A&C: AO5 (critics by theme)

love vs honour

Cliff: His inner struggle to find balance between two bonds and two sets of values

Schlegel: as they die for each other, we forgive them for having lived for each other

John Lennard: make "Rome white, male, sexless" and Egypt "colourful" and "sexfull", "stressed the division of coldness of Rome and opulence of Egypt"

Lennard- (Rome and Egypt is a) Basic oppositional model (binary).

AC Bradley: ‘To love her is what he is born for’ – destiny and fate / supernatural force of passion.

Bates: "Gives historical form to the mythical encounter between Venus and Mars"

Hamilton: The play's 'hyperbolic style' helps communicate the 'higher spiritual dimensions of Antony and Cleopatra's relationship'

love for political duty

    Cooper- Octavia is a "token of exchange"

transcendent nature of love

Bloom "Death is triumphant rather than tragic"

Kiney "Antony and Cleopatra speak themselves into legend"

 AC Bradley: ‘To love her is what he is born for’ – destiny and fate / supernatural force of passion.

Bates: "Gives historical form to the mythical encounter between Venus and Mars"

Hamilton: The play's 'hyperbolic style' helps communicate the 'higher spiritual dimensions of Antony and Cleopatra's relationship'

 

AC Bradley: Neither Antony nor Cleopatra exhibit the nobility of character nor the reflective, inwardly searching nature that normally defines the role of a tragic hero

clash of cultures

Dowden: Egypt seen through a golden haze of sensuous splendour

Gil-Harris: states that Romans have 'an uncontrollable desire for what they do not or cannot have'

James Harris: Egypt is a "liberation from constricting gender roles and prudery”

Rome as "white, male and sexless" idea of politics and what is known as an 'orderly society', presentation linking to Aquinas' primary precept.

gender in rome vs egypt

Drakatis: 'Egypt becomes a feminised space'

Kahn: 'Rome was synonymous with masculinity'

 

Quint- "opposition between the East and the West is characterised in terms of gender"

James Harris: Egypt promotes a 'liberation from constricting gender roles'

contrast of rome vs egypt

Lennard: Stressed the coldness of Rome and the opulence of Egypt

role of women (oppressed)

Bate: The historical structure of Plutarch's narrative is always premised on the lives of his male heroes. Shakespeare's play alters focus to emphasise the death of the woman, not that of the warrior.

 

LT Fitz "praiseworthy in Antony is damnable in Cleopatra"

role of women (power)

Bradley: 'Antony is not only attracted but governed by women'

 

Shapiro "Shakespeare was the noblest feminist of them all"

 

Lewis "gender roles and inverted and its Antony who is the true victim"

 

Keith Rinehart- Cleopatra/ Elizabeth I both "attained apotheosis of a sort as a female deities"- elevated from the mundane- despite both being women.

liberation from gender roles

James Harris: Egypt promotes a 'liberation from constricting gender roles'

Lewis "gender roles and inverted and its Antony who is the true victim"

the gendering of power / fluidity of gender

Jameson: Cleopatra's 'consistent inconsistency' in her fluctuations between male and female power characteristics

 

Duraj: "Shakespeare allows Cleopatra to exhibit masculine - even Roman qualities"

masculinity

Lennard: 'Caesar is the archetypal of masculinity'

cleopatra’s power

Rinehart: Cleopatra 'attained apotheosis of a sort as female deities' in 'Shakespeare Cleopatra and England's Elizabeth'

Duraj- "Shakespeare allows Cleopatra to exhibit masculine- even Roman qualities".

 

SK- Ober "a leader with rank and power"

Tennenhouse - "strips Antony of his military judgement"

'Cleopatra turns death into play, the play that will take her into eternity' Tanner

 

Jones: ‘Destructive and creative force’

 

Kettle:  (Cleopatra is) 'hardly the woman to die to of a broken heart' - critique of both the writing of Cleopatra's demise / her superficiality / relationship with Antony 

 

cleopatra’s childishness/petulance

We have seen many sides to her now, she is predictable in her unpredictability

 

Jameson- Cleopatra's "consistent inconsistency" - changes between male and female power dynamics. Mocking women's emotions as well.

cleopatra as enchanting, mythical, desired

Antony      goes from Bate- "from military leader to slave of sexual desire".

Keith Rinehart- Cleopatra/ Elizabeth I both "attained apotheosis of a sort as a female deities"- elevated from the mundane- despite both being women

enobarbus

Payne "cynic and misogynistic"

O'Connor: 'Enobarus is the noblest character in the play' and  "organs and mouthpiece of the authors judgement"

“Where Antony lives for the moment, rational Enobarbus can predict what Antony will do before he does it or thinks of doing it” (Budra 207)

In leaving Mark Antony, he realized that he left “the most generous man in the world” (Budra 208)

the decline of a hero (antony)

james Harris: "Egypt promotes a 'liberation from constricting gender roles'

 

Tennenhouse - "strips Antony of his military judgement"

antony’s identity and clash of two worlds

Gil-Harris: Romans have 'an uncontrollable desire for what they do not or cannot have'

 

Cliff: His inner struggle to find balance between two bonds and two sets of values

antony’s honour and death

Bradley: "Antony is hyperbolic in all that his does; in his rage, his valour, his love, and his folly."

 

Critics often view Antony’s death as tragicomic—both heroic and pathetic—highlighting his internal conflict between his Roman identity and his love for Cleopatra.

 

 Some critics interpret Antony’s fall as the result of his own flaws—his surrender to passion and failure to uphold Roman ideals.

Others, however, view it as a more poignant moment of self-awareness, where he recognises that his identity, bound to his past glories, no longer holds power in the changing political landscape. His falling star thus represents both personal tragedy and the inevitable decline of his world.

 

AC Bradley: Neither Antony nor Cleopatra exhibit the nobility of character nor the reflective, inwardly searching nature that normally defines the role of a tragic hero