The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra

In May 1608 Edward Blount entered in the 'Stationers' Registers, ' by the authority of Sir George Buc, the licenser of plays, 'a booke called "Anthony and Cleopatra."' No copy of this date is known, and once again the company probably hindered the publication. The play was first printed in the folio of 1623. The source of the tragedy is the life of Antonius in North's 'Plutarch.' Shakespeare closely followed the historical narrative, and assimilated not merely its temper, but, in the first three acts, much of its phraseology. A few short scenes are original, but there is no detail in such a passage, for example, as Enobarbus's gorgeous description of the pageant of Cleopatra's voyage up the Cydnus to meet Antony (II. ii. 194 seq.), which is not to be matched in Plutarch. In the fourth and fifth acts Shakespeare's method changes and he expands his material with magnificent freedom. The whole theme is in his hands instinct with a dramatic grandeur which lifts into sublimity even Cleopatra's moral worthlessness and Antony's criminal infatuation. The terse and caustic comments which Antony's level-headed friend Enobarbus, in the role of chorus, passes on the action accentuate its significance. Into the smallest as into the greatest personages Shakespeare breathed all his vitalising fire. The 'happy valiancy' of the style, too-to use Coleridge's admirable phrase-sets the tragedy very near the zenith of Shakespeare's achievement, and while differentiating it from 'Macbeth, ' 'Othello, ' and 'Lear, ' renders it a very formidable rival."

About the Author :
CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE The father in municipal office. In July 1564, when William was three months old, the plague raged with unwonted vehemence at Stratford, and his father liberally contributed to the relief of its poverty-stricken victims. Fortune still favoured him. On July 4, 1565, he reached the dignity of an alderman. From 1567 onwards he was accorded in the corporation archives the honourable prefix of 'Mr.' At Michaelmas 1568 he attained the highest office in the corporation gift, that of bailiff, and during his year of office the corporation for the first time entertained actors at Stratford. The Queen's Company and the Earl of Worcester's Company each received from John Shakespeare an official welcome. On September 5, 1571, he was chief alderman, a post which he retained till September 30 the following year. In 1573 Alexander Webbe, the husband of his wife's sister Agnes, made him overseer of his will; in 1575 he bought two houses in Stratford, one of them doubtless the alleged birthplace in Henley Street; in 1576 he contributed twelvepence to the beadle's salary. But after Michaelmas 1572 he took a less active part in municipal affairs; he grew irregular in his attendance at the council meetings, and signs were soon apparent that his luck had turned. In 1578 he was unable to pay, with his colleagues, either the sum of fourpence for the relief of the poor or his contribution 'towards the furniture of three pikemen, two bellmen, and one archer' who were sent by the corporation to attend a muster of the trained bands of the county. Brothers and sisters. Meanwhile his family was increasing. Four children besides the poet-three sons, Gilbert (baptised October 13, 1566), Richard (baptised March 11, 1574), and Edmund (baptised May 3, 1580), with a daughter Joan (baptised April 15, 1569)-reached maturity. A daughter Ann was baptised September 28, 1571, and was buried on April 4, 1579.