Utilising an array of dramatic techniques, Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra represents a performative conception of love; their affection is seen in the enactment of a set of practices, rather than through emotional connection. While Shakespeare's characters are involved in a dispute for political survival, the play’s tension and dramatic action emerges from Antony and Cleopatra’s love affair; Antony finds himself at a crossroads between his duty to Rome and his passion for Cleopatra. Expressing a twofold way of being, the juxtaposition between Roman and Egyptian value systems and the play’s frequent hyperbole urges audiences to realize the conflicting desires of passion and power. Calling readers to question the authenticity of love in a relationship grounded on manipulation and lust, Shakespeare uses dramatic techniques to intensify this tension and suspense.
Highlighting the underlying action-centered communication of love in Antony and Cleopatra’s romance; “tonight we’ll wander through the streets and note the qualities of people”, the play heavily stresses Cleopatra’s company and conversation as her greatest asset, over her looks. Contrasting Cleopatra’s action-channeled love, Enobarbus monosyllabically describes the companionship offered by Octavia as 'holy, cold, and still conversation'. This performative conception of love, rather than one based on oral communication, is introduced through hyperbole in the first scene, where Cleopatra’s Romanesque rhetoric commands Antony in his own style; “I'll set a bourn how far to be belov'd/Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.” Urging audiences to question the authenticity of love in Antony and Cleopatra’s relationship, Shakespeare dramatizes their direct feelings towards each other in the couple’s first-person communication; 'But since my lord / Is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra.' Portrayed as honorific names, these extreme and exhibitionist moments of love-talk act as regulative means of what their joint identity should be and thus, necessitates a growing awareness of their love for each other.
Divided between the Roman’s perception that the protagonists’ love is “dotage” and the lover’s hyperbolic declaration that love is the very “nobleness of life”, Shakespeare makes emotive and performance-based conceptions of love inextricable from each other. Illustrating this, when the skeptical Enobarbus responds to Anthony’s derogatory “She is cunning past man’s thought” with “Alack, sir, no— her passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love”, his tone and the contradictory meaning of “nothing” as ‘everything’, grounds the nature of love as a performance. Directing a question about the essence of love, in “If it be love indeed,” the primary meaning of Cleopatra’s “indeed” is presumably “really”. But its secondary meaning – “en-acted”—answer’s Cleopatra’s question. It brings together true love and mere performative love. Thus, Antony and Cleopatra expresses the relation between action (indeed) and language (tell me); between the performance of love and its hyperbolic rhetoric. This paradoxical interplay between authentic and performed love lies at the heart of Antony and Cleopatra.
Rather than the pursuit of love being mandated by laws and conventions, Shakespeare epitomises the superiority of love to earthly gain. Following Antony’s rejections of Cleopatra after losing worldly gain with a stronger expression of the superiority of their love to everything else, this sudden change in tone and atmosphere dramatizes the human freedom present in love. After being defeated at Actium, Antony does not kill himself as he has found something worth greater than ‘reputation’ – his love for Cleopatra. Thus, the dramatic irony of Antony killing himself after believing Cleopatra has died expresses the dishonor to cling to life when what gave it value is gone. Further, by Cleopatra’s idealisations of Antony in iambic trimeter as “Nature’s piece ‘gainst fancy/ condemning shadows quite”, she likens her love of Antony to the love of the good, beautiful and bountiful. This reveals how this pursuit for beauty in love is natural to humans and thus, a politics stripped of love denatures individuals as humans.
The contrasting role of messengers, both as connective sources between the play’s geographical space but also as a disruptive problem, provide instability to the play’s narrative. Their information can be distorted or irrelevant, and thus, dramatize the manipulation that messages often entail. This is seen in Cleopatra’s mental manipulations of Antony – she obstructs the natural flow of Antony’s thoughts in pivotal moments of change to amplify her presence in his mind; “if you find him sad, I Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report I That I am sudden sick'. Theatrically employing sibilant sounds in Cleopatra’s witty dialogue, Antony’s unawareness of Cleopatra’s sly manipulative habits is ironic. Further encapsulating Cleopatra’s conception of love, frequently sending messengers to Antony ensures her presence is constantly ruling her lover’s mind; “so our leader’s led/And we are women’s men”. This assonantal dialogue extends Cleopatra’s romantic manipulation also to her powerful influence on Antony’s military strategy.
Venturing away from Rome’s reason and logic, Antony becomes powerless against Egypt’s attractive virtues – pleasure and softness. Although Enobarbus is a Roman follower of Antony, he is a choric persona who speaks in a series of asides; “to be sure of that/ I will ask Antony”, and finally in a metaphorically-rich soliloquy; “when valor preys on reason, it eats the sword it fights with”. He detects the incompatibility of a Roman leader entangled with Cleopatra’s Egyptian virtues and thus, his degrading Roman morals; “give up yourself merely to chance and hazard/ From firm security”. Although this incompatibility refers to a political tragedy, the couple’s love is mature and authentic beyond such worldly obsessions. Underlying this reasoned tone and rigorous rhythm is the allegory of Antony and Cleopatra’s manipulative relationship. Using her feminine nature and Egyptian exuberance to indirectly reach absolute power, Cleopatra persuades Antony to fight at sea and stray from the Roman-like security and rigidness at land. Exploring the irrationality of Antony’s decision when infatuated by Egypt’s mindset; the recurring metaphor of the sea’s dynamics symbolise his decaying Roman virtues.
Highlighting the dichotomy between Rome and Egypt, Shakespeare juxtaposes their nation’s values through Antony’s clashing desires – ambition and love. Enhancing the play’s dramaturgy, extended hyperbole and images of abundance; “plated Mars”, contrast Roman and Egyptian value systems. Rome stands for duty and reason, while Egypt stands for hedonism, indulgence and revelry. Cleopatra’s power in love relationships and her seduction forces Antony into her sphere – he becomes part of her being through her powerful will. Although the delayed entry of Antony creates suspense, the play opens up with Philo’s claims that Antony has repudiated his Roman responsibilities and become the “bellows and the fan/to cool a gypsy’s lust”. Ultimately, the character’s fate is deterministic where Shakespeare’s stage direction is the visual equivalent of Philo’s words; Cleopatra enters ‘with eunuchs fanning her’ Antony’s passion for Cleopatra not only ruins his colossal power but drains his moral strength; “A diminution in our captain’s/ brain/ restores his heart”. This enjambment of ‘brain’ in Enobarbus’ speech symbolises the significance of logic and reason to a Roman follower of Antony. Intensifying the dramatic suspense through the Soothsayer’s foreshadowing; “You shall outlive the lady whom you serve”, the iambic pentameter creates certainty about Cleopatra’s death and the couple’s deterministic fate. Ultimately, Antony and Cleopatra represents the human frailties when power transforms a couples romance into a deterministic love, bound to fail.
Clashing desires between love and it’s starkest contrast, power, leads the tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra. For a character synonymous with “infinite variety,” Cleopatra has a list of lovers that shows a certain monotony. Cleopatra’s penchant for powerful Roman generals. Exploring the nature of love, Antony and Cleopatra sets love in a power-political context where the stakes are world rule. Like Cleopatra, Antony oscillates between love and power, when he goes back to Rome and marries Octavia following Fulvia’s death, and then returns to Egypt. Shakespeare radically compresses the time scale of these events to make the actions appear close to an impulsion. His dutiful adherence to Rome (whether in the shape of Fulvia or Octavia) serves as a counterweight to his devotion to the pleasures of Egypt. This form of infidelity is heightened by Cleopatra’s manipulation; She provokes him with Roman thoughts when what he wants is to be Egyptian, and seduces him with Egyptian ways when he is in a Roman frame of mind.