Lakhasly

Themes

The Struggle Between Reason and Emotion In his opening lines to Demetrius, Philo complains tion

Artony has abandoned the military endeavors on which that xeputation is based for Cleopatra's sake.His criticism of Antony's "Jolage," or stupidity, introduces a tension between reason and emction that runs throughout the play (Li.1). Antony and Cleopatra's first exchange heightens this tension, as they argue whether their love can be put into words and understood or whether it exceeds such faculties and boundaries of reason. If, according to Roman consensus, Antony is the military hero and disciplined statesmen that Caesar and others believe him to be, then he seems to have happily abandoned his reason in order to pursue his passion. He declares: "Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch/Of the ranged empire fall" (1.1.35-36).

Themes

The Struggle Between Reason and Emotion In his opening lines to Demetrius, Philo complains tion

Artony has abandoned the military endeavors on which that xeputation is based for Cleopatra's sake. His criticism of Antony's "Jolage," or stupidity, introduces a tension between reason and emction that runs throughout the play (Li.1). Antony and Cleopatra's first exchange heightens this tension, as they argue whether their love can be put into words and understood or whether it exceeds such faculties and boundaries of reason. If, according to Roman consensus, Antony is the military hero and disciplined statesmen that Caesar and others believe him to be, then he seems to have happily abandoned his reason in order to pursue his passion. He declares: "Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch/Of the ranged empire fall" (1.1.35-36). The play, however, is more concerned with the battle between reason and emotion than the triumph of one over the other, and this battle is waged most forcefully in the character of Antony. More than any other character in the play, Antony vacillates between Western and Eastern sensibilities, feeling pulled by both his duty to the empire and his desire for pleasure, his want of military glory and his passion for Cleopatra. Soon after his nonchalant dismissal of Caesar's messenger, the empire, and his duty to it, he chastises himself for his neglect and commits to return to Rome, lest he "lose [him]self in dotage" (Lii. 106).

conflicting identities that play out the struggle between reason and As the play progresses, Antony continues to inhabit emotion. At one moment, he is the vengeful war hero whom

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