From The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors, ed. Charles Wells Moulton, 8 vols. (Buffalo, NY: Moulton Publishing, 1901), 1: 526-28.
[This section was prepared and proofread by Deborah Hill.]
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
1606-7
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 occasion in me, whether the "Antony end 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." . . . Of all Shakepere's historical plays, "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, and to the numerous momentary flashes of nature counteracting the historic abstraction. As a wonderful specimen of the way in which Shakspere lives up to the very end of this play, read the last part of the concluding scene. And if you would feel the judgment as well as the genius of Shakspere in your hearts' core, compare this astonishing drama with Dryden's "All For Love." -- COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR, 1818, Lectures and Notes on Shakspere, ed. Ashe, pp. 315, 316.
I have not the slightest doubt that Shakepeare's Cleopatra is the real historical Cleopatra -- the "Rare Egyptian" -- individualized and placed before us. Her mental accomplishments, her unequalled grace, her woman's wit and women's wiles, her irresistible allurements, her starts of irregular grandeur, her bursts of ungovernable temper, her vivacity of imagination, her petulant caprice, her fickleness and her falsehood, her tenderness and her truth, her childish susceptibility to flattery, her magnificent spirit, her royal pride, the gorgeous Eastern colouring of the character, all these contradictory elements has Shakspeare seized, mingled them in their extremes, and fused them into one brilliant impersonation of classical elegance, Oriental voluptuousness, and gypsy sorcery. -- JAMESON, ANNA BROWNELL, 1832, Characteristics of Women.
I am not aware that this play has been acted in modern times, nor do I believe it to be as great a favourite with readers in general as the high commendations of modern critics would lead me to expect I know little of the histrionic art, but should imagine that Cleopatra, and Antony too, in good hands, would be exceedingly attractive on the stage, and there, perhaps, relying on the interest of the story, and the good acting, we should not so much miss that force and dignity of versification which captivate us in other plays, of which the plot and scenes are less interesting. -- COURTENAY, THOMAS PEREGRINE, 1840, Commentaries on the Historical Plays of Shakspeare, vol.II, p. 275.
But independently of any other indications, it is certain that the ripe maturity of poetic mind pervades the whole tone of the tragedy, its diction, imagery, characters, thoughts. It exhibits itself everywhere, in a copious and varied magnificence, as from a mind and memory stored with the treasures acquired in its own past intellectual efforts, as well as with the knowledge of life and books, from all which the dramatic muse (to borrow the Oriental imagery which Milton has himself drawn from this very tragedy), like
"the gorgeous East, with liberal hand,
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold."
Its poetry has as autumnal richness, such as can succeed only to the vernal luxuriance of genius, or its fiercer midsummer glow. We need no other proof than that which its own abundance affords, that this tragedy is the rich product of a mind where, as in Mark Antony's own Egypt his "Nilus had swelled high," and
"when it ebbed, the seedsman
Upon its slime and ooze scatter'd his grain,
Which shortly came to harvest."
-- VERPLANCK, GULLIAN CROMMELIN, 1844 47, ed. The Illustrated Shakespeare.
The greatest monument of his dramatic subtlety is the tragedy of "Antony and Cleopatra." With all its noble bursts of passion and occasional splendour of description, this play has not perhaps the massive breadth of feeling and overpowering interest of the four great tragedies, "Macbeth," "Hamlet," "Lear," and "Othello," but it is greater even than "Macbeth" and "Othello" in the range; of its mastery over the fluctuations of profound passion: it is the greatest of Shakespeare's plays in the dramatist's greatest faculty. The conflict of motives in "Hamlet" is an achievement of genius that must always be regarded with wonder and reverence; but, to my mind, "Antony and Cleopatra" is the dramatist's masterpiece. One may have less interest in the final end of the subtle changes wrought in the hero and heroine: but in the pursuit and certain grasp of those changes, Shakespeare's dramatic genius appears at its supreme height. -- MINTO, WILLIAM, 1874-85, Characteristics of English Poets, p. 318.
On "Antony and Cleopatra" Shakspere has poured out the glory of his genius in profusion, and makes us stand by, saddened and distressed, as the noble Antony sinks to his ruin, under the gorgeous colonring of the Eastern sky, the vicious splendour of the Egyptian queen; makes us look with admiring hate on the wonderful picture he has drawn, certainly far the most wonderful study of woman he has left us, of that Cleopatra of whom Enobarbus, who knew her every turn, said,
"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety; other women
Cloy the appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies."
That in her, the dark woman of Shakepere's "Sonnets," his own fickle, serpent-like, attractive mistress, is to some extent embodied, I do not doubt. What a superbly sumptuous picture, as if painted by Veronese or Titian, is that where Cleopatra first met Antony upon the river of Cydnus! How admirably transferred from Plutarch's prose! And how that fatal inability to say "No" to woman shows us Antony's weakness and the cause of his final fall. -- FURNIVALL, FREDERICK JAMES, 1877, ed., The Leopold Shakspere, Introduction to the Play.
The final impression left upon the mind by this woman, in whom there was no real goodness or grandeur of character, is that of grace and a fascination that never leave her from the beginning to the end, and in her last moments, that of majesty. As an example of the magic power of beauty and of poetry Shakespeare's Cleopatra stands alone. -- STAFFER, PAUL, 1880, Shakespeare and Classical Antiquity, tr. Carey, p. 408.
In the later scenes Antony is still shown as a noble ruin. His dealing with Enobarbus, when deserted even by that once honest friend, is one clear indication of the generosity of Antony's large nature. He beats strong wings and lifts his head as if to soar, caught as an eagle in the toils. The strength of his desire towards Cleopatra is the weakness of Antony; the strength of her desire towards Antony is the whole strength of Cleopatra. Beyond that, her care in life is artifice of her profession as a beauty, who, at the age of thirty-eight, cannot afford to trust too simply to Nature. She has, in her own strength, pathetic traces at the last of that which might have been the glory of her womanhood, had not her thoughts been low. -- MORLEY, HENRY, AND GRIFFIN, W. HALL, 1895, English Writers, vol. XI, p. 95.
Who knows! If he himself, William Shakespeare, had met her, who knows if he would have escaped with his life? And had he not met her? Was it not she whom in bygone days he had met and loved, and by whom he had been beloved and betrayed? It moved him strongly to find Cleopatra described as so dark, so tawny. His thoughts dwelt upon this. He too had stood in close relation to a dark, ensnaring woman -- one whom in bitter moments he had been tempted to call a gipsy; "aright gipsy," as Cleopatra is called in this play, by those who are afraid of her or angry with her. She of whom he never thought without emotion, his black enchantress, his life's angel and fiend, whom he had hated and adored at the same time, whom he had despised even while he sued for her favour what was she but a new incarnation of that dangerous, ensnaring serpent of the Nile! And how nearly had his whole inner world collapsed like a soap-bubble in his association with, and separation from, her! That would indeed have been the ruin of a world! How he had revelled and writhed, exulted and complained in those days played ducks and drakes with his life, squandered his days and nights! Now he was a maturer man, a gentleman, a landed proprietor and tithe-farmer but in him still lived the artist Bohemian, fitted to mate with the gipsy queen. -- BRANDES, GEORGE, 1898, William Shakespeare, A Critical Study, vol. II, p. 144.
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