Antony and Cleopatra
First published AD 1623, written in English
Antony and Cleopatra is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The play was first performed around 1607, by the King's Men at either the Blackfriars Theatre or the Globe Theatre. Its first appearance in print was in the First Folio published in 1623, under the title The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra.
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Where it is set
- Rome
Italy
The tragedy is mainly set in the Roman Republic and Ptolemaic Egypt and is characterized by swift shifts in geographical location and linguistic register as it alternates between sensual, imaginative Alexandria and a more pragmatic, austere Rome. Source: Wikipedia, reviewed
- Alexandria
Egypt
The tragedy is mainly set in the Roman Republic and Ptolemaic Egypt and is characterized by swift shifts in geographical location and linguistic register as it alternates between sensual, imaginative Alexandria and a more pragmatic, austere Rome. Source: Wikipedia, reviewed
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What it draws on
- Aeneid
Virgil, 50 BC
Shakespeare stages Virgil's story in a mirror: a Roman general torn between duty and an African queen. Aeneas leaves Dido for Rome; Antony stays with Cleopatra, and imagines the two of them in the underworld, outshining Dido and her Aeneas.
Source: Wikipedia, Antony and Cleopatra
“Many critics have noted the strong influence of Virgil's first-century Roman epic poem, the Aeneid, on Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra.” Read it there
