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Antony and Cleopatra Critics
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge said that Antony and Cleopatra is "by far the most wonderful" of
"Shakespeare's historical plays
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• Ernest Schazner alternatively classed the play as "by far the greatest
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This highlights the diversity of the play and how it covers so many
genres to such an extent that it cannot be pinned to one
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Cleopatra is the Orient
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• John Coates says that Antony surrenders his masculinity when he exchanges costumes
with Cleopatra - this is a story that Cleopatra reminisces about early in the play when
she is missing Antony
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H
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• Marilynn Williamson observes: 'We may never warm to Caesar (we seldom warm to
effective rulers in Shakespeare)
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• It has been argued that the play fits in with author John Fowles ideology of the
"godgame" whereby one character, whom is more intelligent and cunning than the
others, is able to cause struggles for another character
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• Marxist Victor Kiernan called Antony a "grand egotist" and says that his followers are
right to criticise him throughout the play for his foolishness
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For these reasons he should not have such power argues
Kiernan
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are produced without any art of
connection or care of disposition
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"
• A
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Bradley said, "Shakespeare
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• Coleridge referred to the character of Cleopatra as a masterpiece, because she is,
"voluptuous, ostentatious
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" Cleopatra is many things, and
her enigmatic, unpredictable nature highly entertains the audience
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He said that the scene where
Menas offers to cut the throats of the Triumvirs is "one of the greatest scenes" in the play
and "strikingly modern" as it shows the lower-classes questioning authority
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He said that
Antony lives in a world of realpolitik (meaning a system of politics based on a country's
situation and its needs rather than on ideas about what is morally right and wrong) and
that he is totally dependent on the political system which he lives
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Moreover,
when Antony turns his back on Rome and commits fully to Cleopatra, it is then that he
transgresses and becomes a weaker man and he is no longer a hero
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• Bradley asserts that Cleopatra's effect on Antony is that, "she destroys him"
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• Feminist critic Linda Fitz responded to the above comment in stating that male critics feel
"personally threatened by Cleopatra" because she is an "aggressive
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• Fitz criticised the play by saying that it applies double standards because when Antony
attempts to break from Cleopatra to return to his political duties in Rome, he is
commended whereas when Cleopatra attempts to 'save her political skin" in the Thidias
scene, she is condemned
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• Feminist readers wonder whether Shakespeare intended to create Cleopatra as a
complex tragic hero who has the power to overcome a great warrior and man in Antony
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• Holland also says that the conflict of Rome and Egypt mirrors the conflicts in the two
main characters "who become at war with themselves"
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