An Argument for Cleopatra -- the "Herculean Hero" -- of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra

Abstract

William Shakespeare’s play Antony and Cleopatra focuses on the fatal love affair of the titular characters, the queen of Egypt, Cleopatra, and the militant leader of the Roman triumvirate, Mark Antony. This play is a dramatization of an already familiar narrative from the centuries prior. Writers like Plutarch and Virgil as well as Chaucer and Horace had their own iterations of the drama. Shakespeare’s play offers a re-centered vantage point of the political and romantic dynamics of this relationship between lovers and legends. This rendition complicates and humanizes the mythos of Antony and Cleopatra in ways that include new considerations for this audience. Additionally, Shakespeare veers away from some of his traditional approaches to writing in this text. I believe that Shakespeare goes further in his portrayal of the Egyptian queen than with most of the other women he writes and would like to offer a new reading of her lasting influence. This essay is primarily interested in the structures of power Antony and Cleopatra defend and display between them and seeks to further the discussion of a particular character archetype highlighted in the work of Bruce R. Smith’s Shakespeare and Masculinity. By relying on close readings of the play, feminist theory, and Smith’s argument, sufficient evidence can be provided for another contextualization of one of Shakespeare’s most endearing characters.