The Characterization of Shakespeare's Cleopatra

Abstract

RITICISM has not dealt kindly with Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. Dr. Johnson's charge of loose construction has $ C Xbeen repeated often enough to become a comfortable platitude of literary history; Bradley refused to place the play with 5* 3 ! the great tragedies because it failed to arouse pity and fear to the utmost; and Schiicking has used it as a specific horrible example of that inconsistency of character and action which he finds to be a general feature of Shakespearian drama.' In recent years, it is true, various studies of imagery have pointed to the play's unity in terms of its larger political theme;2 and we may hope that these beginnings will encourage further critical study of one of the most neglected works in the canon. Discussion of Antony and Cleopatra is still primarily concerned, however, with the problem of characterization, especially the motivation of character in Cleopatra, which is closely related to the question of realistic dramatic resolution. Indeed most critics have concentrated upon Cleopatra, holding that since her self-expression is psychologically inconsistent, the resolution of the tragedy is unrealistic and confusing. But the evidence for such conclusions is generally to be found in the critic's own assumptions as to the nature of reality and dramatic technique; and the character of Cleopatra is, therefore, judged to be unconvincing because both the central point of the action and the heroine's relationship to that action have been obscured by the intrusion of irrelevant standards of realism. Here, for example, is Professor Schiicking's realism at work on the ending of Antony and Cleopatra: