. An astonishing number of phrases within Shakespeare's play are taken directly from North's prose, including Enobarbus's famous description of Cleopatra's barge, beginning "The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne/Burned on the water." Only the scenes involving Cleopatra's domestic life eschew Plutarch's text.
Though modern editions divide the play into the conventional five acts, Shakespeare articulated his drama in thirty-six separate scenes, more than he used for any other play. So many scenes are necessitated in part because the action frequently switches between Alexandria, Italy, Messina in Sicily, Syria, Athens and other parts of Egypt and the Roman Empire. The play contains thirty-four speaking characters, fairly typical for a Shakespeare play on such an epic scale.
The play follows the relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony from the time of the Parthian War to Cleopatra's suicide. The major antagonist is Octavius Caesar, one of Antony's fellow triumvirs and the future first emperor of Rome.
Many consider the role of Cleopatra in this play one of the greatest female roles in world theatre. Frequently vain, self-dramatizing and histrionic, the audience must sometimes laugh at her, but other times consider her a true tragic heroine. |
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| DETAILS |
| Format: | PDF
| Allows Print: | YES |
| FileSize: | 149Kb | | |
| Pages: | 124 | | |
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