Antony and Cleopatra Synopsis and characters or facts

Antony and Cleopatra Synopsis characters or facts

Antony and Cleopatra as a tragedy : Viewed From Different Angle of Vision.

Introduction.

Antony and Cleopatra can be studied at two levels.
At one level  it is a play which depicts the twists and turns of politics and the events of history. At another level and a deeper level , it is a tragedy of moving human experience.Antony suffers the loss of worldly power, but another loss which he sustains at the same time, and which is much more grievous is that caused by the discovery that the woman for whom he has lost the world does not really deserve his love and trust.

KEY MOMENTS

Every director will choose their own key moments in Antony and Cleopatra depending on how they are interpreting the text. Here we've listed some important moments in the order in which they appear in the play.

Act 1 Scene 3
Having learned that his wife, Fulvia, is dead and that Sextus Pompeius is plotting against the triumvirate, Antony tells Cleopatra that he must return to Rome.

Act 1 Scene 4
In Rome, Octavius and Lepidus discuss Antony's 'unmanly' behaviour when in Cleopatra's company.

Act 2 Scene 2
To prevent a quarrel and to more closely ally himself with Octavius, Antony agrees to marry Octavia, sister to Octavius. Enobarbus delivers his famous speech in praise of Cleopatra.

Act 2 Scene 6
As peace is celebrated between the members of the triumvirate and Pompey, Enobarbus predicts that Antony will soon abandon Octavia for Cleopatra, and thus create dissension between himself and Octavius.

Act 3 Scene 5
Octavia returns to Rome to negotiate a truce between her husband and her brother, but there learns that Antony and Cleopatra have been reunited in Alexandria and have crowned themselves and their children.

Act 3 Scene 10
Antony, having ignored advice, fights Octavius at sea. The Egyptian navy flees and he and his forces are defeated.

Act 3 Scene 13
Octavius sues for peace with Cleopatra. Antony and Cleopatra quarrel and Octavius's messenger is beaten. Enobarbus decides he must leave Antony's service.

Act 4 Scene 12
Having previously defeated Octavius in a land battle, Antony is again defeated at sea. He blames Cleopatra.

Act 4 Scene 14
In grief over Cleopatra's supposed death, Antony plans a noble Roman suicide but fails, leaving himself severely wounded.

Act 4 Scene 15
The injured Antony is taken to Cleopatra's monument and dies there. Cleopatra mourns for what her deception has brought about and plans her own suicide.

Act 5 Scene 2
Wearing her finest robes and crown, Cleopatra commits suicide. Octavius arranges that she and Antony will be buried together.

FACTS

• Cleopatra was not in fact Egyptian but a member of the Macedonian Greek family, the Ptolemies, and had been married to her younger brother, Ptolemy III. 
  
• Cleopatra had previously been mistress to Julius Caesar, and had born him a son. She also had three children, including twins, by Mark Antony 
  
• Shakespeare's source for the story is the Life of Marcus Antonius in Plutarch's Lives of the Most Noble Grecians and Romans translated by Thomas North in 1579. 
  
• Legend tells us that the first meeting of Antony and Cleopatra took place when she had herself carried to him wrapped in a carpet which was unfurled in front of him. 
  
• Octavius Caesar went on to establish a peace that endured throughout his long reign and became Augustus Caesar in 27 BC. 
  
• He is the Emperor whose decree led to Joseph taking his pregnant wife Mary to Bethleham to be recorded for a census. 
  
• Until the Restoration in 1660, Cleopatra would have been performed on stage by a young male actor. 
  
• Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor appeared in a famously sumptuous film adaptation called simply Cleopatra in 1963 - a film which was itself lampooned as Carry on Cleo the following year. 
  
• The asp with which Cleopatra kills herself was sacred to the Egyptian royal family and was believed to deify those it struck. 
  
• Cleopatra's death brought to an end the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt as Octavius killed Caesarion and took Antony's three children back to Rome in triumph. He annexed Egypt as part of the Roman empire. 

Winner and Loser.

" It is not enough to say, simply ,  Shakespeare is far more interested in the loser , Antony , than he is in the winner , Caesar ,  or even to say that his interest is with that relation between Antony and Cleopatta  that caused the loss of the world. It is rather than the whole situation is presented so that the historical and political interest -- the gain or loss of world power --   becomes a part of facet of another and greater subject :  the ruin of two people , and with them, of a whole sphere of himan experience ."

Selfhood of the Hero and the Heroine.

The great individuals in the play are , undoubtedly , Antony and Cleopatra : it is on their absolute selfhood that they base their glory , " We stand up peerless " " And it is this arrogant and obdurate sense of themselves that distinguishes them from Caesar -- though all three are engaged on a quite similar quest for power that makes them , on a detached view , remarkably alike. Caesar can speak authoritatively. He surveys Antony with a detachment which reduces his actions to caricature and gives the final condemnation a strict justice

But to confound  such time
That drums him from his sport and speaks a loud
As his own state and ours -- 'it is to be chid
As we rate boys who, being mature in knowledge,
Pawn their experience to their present pleasure

This is profoundly spoken, and its effect is largely that of the judicial and weighty summary of a situation from outside. This voice interposes its realities throughout the play Antony too can speak with the voice of Rome. But the language that Antony and Cleopatra make their own is something very different and challenges rather judgment of Rome. It is a language expressive of whole radically different way of living and feeling; a language of immediate infividual experience, sensory in its apprehension, exalted in tone ,  and arrogant in its claim. Love or desolation, exhilaration or rage become their own argument, and the intense experience of an exceptional individual becomes its own rationale. When Antony proclaims his love for Cleopatra, he challenges judgment of Rome.

"Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the hide atch
Of the ranged empire"

Similarly Cleopatra

The  crown o ' earth doth melt , my lord"

Both these speeches reveal an element vital to the characterization of Antony and Cleopatra. The first is more a profession of love.It can be looked upon either as the glorification of sensual e xcitement or as affirmation of noble passion. The second is not merely a woman's lament for dead man. It is profound insight. Eac is an affirmation of selfhood, and a proclamation this "self" is peerless , remarkable , incomparable in its love and in its loss and in its very existence. Antony and Cleopatra are proud, proud of being themselves, and proud of being greater than anyone in the world . Nor are they monstrous in this , forthe whole world of the play  governed by the ideal pride , honour , nobility , gteatness and the reputatipn are the very fabric of existenceAntony's fami , eminence and power; Cleopatra's royalty , thei love for each other, the admiration of followers-- all these things feed and are fed by it.And all their great and good qualities serve it. Antony's courage and generosity, Cleopatra's wit and charm and enormous abundance of life When their greatness is destroyed, the world is empty for them, for  the loss of pride is death
The tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra , then , is not simply the loss of the world, nor even their death ,  but the destruction of pride that accompanies both.
In defeat ,-- a defeat which is the loss of  the world as wellas loss of ideal - both grow paradoxically, more gentle, more human and more wholly sympathetic Both choose Roman death of suicide, which is itself a last affirmation of pride in themselves and the refusal of humiliation of walking in  Caesar's triumph.

G.B Harrison observes ," It is noticeable how the  nature of chief persons constantly changes throughout the play. At the beginning Antony was the captain in his dotage and , except for one brief period when he took his rightful place as a leader of Triumvirate, he has steadily degenerated until he has become indeed a ranting old ruffian, Caesar at the same time has grown from the bewildered junior partner, longing for the return of his chief, until no longer even designs to dictate terms to Antony. Yet as soon as Antony is dead, everyone hastens to pay superlative tributes to his greatness , and Caesar correspondingly shrinks back into second place. In the same way Cleopatra, having begun as a royal courtsean at the peak of her success, becomes the chief cause of Antony's disaster; meditates -- or so it seems-- deserting him for a more fortunate lover; and yet now, at the end, swells into a heroic stature which overtops both Antony and Octavius.

Characters...........
MARK ANTONY: Triumvir

OCTAVIUS CAESAR: Triumvir

LEPIDUS, Triumvir

CLEOPATRA, Queen of Egypt

OCTAVIA, sister to Ceasar, and wife to Antony

SEXTUS POMPEIUS

DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS, VENTIDIUS, EROS, SCARUS, DERCETAS, DEMETRIUS, & PHILO, Friends to Antony

MECAENAS, AGRIPPA, DOLABELLA, PROCULEIUS, THYREUS, & GALLUS, Friends to Caesar

MENAS, MENECRATES, & VARRIUS, Friends to Pompey

CHARMIAN & IRAS, Attendants on Cleopatra

TAURUS, Lieutenant-General to Caesar

CANIDIUS, Lieutenant-General to Antony

SILIUS, an Officer under Ventidius

EUPHRONIUS, Ambassador from Antony to Caesar

ALEXAS, MARDIAN, SELEUCUS, & DIOMEDES, Attendants on Cleopatra

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