Product Description

This title is part of an inexpensive range of classics in the "Penguin Popular Classics" series.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1006889 in Books
• Published on: 1994-05-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 160 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Antony and Cleopatra is one of the greatest love stories of all time, and one of the finest, and most poetic of all the high Shakespearean tragedies. Written between 1606 and 1607, it draws on the Roman historian Plutarch and his account of the collapse of the Roman Republic and the birth of the empire under Octavius Caesar, son of Julius. This imperial struggle for political power between Octavius, Lepidus, Pompey and Mark Antony provides the backdrop for the play's extraordinary evocation of the tempestuous love of Antony for Cleopatra, his "Egyptian dish".

The play cuts back and forth between the cold, calculating realpolitik of imperial Rome, and the sensuous, erotic world of Egypt and Cleopatra's luxurious and hedonistic court. Yet what is most memorable about the play is its remarkably poetic language; its lush image of Cleopatra in her barge, "like a burnished throne / Burned on the water", and "beggared all description", and its erotic fusion of images of sex and death which find their ultimate culmination in the suicides of Antony and Cleopatra in the final scenes of the play. A notoriously elusive play for both critics and theatre directors alike, Antony and Cleopatra's fascination with questions of race, sex, death, power and politics makes it one of the most compelling of all of Shakespeare's plays. However, the stage is undoubtedly held by Cleopatra, and Enobarbus' attempt to explain her fascination, as powerful and evocative today as ever: "Age cannot wither her, Nor custom stale her infinite variety".--Jerry Brotton

Customer Reviews

one of the best books tha i have read
this book is timeless - if you like romeo and juliet this is definatlyone you should read its a book of love and tragic endings for the queen of egypt it is a very empathetic book for all ages as it goes through the different stages of cleopatra life and her love for both caeser and anthony knowing that this particular story is real made it seem all the more dramatic to me compared to shakespears other love stories its is a book that i found hard to put down and is a must read for all