Antony_and_Cleopatra

Antony and Cleopatra Explain how Shakespeare uses language in ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ to depict the two main protagonists. The epic love affair of Antony and Cleopatra is a great and powerful love shared by two people at the height of their fame and glory. Plutarch’s ‘Life of Antonius’ is the principal source, and Shakespeare has blended this factual evidence together with fiction and drama to create a play that is strikingly different from many of his other works, especially in terms of theme, structure and the impressive and most descriptive language used. Plutarch wrote in the first century AD, probably not more than a hundred years after the death of Antony, but soon enough to hear personal experiences from his great grandfather about the battle of Actium, and from even his grandfather about Antony’s generous entertaining in Alexandria. He was a Greek philosopher, and so his sympathies ran more towards his fellow countrymen than the Roman subjects of his detailed studies. Shakespeare, distilling North’s version at the time when his creative skills were at their height, was able to use both the language and the stories exactly to suit his intentions. In many cases he remains remarkably faithful to the original, antony, cleopatra, play, egypt, language, images, great, iii, shakespeare, scene, antony’s, about, says, image, found, example, cleopatra’s, being, act, time, shakespeare’s, seen, mentioned, mars, main, love, even, world, two, times, theme, sometimes, reference, power, plutarch’s, perfect, much, men, makes, imagery, gods, epic, characters, caesar, both, been, ‘strumpet’s, years, words