The Tragedy of Anthony and Cleopatra (Oxford Shakespeare) [Paperback]

William Shakespeare (Author), Michael Neill (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0192834258 | ISBN-13: 978-0192834256 | Publication Date: October 18, 2001

Now available in beautiful World's Classics editions--with handsome, four-color covers and new low prices--The Oxford Shakespeare offers new and authoritative edions of Shakespeare's plays. In each volume, an introductory essay provides all relevant background information together with an appraisal of critical views and the play's performance history. In addition, the detailed commentaries pay particular attention to the language and staging. These editions are perfect for all readers, whether actors needing stage directions, students desiring comprehensive (yet inobtrusive) notes, or the reader of classic literature returning to the Bard's timeless writings.
The most formally ambitious and poetically brilliant of Shakespeare's tragedies, Anthony and Cleopatra is also one of his most critically contentious plays in terms of the degree and nature of its success. Always alert to the play's theatricality and boldly experimental design, the wide-ranging introduction offers a fresh critical account of the play, exploring its paradoxical treatment of gender and identity as well as the rich complexity and tensions of its much-loved poetic language. With a generous appendix of Shakespeare's source materials, this edition also offers a full stage history.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Stanley Wells' OUP Complete Works of Shakespeare is now eight years old and has spawned a new Oxford Shakespeare which appears now in splendidly affordable volumes in that nonpareil of libraries of good reading The World's Classics.' The Oxford Times

About the Author

Michael Neill is Associate Professor of English at Aukland University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (October 18, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0192834258
• ISBN-13: 978-0192834256
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,667,340 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Politics and passion., July 27, 2004

By 

G. Merritt (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Tragedy of Anthony and Cleopatra (Oxford Shakespeare) (Hardcover)

I recently re-read ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA prior to attending The Colorado Shakespeare Festival's performance of the ambitious play under the summer stars here in Boulder. Drawn from Sir Thomas North's 1579 English version of Plutarch's Lives, William Shakespeare (1564-1616) produced this romantic tragedy late in his career, around 1607, and published it in the First Folio in 1623. It tells the story of a doomed romance between two charismatic lovers, Roman military leader, Marc Antony, and the captivating Queen of Egypt (and former mistress of Julius Caesar), Cleopatra. When his wife, Fulvia unexpectedly dies, Antony is summoned from Egypt to Rome to mend a political rift with Octavius by marrying his recently widowed sister, Octavia. Of course, this news enrages passionate Cleopatra. She vents her anger on the messenger, but is quick to realize that Octavia is no real rival to her when it comes to beauty. However, Antony soon follows his heart back to Cleopatra's arms, abandoning his new wife in Athens. This leads to war, when Octavius declares war on Egypt. After Octavius eventually defeats Antony at Alexandria, Cleopatra sends a false report of her suicide, which prompts Antony to wound himself mortally. Antony dies in his lover's arms, and rather than submit to Roman rule under the new Caesar (Octavius), the heart-broken Cleopatra asks to have a poisonous snake delivered to her in a basket of figs. In the end, ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA is as much about new sparks re-igniting the flames of love as new political forces supplanting old political regimes. It is a play that reminds me that it is perhaps better to re-read and understand Shakespeare than to devour one bestseller after the next.

G. Merritt

4.0 out of 5 stars A tragedy of sweeping proportions, May 24, 2007

By 

S. Schwartz "romonko" (alberta canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Tragedy of Anthony and Cleopatra (Oxford Shakespeare) (Paperback)

This is a tragic play of a man who has the skill and the determination to rule the world, but instead he brings himself to ruin through capitulation to desires of the flesh. Antony's love for Cleopatra is so self-destructive that he in the end has to turn to suicide to escape his downward spiral. It's not an easy play to read, but it is an important one.

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Will the Real Marc Antony Please Stand Up., January 28, 2002

By 

Christopher B. Jonnes "author of BIG ICE and... (Stillwater, MN United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Tragedy of Anthony and Cleopatra (Oxford Shakespeare) (Paperback)

Anthony & Cleopatra didn't grab me like Shakespeare's other works. I don't believe it's his best. Of course, it's still Shakespeare, which makes it better than most and definitely worth reading.

Despite the obvious beauty of each sentence, I found the larger picture harder to grasp in this rendering of the famous triangle of love and intrigue between Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, Marc Antony, and Caesar of Rome. Without the benefit of prior historical perspective, this play is difficult to follow, and the character motivations are less clear than his other classics. After finishing the story I'm still trying to understand why Cleopatra so loved Antony. I would not choose this play as the one to introduce readers to Shakespeare. --Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of Wake Up Dead.