Egyptian Queens and Male Reviewers: Sexist Attitudes in Antony and Cleopatra Criticism

Abstract

M OST CRITICS ARE UNITED IN PROCLAIMING that and Cleopatra is a magnificent achievement; unfortunately, they are not united on question of exactly what play achieves. It is difficult to think of another Shakespearean play which has divided critics into such furiously warring camps. A. P. Riemer describes, fairly accurately, positions defended by two main critical factions: Antony and Cleopatra can be read as fall of a great general, betrayed in his dotage by a treacherous strumpet, or else it can be viewed as a celebration of love.' Derek Traversi also speaks of this interpretive impasse: The student of and Cleopatra has, in offering an account of this great tragedy, to resolve a problem of approach, of author's intention. Sooner or later, he finds himself faced by two possible readings of play, whose difficulty is that they seem to be mutually exclusive.2 A significant difficulty indeed; however, I would suggest, not only difficulty. Both reduction of play's action to the fall of a great and definition of play's major interest as transcendental love make impossible a reasonable assessment of character of Cleopatra. There is a word for kind of critical bias informing both approaches: it is sexism. Almost all critical approaches to this play have been colored by sexist assumptions critics have brought with them to their reading. These approaches, I believe, have distorted meaning of what Shakespeare wrote. Before I take up sexist criticism in its particulars, I have one general