Title: Antony and Cleopatra
Author: William Shakespeare
Type: Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 160
Rating: 8/10
William Shakespeare – Antony and Cleopatra
Antony and Cleopatra is one of Shakespeare’s great tragedies, and in many ways it resembles Romeo and Juliet in that a faked death leads to the tragedy and in that it’s also, ostensibly a love story. That’s where the similarities end, though – no, this play has a big focus on war, and indeed it’s based at least partly on historical accounts of both the life of Cleopatra and of the Roman Empire.
One of the interesting things here is the sheer number of different scenes which are included – the story line jumps around what feels like half of the world, and some scenes are solely there for a character to perform a short soliloquy. But it works, it was interesting, and I’ve not really seen it used to such effect before. Must go and watch a performance of it!
William Shakespeare
