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Antony and Cleopatra
First published 1734 · 885 pages
An intoxicating, sweeping tragedy about two monumental egos tearing down an empire for the sake of their all-consuming passion.
What it feels like
Reading this play feels like watching two dying stars collide. It sweeps you across the Mediterranean, violently shifting between the cold, calculating political machinery of Rome and the sensuous, intoxicating heat of Egypt. The language is lush and cosmic, demanding to be savored as the characters speak in soaring hyperbole that matches their monumental egos. It is less a traditional tragedy of a fatal flaw and more a magnificent, slow-motion collapse of two people who are entirely too large for the world they inhabit. Readers who crave messy, all-consuming romance tangled with sharp political maneuvering will be swept away by its volatile energy. It is an opulent, devastating experience that leaves you breathless in the wake of its transcendent finale.
- Mood
- opulent
- volatile
- intoxicating
- doomed
- Tone
- grand
- passionate
- cynical
- theatrical
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- destructive passion · duty versus desire · the performance of power · aging and legacy · clash of empires
- The writing
- Lush, hyperbolic, and cosmic, filled with sensuous metaphors and soaring blank verse that elevates human flaws to mythic proportions.
- The arc
- Begins in the dizzying heights of intoxicating romance and political defiance, spiraling into a monumental, transcendent tragedy.
- Who it's for
- Lovers of epic, messy romances and political intrigue who savor dense, poetic language and larger-than-life characters.
Content notes
- suicide
- war and battle violence
- betrayal
- grief
About the book
A magnificent drama of love and war, this riveting tragedy presents one of Shakespeare's greatest female characters--the seductive, cunning Egyptian queen Cleopatra. The Roman leader Mark Antony, a virtual prisoner of his passion for her, is a man torn between pleasure and virtue, between sensual indolence and duty... between an empire and love. Bold, rich, and splendid in its setting and emotions, Antony And Cleopatra ranks among Shakespeare's supreme achievements.From the Paperback edition.and the narrator vinay has explained what the intension in the relationship between antony and cleopatra
Description from Open Library.
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