Joseph Innes
How does Shakespeare present the sense of opposites or polarities
And what is the importance of these to the play?
William Shakespeare wrote Antony and Cleopatra around 1606, during the reign of King James ². The play is a history, set in the time of the Roman Empire many centuries before it was written and based on the well-documented history of Octavius Caesar, Marc Antony and Cleopatra. These characters and their lives were contained in primarily one document: Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, which was translated by Sir Thomas North in 1579. In the creation of the play, Shakespeare kept very close to the plot of North’s history although some characters such as Enobarbus are largely Shakespeare’s creations. In the play, Shakespeare creates two completely different, conflicting worlds from which most if not all of the drama and tension is derived from, causing tension between those living in the two ideals of Rome and Egypt.
From the very beginning one of the themes of the play becomes very evident to the audience, the conflict between Rome and Egypt. The two places represent a symbolic clash of ideals in the play. Rome is seen as a place of honor and duty and taken very seriously, this is shown through the actions and behaviour of Caesar, a man with huge responsibilities, and even when his associates are celebrating and getting drunk, he does not. As a contrast, Egypt is shown as a place of indulgence and pleasure, shown this time through Cleopatra’s court, where it seems the inhabitants do nothing but indulge themselves with games, wine and sex. These differences in ideals are so great that the people in Rome treat Antony’s indulgence in Egypt with Cleopatra as a taboo “this is the news: he fishes, drinks, and wastes / The Lamps of night in revel”(1.4.4-5). Caesar’s condemnation of Antony’s behavior is an example of how much he is despised for turning his back on Roman duty. This clash is in some ways an example of Elizabethan perceptions on the differences between East and West, an obstacle that is impossible for Antony and Cleopatra to overcome. Shakespeare personifies the two poles of the world as the people living there. Caesar is seen as the embodiment of Rome, with his rigid sense of duty and honour, and Egypt is presented through Cleopatra with her excessive and theatrical extravagance and free flowing passio...
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... and charming towards Cleopatra, although she knows he is merely trying to avoid her committing suicide, so that she can be his trophy. After this meeting, Cleopatra resolves to follow her plan of death and although Rome may have triumphed at face value, the East is in fact presenting its true spirit, Cleopatra is refusing to become anything but herself. This conclusion to the conflict between East and West is needed to provide a satisfying ending to the play, although neither East or West wins, but is left at a stalemate. The West wins over reason and duty, and yet the East has won through emotion and love, the love between Antony and Cleopatra.
The polarities between Antony and Cleopatra are huge and arguably impossible to overcome as the conflict and differences between Egypt and Rome would inevitably end in tragedy. Shakespeare uses this as the centre of his drama, and without it would lose its powerful and emotive realism that Shakespeare spent his life perfecting. In this way, the conflict between Egypt and Rome is the most important theme, as from it spawns the differences in honour, reason, emotion and ideals, thus forming the framework for much more drama beyond it.
As one of the most well known authors of the Elizabethan Era, Shakespeare had written numerous sonnets and plays reflecting the values of people of the time period. Shakespeare often display themes of love and death, fate and free will, and power and weaknesses throughout his works of literature. The play "The Tragedy of Julius” truly highlight the impact of fate and free will in the development of the plot, of the assassination of Caesar’s death. Some may argue that fate is actually the one responsible for the act, but they fail to recognize that it is the acts of men leading to the death. It is the free will at fault for this occurrence, that the Roman senators consciously killed Caesar and Caesar himself facing his mortality.
At the start of his presidency, Reagan had a clear economic, social, and foreign policy agenda, along with the courage to achieve these goals. Looking back on his years in office, he said, "I am the same man I was when I came to Washington. I believe in the same things I believed when I came to Washington, and I think those beliefs have been vindicated by the success of the policies to which we hold fast." Reagan's legacy changed the United States and shaped the nation in which we live today. Soon after his presidency began, he remarked, "What I'd really like to do is go down in history as the President who made Americans believe in themselves again." President Ronald Reagan, you did just that.
Ronald Reagan is arguably one of the most influential men in American history. Reagan’s childhood, and more specifically his relationship with his father pushed him to develop the strong religious faith, was instrumental in forming him into the man he was. The middle part of Reagan’s life was riddled with successes that more than likely gave him the confidence to pursue some of his greater goals later in life. Reagan’s career before politics made him well known face in many American households, which helped transition him into a well-liked political figurehead. Lastly Reagan’s time as president was a time of peace and prosperity for the American people. Reagan had many defining experiences that shaped him into the public figure, and president
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare is an intimate portrayal of the famed assassination of Julius Caesar and the complex inner workings of the men who committed the crime. In one particularly revealing scene, two of the men closest to Caesar, one a conspirator in his murder and one his second-in command, give orations for the deceased. Despite being simple in appearance, these two speeches do much of the work in developing and exposing the two characters in question. Though both have a love for Caesar, Mark Antony's is mixed with a selfish desire for power, while Brutus' is pure in nature, brought to a screeching halt by his overpowering stoicism. These starkly-contrasted personalities influence the whole of the play, leading to its tragic-but-inevitable end.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark”, is the story of a crazed scientist whose strive for perfection not only leads to the death of his beautiful wife, but the attempt of man to have power over nature. It follows the story of Aylmer and his obsession with removing the birthmark off his beautiful wife, Georgiana. “His unnatural fixation to his wife’s birthmark even consumes him in his sleep as he dreams of cutting it off much like scraping an apple off its skin.” (Snodgrass 29). This narrative explores the themes of perfection, and the conflict between science and the natural world.
Throughout Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, readers are constantly thrown in the middle of a battle between Roman and Egyptian values. Antony, a noble warrior for the Romans, is the character that seems to have the most trouble between this dichotomy. He is constantly caught between reason (Rome) and passion (Egypt) and has a difficult time making the transitions. Cleopatra is the character that stays most true to her roots, but begins adopting the other side’s values toward the end of the story. She makes a smoother transition than Antony, which can be attributed to her self-confidence and open-minded spirit. Antony is a constant source of back-and-forth commotion while Cleopatra seems to posses Egyptian qualities until the end of the book when the reader’s eyes are opened to her new, Roman ways.
There are two reasons why The Aeneid is associated with the Shakespearean play Antony and Cleopatra. First, The Aeneid was written by a Roman named Virgil who, among many other reasons, wrote it as a tribute for Augustus Caesar, the leader of the Roman Empire. Augustus Caesar was formally named Octavian and is a character in Shakespeare's play. Secondly, both The Aeneid and Antony and Cleopatra share a common theme of a patriotic, heroic man having to choose between duty to his country and the passionate love of a beautiful, foreign and strong queen. In The Aeneid, the lovers are Aeneas and Dido and Antony and Cleopatra are the lovers in Shakespeare's play.
Ronald Reagan was one of the most influential presidents in American history; yet he is one of the least talked about in present day history books. President Reagan was not an Ivy League rich-kid or raised in a politically motivated family. He was a midwestern boy who played football and worked his way through college. President Reagan had visions for the future of this country. Reagan realized he wanted to lead the country during his time working in California, in the Screen Actor's Guild. He was bothered by the spread of communism in Hollywood. He took over the Presidency in 1980 after four years of the most awful leadership this country has ever had. Just as he swore in his campaign, he lowered taxes, got control of oil prices and suppressed the paper tiger of the East. For the next eight years were some of the best times this country had ever seen. The 1980s is now a time of economic conditions leaders still try to attain today. The standard of living in the United States improved, along with the feeling of national pride. After four repugnant years under Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan took this country to the standard that it was capable of.
In Antony and Cleopatra, the important point one must recognize is not the battles present both in love and war, but the toe that is continuously slide across the line which Shakespeare always felt inclined to cross. There were no prototypical male or female protagonists in Shakespeare’s world. It is a factor that should always be acknowledged when stewing over this brilliant playwright’s work. Boundaries were meant to be crossed, and Shakespeare made his belief just as apparent in the sloshing of gender roles in Antony and Cleopatra.
William Shakespeare has written many plays that touched millions of people throughout the centuries. His works are still the most controversial ones favored by many Literature critics because his plays generate spontaneous debates on issues such as friendship, revenge, human ambitions and moralities that lead to dynamic discussion among people. In the play The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, friendship vs. duty is one of the major themes that is developed. One's struggle over the choice between friendship and duty is depicted through the main character, Brutus, as he battles himself to choose between his duty to carry out people's will and his own conscious hitting on his faithfulness to his best friend Caesar. Although Brutus himself was skeptical if he made the right decision, he joins the conspiracy that plans for the murder of their leader Julius Caesar. The tragic aspect of the play Julius Caesar is that even though Brutus ‘s motives were immaculate, his fear toward Caesar's ambition, Cassius' persuasion, and his tragic flaw, idealism deluded him to make a tragic mistake of assassinating Caesar.
William Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra While Mark Antony is a great general, one of the three triumvant, it
Act two of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar begins the detailed planning of Caesar’s assassination, which follows soon after in the third act. One particular passage of interest during this act is found in scene one. This particular passage deals with the conspirator’s justification of their motives for wanting to kill Caesar, as well as the fine-tuning of their machination. As is consistent throughout Julius Caesar, Shakespeare’s verse here differs much from his usual, flowery, beautifully poetic, and complicated verse that can be found in plays as Macbeth. The verse in Caesar is simple. This change in Shakespeare’s style has been attributed to his desire to imitate Roman society in this work, as to give the audience or the reader some context through which to receive the play, and to accurately portray his Roman characters.
Antony. Shakespeare proves this play a tragedy by selecting characteristics of ill-fated lovers in Antony and Cleopatra. Poor Antony turns victim to Cleopatra's enslavement, and forgets his duties in Rome. Antony is a disgrace to his Roman self, and "loses" himself to dotage" of Cleopatra. He also forgets of his marriage to Caesars sister Octavia flees back to Egypt, to Cleopatra.
Cleopatra is a name that was given to many Queens who ruled in Egypt. The most famous of these women was Cleopatra VII. She was the daughter of Ptolemy XII, King of Egypt. Cleopatra VII lived from 69-30 B.C. and reigned as queen of Egypt from 51-30 B.C. (Stanly). Cleopatra is said to be far from beautiful, her picture on ancient coins made her look like she had a long hooked nose and masculine features. She is also said to be very seductive with her enchanting musical voice and exuded charisma. She was also very intelligent and a great ruler. She spoke nine different languages. She was the only Eqyptian Queen who could actually speak Egyptian (History).
Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra is aptly named, not just because the play centers around these two characters, but also because it encompasses the play’s fixation on the lovers’ oppositional relationship. On the surface level, Antony embodies the Roman ideals of a good, noble man, while Cleopatra represents the hyper-sexualized, dangerous Eastern woman. However, upon further examination both Antony and Cleopatra display complicated internal conflicts that effectively reverse these polar positions repeatedly throughout the play. In this way, the opposition between Antony and Cleopatra that exists on a simple, interpersonal level is echoed by more complicated, internal conflicts within each of these characters on a deeper, more individual level. The tension between the title characters creates the love that draws them together at the same time as it drives them further apart, thus establishing yet another layer of antagonistic relationships within the play. The importance of these oppositional relationships is underlined most starkly in Act II.2. In particular Enobarbus’ speech describing Cleopatra’s beauty functions as one of the greatest statements of the play’s conflicting themes. This speech reflects the antagonistic nature of the play’s central relationships through the invocation of equivalent antagonistic relationships between the violent descriptors used to depict Cleopatra.