AO1

AO1 : 'excellent and consistently detailed understanding of texts and question  consistently fluent, precise writing in appropriate register  critical terminology used accurately and consistently  well structured, coherent and detailed argument consistently developed'

(The First Folio edition of the play published in 1623 - look at the punctuation in the title. What do you think is the significance of the comma after Antonie?)

1. You need to know the play! You need to have OPINIONS on it!

Other than re-reading the play, start to think about the questions raised by the play:

What is your response to the play’s genre? Is it a tragedy? If so, whose tragedy is it?If not, then what is it?

Do Antony and Cleopatra cause, or are they caught up in, the decline around them?

How sympathetic do you find Antony? Cleopatra? Caesar?

Is Enobarbus the real tragic figure of the play? What is his role/significance in the play?

How far and in what ways do you see Antony and Cleopatra as a political play? A love-story? A play about women?

Shakespeare's audience knew what happens at the end - so what would have interested them about the play? Why do you think it's some people's favourite Shakespeare play? What DOESN'T work about it in your opinion? Is it just too inconsistent?

2, You can also need to have opinions about character/themes/dramatic structure:

CHARACTER

ANTONY

CLEOPATRA

CAESAR

ENOBARBUS

WOMEN in the play

THEMES

Death

Power & Politics (Throughout his plays Shakespeare is interested in the responsibility of power.)

Gender!

Fame

Honour/Duty/ The Roman Ideal: “If I lose mine honor, I lose myself,”

Love/Sexuality

Fortune/Destiny/Fate (Plutarch viewed fate as a goddess, always benevolent to Rome and critics often find the ‘goddess’ Fortune as a major symbolic figure in the play; seeing this as a tragedy of characters caught amongst forces beyond their control.)

Identity (The play’s characters are constantly reinventing themselves and seem metadramatically aware on some level that they are bound to create or ‘become’ the legends that have survived through history. Whilst Cleopatra is at ease with this, Antony’s crisis of identity is that he is caught between two worlds, he attempts to reconcile his notion of “Roman” honor with his “Egyptian” appetites.)

SETTING

ROME

EGYPT

(THE SEA)