Classic Poem

Coleridge's one page of general criticism on Antony and Cleopatra
contains some notable remarks. 'Of all Shakespeare's historical plays,'
he writes, 'Antony and Cleopatra is by far the most wonderful. There
is not one in which he has followed history so minutely, and yet there
are few in which he impresses the notion of angelic strength so
much--perhaps none in which he impresses it more strongly. This is
greatly owing to the manner in which the fiery force is sustained
throughout.' In a later sentence he refers to the play as 'this
astonishing drama.' In another he describes the style: 'feliciter
audax is the motto for its style comparatively with that of
Shakespeare's other works.' And he translates this motto in the phrase
'happy valiancy of style.'

Coleridge's assertion that in Antony and Cleopatra Shakespeare
followed history more minutely than in any other play might well be
disputed; and his statement about the style of this drama requires some
qualification in view of the results of later criticism as to the order
of Shakespeare's works. The style is less individual than he imagined.
On the whole it is common to the six or seven dramas subsequent to
Macbeth, though in Antony and Cleopatra, probably the earliest of
them, its development is not yet complete. And we must add that this
style has certain special defects, unmentioned by Coleridge, as well as
the quality which he points out in it. But it is true that here that
quality is almost continuously present; and in the phrase by which he
describes it, as in his other phrases, he has signalised once for all
some of the most salient features of the drama.

It is curious to notice, for example, alike in books and in
conversation, how often the first epithets used in reference to Antony
and Cleopatra are 'wonderful' and 'astonishing.' And the main source of
the feeling thus expressed seems to be the 'angelic strength' or 'fiery
force' of which Coleridge wrote. The first of these two phrases is, I
think, the more entirely happy. Except perhaps towards the close, one is
not so conscious of fiery force as in certain other tragedies; but one
is astonished at the apparent ease with which extraordinary effects are
produced, the ease, if I may paraphrase Coleridge, of an angel moving
with a wave of the hand that heavy matter which men find so intractable.
We feel this sovereign ease in contemplating Shakespeare's picture of
the world--a vast canvas, crowded with figures, glowing with colour and
a superb animation, reminding one spectator of Paul Veronese and another
of Rubens. We feel it again when we observe (as we can even without
consulting Plutarch) the nature of the material; how bulky it was, and,
in some respects, how undramatic; and how the artist, though he could
not treat history like legend or fiction, seems to push whole masses
aside, and to shift and refashion the remainder, almost with the air of
an architect playing (at times rather carelessly) with a child's bricks.

Something similar is felt even in the portrait of Cleopatra. Marvellous
as it is, the drawing of it suggests not so much the passionate
concentration or fiery force of Macbeth, as that sense of effortless
and exultant mastery which we feel in the portraits of Mercutio and
Falstaff. And surely it is a total mistake to find in this portrait any
trace of the distempered mood which disturbs our pleasure in Troilus
and Cressida. If the sonnets about the dark lady were, as need not be
doubted, in some degree autobiographical, Shakespeare may well have used
his personal experience both when he drew Cressida and when he drew
Cleopatra. And, if he did, the story in the later play was the nearer to
his own; for Antony might well have said what Troilus could never say,

When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies.

But in the later play, not only is the poet's vision unclouded, but his
whole nature, emotional as well as intellectual, is free. The subject no
more embitters or seduces him than the ambition of Macbeth. So that here
too we feel the angelic strength of which Coleridge speaks. If we
quarrelled with the phrase at all, it would be because we fancied we
could trace in Shakespeare's attitude something of the irony of
superiority; and this may not altogether suit our conception of an
angel.

I have still another sentence to quote from Coleridge: 'The highest
praise, or rather form of praise, of this play which I can offer in my
own mind, is the doubt which the perusal always occasions in me, whether
the "Antony and Cleopatra" is not, in all exhibitions of a giant power
in its strength and vigour of maturity, a formidable rival of "Macbeth,"
"Lear," "Hamlet," and "Othello."' Now, unless the clause here about the
'giant power' may be taken to restrict the rivalry to the quality of
angelic strength, Coleridge's doubt seems to show a lapse in critical
judgment. To regard this tragedy as a rival of the famous four, whether
on the stage or in the study, is surely an error. The world certainly
has not so regarded it; and, though the world's reasons for its verdicts
on works of art may be worth little, its mere verdict is worth much.
Here, it seems to me, that verdict must be accepted. One may notice
that, in calling Antony and Cleopatra wonderful or astonishing, we
appear to be thinking first of the artist and his activity, while in the
case of the four famous tragedies it is the product of this activity,
the thing presented, that first engrosses us. I know that I am stating
this difference too sharply, but I believe that it is often felt; and,
if this is so, the fact is significant. It implies that, although
Antony and Cleopatra may be for us as wonderful an achievement as the
greatest of Shakespeare's plays, it has not an equal value. Besides, in
the attempt to rank it with them there is involved something more, and
more important, than an error in valuation. There is a failure to
discriminate the peculiar marks of Antony and Cleopatra itself, marks
which, whether or no it be the equal of the earlier tragedies, make it
decidedly different. If I speak first of some of these differences it is
because they thus contribute to the individuality of the play, and
because they seem often not to be distinctly apprehended in criticism.


1.

Why, let us begin by asking, is Antony and Cleopatra, though so
wonderful an achievement, a play rarely acted? For a tragedy, it is not
painful. Though unfit for children, it cannot be called indecent; some
slight omissions, and such a flattening of the heroine's part as might
confidently be expected, would leave it perfectly presentable. It is, no
doubt, in the third and fourth Acts, very defective in construction.
Even on the Elizabethan stage, where scene followed scene without a
pause, this must have been felt; and in our theatres it would be felt
much more. There, in fact, these two and forty scenes could not possibly
be acted as they stand. But defective construction would not distress
the bulk of an audience, if the matter presented were that of Hamlet
or Othello, of Lear or Macbeth. The matter, then, must lack
something which is present in those tragedies; and it is mainly owing to
this difference in substance that Antony and Cleopatra has never
attained their popularity either on the stage or off it.

Most of Shakespeare's tragedies are dramatic, in a special sense of the
word as well as in its general sense, from beginning to end. The story
is not merely exciting and impressive from the movement of conflicting
forces towards a terrible issue, but from time to time there come
situations and events which, even apart from their bearing on this
issue, appeal most powerfully to the dramatic feelings--scenes of action
or passion which agitate the audience with alarm, horror, painful
expectation, or absorbing sympathies and antipathies. Think of the
street fights in Romeo and Juliet, the killing of Mercutio and Tybalt,
the rapture of the lovers, and their despair when Romeo is banished.
Think of the ghost-scenes in the first Act of Hamlet, the passion of
the early soliloquies, the scene between Hamlet and Ophelia, the
play-scene, the sparing of the King at prayer, the killing of Polonius.
Is not Hamlet, if you choose so to regard it, the best melodrama in
the world? Think at your leisure of Othello, Lear, and Macbeth
from the same point of view; but consider here and now even the two
tragedies which, as dealing with Roman history, are companions of
Antony and Cleopatra. Recall in Julius Cæsar the first suggestion of
the murder, the preparation for it in a 'tempest dropping fire,' the
murder itself, the speech of Antony over the corpse, and the tumult of
the furious crowd; in Coriolanus the bloody battles on the stage, the
scene in which the hero attains the consulship, the scene of rage in
which he is banished. And remember that in each of these seven tragedies
the matter referred to is contained in the first three Acts.

In the first three Acts of our play what is there resembling this?
Almost nothing. People converse, discuss, accuse one another, excuse
themselves, mock, describe, drink together, arrange a marriage, meet and
part; but they do not kill, do not even tremble or weep. We see hardly
one violent movement; until the battle of Actium is over we witness
scarcely any vehement passion; and that battle, as it is a naval action,
we do not see. Even later, Enobarbus, when he dies, simply dies; he does
not kill himself. We hear wonderful talk; but it is not talk, like
that of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, or that of Othello and Iago, at which
we hold our breath. The scenes that we remember first are those that
portray Cleopatra; Cleopatra coquetting, tormenting, beguiling her lover
to stay; Cleopatra left with her women and longing for him; Cleopatra
receiving the news of his marriage; Cleopatra questioning the messenger
about Octavia's personal appearance. But this is to say that the scenes
we remember first are the least indispensable to the plot. One at least
is not essential to it at all. And this, the astonishing scene where she
storms at the messenger, strikes him, and draws her dagger on him, is
the one passage in the first half of the drama that contains either an
explosion of passion or an exciting bodily action. Nor is this all. The
first half of the play, though it forebodes tragedy, is not decisively
tragic in tone. Certainly the Cleopatra scenes are not so. We read
them, and we should witness them, in delighted wonder and even with
amusement. The only scene that can vie with them, that of the revel on
Pompey's ship, though full of menace, is in great part humorous.
Enobarbus, in this part of the play, is always humorous. Even later,
when the tragic tone is deepening, the whipping of Thyreus, in spite of
Antony's rage, moves mirth. A play of which all this can truly be said
may well be as masterly as Othello or Macbeth, and more delightful;
but, in the greater part of its course, it cannot possibly excite the
same emotions. It makes no attempt to do so; and to regard it as though
it made this attempt is to miss its specific character and the intention
of its author.

That character depends only in part on Shakespeare's fidelity to his
historical authority, a fidelity which, I may remark, is often greatly
exaggerated. For Shakespeare did not merely present the story of ten
years as though it occupied perhaps one fifth of that time, nor did he
merely invent freely, but in critical places he effected startling
changes in the order and combination of events. Still it may be said
that, dealing with a history so famous, he could not well make the first
half of his play very exciting, moving, or tragic. And this is true so
far as mere situations and events are concerned. But, if he had chosen,
he might easily have heightened the tone and tension in another way. He
might have made the story of Antony's attempt to break his bondage, and
the story of his relapse, extremely exciting, by portraying with all his
force the severity of the struggle and the magnitude of the fatal step.

And the structure of the play might seem at first to suggest this
intention. At the opening, Antony is shown almost in the beginning of
his infatuation; for Cleopatra is not sure of her power over him, exerts
all her fascination to detain him, and plays the part of the innocent
victim who has yielded to passion and must now expect to be deserted by
her seducer. Alarmed and ashamed at the news of the results of his
inaction, he rouses himself, tears himself away, and speeds to Italy.
His very coming is enough to frighten Pompey into peace. He reconciles
himself with Octavius, and, by his marriage with the good and beautiful
Octavia, seems to have knit a bond of lasting amity with her brother,
and to have guarded himself against the passion that threatened him with
ruin. At this point his power, the world's peace, and his own peace,
appear to be secured; his fortune has mounted to its apex. But soon
(very much sooner than in Plutarch's story) comes the downward turn or
counter-stroke. New causes of offence arise between the brothers-in-law.
To remove them Octavia leaves her husband in Athens and hurries to Rome.
Immediately Antony returns to Cleopatra and, surrendering himself at
once and wholly to her enchantment is quickly driven to his doom.

Now Shakespeare, I say, with his matchless power of depicting an inward
struggle, might have made this story, even where it could not furnish
him with thrilling incidents, the source of powerful tragic emotions;
and, in doing so, he would have departed from his authority merely in
his conception of the hero's character. But he does no such thing till
the catastrophe is near. Antony breaks away from Cleopatra without any
strenuous conflict. No serious doubt of his return is permitted to
agitate us. We are almost assured of it through the impression made on
us by Octavius, through occasional glimpses into Antony's mind, through
the absence of any doubt in Enobarbus, through scenes in Alexandria
which display Cleopatra and display her irresistible. And, finally, the
downward turn itself, the fatal step of Antony's return, is shown
without the slightest emphasis. Nay, it is not shown, it is only
reported; and not a line portrays any inward struggle preceding it. On
this side also, then, the drama makes no attempt to rival the other
tragedies; and it was essential to its own peculiar character and its
most transcendent effects that this attempt should not be made, but that
Antony's passion should be represented as a force which he could hardly
even desire to resist. By the very scheme of the work, therefore, tragic
impressions of any great volume or depth were reserved for the last
stage of the conflict; while the main interest, down to the battle of
Actium, was directed to matters exceedingly interesting and even, in the
wider sense, dramatic, but not overtly either terrible or piteous: on
the one hand, to the political aspect of the story; on the other, to the
personal causes which helped to make the issue inevitable.


2.

The political situation and its development are simple. The story is
taken up almost where it was left, years before, in Julius Cæsar.
There Brutus and Cassius, to prevent the rule of one man, assassinate
Cæsar. Their purpose is condemned to failure, not merely because they
make mistakes, but because that political necessity which Napoleon
identified with destiny requires the rule of one man. They spill Cæsar's
blood, but his spirit walks abroad and turns their swords against their
own breasts; and the world is left divided among three men, his friends
and his heir. Here Antony and Cleopatra takes up the tale; and its
business, from this point of view, is to show the reduction of these
three to one. That Lepidus will not be this one was clear already in
Julius Cæsar; it must be Octavius or Antony. Both ambitious, they are
also men of such opposite tempers that they would scarcely long agree
even if they wished to, and e