The truly tragic figure in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra is Cleopatra. Discuss

Barbara Everett setly arrogates that the incline ?is continu every(prenominal)y suggestively of different kinds and categories of drama.? This is non besides a tragedy and no character is simply and ? au indeedtically? sad. However, Cleopatra, Antony and Enobarbus have sad elements ? grandeur, nobility, contraband misjudgements and a decease from the senior in high spirits ? as well as lesser qualities. It would be logical to add, though, that Cleopatra is the dominating presence in the play. Even the hard-bitten Enobarbus is drag by her, telling Antony he is ?blest? to have met her. In his bang-up speech in Act 2:2, she is presented as queen, ricer goddess, rival to Venus and prissy work of art. Gold, silver, mermaids, nymphs, perfumes and the enchanting right of flutes combine to create a sensual paradise. This picture-painting is one f the chief means whereby Shakespe are establishes Cleopatra?s brilliance; not clear or spiritual, besides into the drop offed estate of myth: ?Age cannot chasten her, nor custom stale/ Her boundless variety.? Antony, ?the triple pillar of the land?, is left field ?whistling to th?air? and so, by slushy contrast, her commanding presence is accentuated. aft(prenominal) Antony?s death her speeches of ruefulness carry her into the sadal world since they piercingly convey her bareness: ?The odds is gone, /And at that place is noting left remarkable/ Beneath the stoppage moon.? Equals Macbeth?s ?Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow?? as an literal recipe of devastating pass and apprehension of meaninglessness. Her ?dream? of Antony is the ultimate expression of her love for him ? his features ? kept their course and lighted/ the dwarfish O, the landed estate? ? and coming, as it does, after(prenominal) his death, this expression contains not and love, exactly the tragical actualisation of what she has lost: the whole world. barely is the last effect ? sincerely yours? or solely tragic? I A Richards claims that if a play has a compensating enlightenment to stick out the tragic gun, [the effect] is fatal.? Cleopatra and Antony look forward to reunion in the elysian field and so, how can we come up the tragic reaction of clemency? Jacobean audiences acceptd in some mental strain of after-life and so would in all probability have been carried on on the promise of the lovers? reunion; even off a modern non-believer whitethorn feel their (deluded) belief counterbalances a ? in truth? tragic effect. In addition, it may be utter that Cleopatra has in like manner many flaws for a tragic hired gun. Her extreme surliness csetes, her hysteria when she is thwarted, her never-explained flight from the battle of Actium, these are a some of many. Moreover, there are multiplication when she appears, not great or tragic, but comical or light-headed (for instance, when she coaches her messenger to get virtually a caricatured depiction of Octavia ? and so is childishly pleased , believe the image that she herself has suggested. Antony?s claim to the status of tragic hero may be considered as similarly compromised. He is sometimes a fool (even if not a ?strumpet?s fool?) mocked in macrocosm by Cleopatra; he follows her notify out of the Battle of Actium; he sends Caesar an absurd challenge to atomic number 53 assault; he bungles his death, so that a suicide ?after the high Roman fashion? descends into a tragic comedy. However, give condole with Cleopatra, he has at times the tough of tragic sizeableness round him. In defeat, he thinks not solely middling his won loss of ? laurels? but also round his followers commanding them to learn his gold and divide it amongst themselves, thence desert to Caesar.

Similarly, he sends Enobarbus his consider after his desertion. And after Actium, his forbearance for Cleopatra is swift and total: ? extraction not a tear, I say; one of them evaluate/ All that is won and lost.? Antony is, moreover, caught in the wheels of the great tragic gondola that will devour him. Shakespeare causes a sense of doom to hang over him for much of the play. When he is in Caesar?s company, his prognosticator claims: ?Thy lustre thickens/ When he shines by?, and Antony notes the gods always favour Caesar in their games of chance. The sense of his being doomed by fate to nourish a tragic take root is intensified when, before the two battles at Alexandria, strange medical specialty prompts a soldier to foretell: ? Tis the god Hercules, whom Antony loved, /Now leaves him.? tragic inevitability surrounds him. Enobarbus, too, is a great figure, staying loyal to Antony beyond reason, and, when he does desert, being overcome by guilt and dying of a broken heart. At least(prenominal) one critic (Ewan Fernie) finds him the tragic hero of the play, according to peripatetic criteria. Certainly, his intelligence, breadth of sympathy and congruity make him enormously fascinating; but he is overshadowed by the great personalities of the two lovers and the rationalise bulk of great song spoken by or about them. In conclusion, no one character is the nerve centre of the play; and the two principals cannot be seen as wholly tragic. Indeed, the play transcends generic boundaries. BibliographyBarbara Everett - The tragedy of Antony and CleopatraRex Gibson - Cambridge students perform to Antony and Cleopatra If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Orderessay

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