Antony and Cleopatra

Joseph Innes 8th January

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 І. 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,