Antony and Cleopatra (Arden Shakespeare: Third Series)

Book Description

John Wilders - literary advisor to the BBC TV Shakespeare series - brings thorough scholarship and a practical understanding of performance needs to this new edition. Clarity, accessibility and rigour are the hallmarks of an edition which will provide invaluable guidance for all its readers. "This edition has a very helpful introduction and good clear text, as well as the exceptionally excellent and detailed notes." Dr Michael Herbert, St Andrews University '…a useful treatment of a complex play' Barry Gaines, University of New Mexico, Shakespeare Quarterly

Customer Reviews:

A readable and helpful edition of this amazing play.......2004-06-07

This is a play full of fascinating characters who are themselves full of pride, avarice, lust, and lies. Octavian, the youngest of the triumvirate with Lepidus and Antony, proves out why he is Caesar with a cold efficiency that makes all tyrants proud. Antony, Herculean character though he claims to be, plays the fool for Cleopatra, and Cleopatra plays the role of Cleopatra with smoke and mirrors. Her famous suicide is actually her triumph and apotheosis of the character she created.

Poor Pompey refused to seize the reins of power through dishonorable murder, and yet receives the same from those he spared. And how many of the attendants to the principles themselves die in this play? We have poisonings, beatings, and death from shame.

This edition is quite fine as we expect from Arden. The notes are extremely helpful to understand the locations and context of this play with its wide-ranging locales and dozens of scenes that fly from place to place. Of course, the notes that help with the language and text emendations are wonderfully done. The longer notes are put in the back.

The first quarter of the book is an extended essay on various aspects of this play that ranges from its origin, performance issues and how they were handled over the centuries, and problems of the text. It is a wonderfully useful essay that added a lot to my enjoyment of reading the play.

Book Description

Each edition includes:

· Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play

· Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play

· Scene-by-scene plot summaries

· A key to famous lines and phrases

· An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language

· An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play

· Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books

Essay by Cynthia Marshall

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe.

In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs.

Book Description

The Arden Shakespeare has long been acclaimed as the established scholarly edition of Shakespeare's work. Now being totally re-edited for the third time, Arden editions offer the very best in contemporary scholarship. Each volume provides a clear and authoritative text, edited to the highest standards; detailed textual notes and commentary on the same page of the text; full contextual, illustrated introduction, including an in-depth survey of critical and performance approaches to the play; and selected bibliography.

Customer Reviews:

Classic..........2007-08-26

One of the classics, what else can I say? Sure, a bit melodramatic, but this is Shakespear after all.

A tragedy of sweeping proportions.......2007-05-25

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.

I am a woman more sinned against than sinning, cries Cleopatra.......2006-02-16

A great deal of argument has been in the air during the last couple of decades over Shakespeare's rendering of the famous history of Cleopatra , the once upon a time queen of Egypt and her so- called wanton nature and habits that brought her in relation with two Roman military leaders namely ,Mark Antony and Julius Caesar .
From a purely feminist perspective, Cleopatra has been the butt of male-oriented chauvinistic attack and criticism that deemed her a `sexual glutton and `as old as sin itself `. In a male-dominated world like the one we live, woman's beauty is her scourge. No body blames the customer of the prostitute; people are always after the prostitute ,because she is a woman but the male her customer goes unpunished, he has the privilege to enjoy every thing without the least censure. Cleopatra as a matter of fact, is more sinned against than sinning; she was the victim of male-oriented criticism which saw in her an apt image of the `Other `, so why not projecting centuries-long and long-nursed grudge on her as a symbol of women ,of course not as a mother, a sister or even a wife but as a mistress who takes delight in wrecking peaceful house-holds and disrupting the coziness of family life. She is an Amazon woman or a man-eater with lewd insatiable passion that does not stop at any thing to satisfy her sexual urge
Shakespeare seems to subscribe to the above-mentioned misconceptions about Cleopatra; his is a woman , ready to do any and everything cost what it may to live in the mood of love. She shuns the business of the state and neglects her duties as a queen of a strategic country. According to Shakespeare's distorted image of history, Cleopatra's bent for sex and desire makes her interweave a web to enmesh even her arch enemies. Shakespeare does not seem to believe that true faithful love knows no boundaries. Cleopatra's love for Antony and Julius Caesar could have been true love that could have bridged gaps of difference and enmity between Egypt and Rome if not looked upon from the wrong end of perspective.
Further more, if this kind of love has been, in the eyes of those of us -the hapless romantically inclined lovers- who believe only in platonic love, sensual and momentary, the child of momentary sexual infatuation, why do we always blame the woman? - Cleopatra in this case - why do we not fix an equal share of the blame on Caesar and Antony? . In our eyes, male as they are, Cleopatra is "the belly dancer sans merci" whose magical web can not be helped and works with even the most powerful of men in the world. In the eyes of male-hegemony, woman is an object to be loved but never capable of love

Politics and passion........2004-07-27

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 (1552-1616) 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

Not without interest........2004-04-13

Not one of Shakespeare's more memorable works, there are some pluses to this play and relatively few minuses, but neither the pluses nor the minuses are anything that stands out. It is nice to have yet another play told in Shakespeare's beautiful language, and enjoyable to see a love story that centers on people old enough to no longer be in the first blush of youth, even if they ARE still young enough to be beautiful and virile. On the other hand, I'd have liked to see these more mature lovers BEHAVING somewhat more maturely, instead of being just as frivolous, headstrong, and foolish as the kids in "Romeo And Juliet", and there really aren't any lines from this play that come immediately to mind as having entered the "Quotes Hall Of Fame", as so many lines from Shakespeare's plays have. Nothing on the order of "A horse! My Kingdom for a horse!" or "Alas, poor Yorick; I knew him well." or "To be or not to be, that is the question", or so many others.

Book Description

Struggling to save her empire, Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt, becomes entrenched in a deadly romantic triangle with Roman leaders Mark Antony and Julius Caesar. From one of history's great love stories, Shakespeare crafts an epic tragedy of the clash between love and duty.

Customer Reviews:

Passion and Power Politics (Arkangel Shakespeare).......2007-06-15

I think it was Aristotle who wrote that in order to have a tragedy you must have a truly heroic figure brought low by a single character flaw. Mark Antony, master of half the world, is brought low by his love for a conniving woman. Or at least that's the surface story. Beneath the surface lies the story of two people bound together by political expediency, military necessity, economic need, and passion. They shamelessly use and manipulate each other, but when all is said and done, they truly have passionate feelings for each other. I'm not sure you could really call it love. Whatever you call it, it serves as the core of a very good story that is part adventure, part romance, all tragedy.

Arkangel's production values are excellent. The sound quality is very good, the lines are well-spoken, and the plot is easy to follow even if you have never read the play.

Excellent dramatization of one of Shakespeare's best.......2006-09-07

I have just finished listening to Antony and Cleopatra and cannot speak highly enough of this fine recording. The acting is as good or better than any of the stage productions I've seen and the scenes between Antony and Cleopatra crackle with sensuality (although I did wonder how they make the kissing sounds). This is the first of this series I've listened to, but I plan to go through the entire library if this is representative of the overall quality.

Average customer rating:

Spark Notes Antony & Cleopatra
William Shakespeare , and SparkNotes Editors
Manufacturer: SparkNotes
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1586634712

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Symbolism and Universal applications of Antony & Cleopatra

Antony and Cleopatra (Cliffs Notes)

Manufacturer: Cliffs Notes
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0822000024

Book Description

The dilemma between heart, head, romance, and ambition has not been told with such elegance and depth as in Shakespeare's play. With revelries of poetic love and the drudgery of tragedy, this drama of the Egyptian queen and the Roman military leader is actually a microcosm of life.

Download Description

The dilemma between heart, head, romance, and ambition has not been told with such elegance and depth as in Shakespeare's play.

With revelries of poetic love and the drudgery of tragedy, this drama of the Egyptian queen and the Roman military leader is actually a microcosm of life.

Customer Reviews:

Symbolism and Universal applications of Antony & Cleopatra.......2000-05-11

Anthony and cleopatra has a universal theme, because of the concepts of life which deals with true love ,and the quest for power..It is a universal theme because of the tragedy of the two lovers who ends up dead , by not compromising their true love,and it also show that no matter how high a person is , whether she is a queen or an emperor , their lives are still the same as ours. the parallell of their stories would be the same like any regular person, because of the sadness of an unfullileed dream , full of deception.It also deals with the woman 's beauty , and how she uses it to get what she really want to have, and her ability to use her intelligence to get what she wants , by her conniving method of luring Ceasar to her bed. Anthony is a weak guy, because he was in the trap, which, cleopatra has set for him..In the end , they all die, because of the deception of their lives , which are not true.

Antony and Cleopatra (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)

Average customer rating:

Theatrically informative

Antony and Cleopatra (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)
William Shakespeare
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 052161287X

Book Description

For this updated edition, David Bevington has included in his introductory section a thorough consideration of recent critical and stage interpretations of Antony and Cleopatra, demonstrating how the theatrical design and imagination of this play make it one of Shakespeare's most remarkable tragedies. The edition is attentive throughout to the play as theatre: a detailed, illustrated account of the stage history is followed, in the commentary, by discussion of staging options offered by the text. An updated reading list completes the edition. First Edition Hb (1990) 0-521-25256-3 First Edition Pb (1990) 0-521-27250-5

Customer Reviews:

Theatrically informative.......2006-11-10

The Cambridge editions are well edited academic editions but what sets them apart is their relationship to theatrical performance. As a diretor or actor working on the play, these editions offer great background information into theatrical practice and past productions . Productions are discussed from the ancient past through the modern day. They are remarkably current and their essays on staging are unmatched by other editions.

Shakespeare's Plutarch: The Lives Julius Caesar Brutus Marcus Antonius Coriolanus Translation Sir Thomas (Shakespeare Library, Penguin)

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Shakespeare's Plutarch: The Lives Julius Caesar Brutus Marcus Antonius Coriolanus Translation Sir Thomas (Shakespeare Library, Penguin)

Manufacturer: Puffin
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ASIN: 0140530045

Antony and Cleopatra (Shakespeare, Signet Classic)

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Antony and Cleopatra (Shakespeare, Signet Classic)
William Shakespeare
Manufacturer: Signet Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Antony and Cleopatra (Signet Classics, CY1099)

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Antony and Cleopatra (Signet Classics, CY1099)

Manufacturer: Signet
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Hamlet (Signet Classics)

ASIN: B000BD2612

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