{"product_id":"antony-and-cleopatra-signet-classic-shakespeare","title":"Antony and Cleopatra (Signet Classic Shakespeare)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Shakespeare, William\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eBrand:\u003c\/b\u003e Signet\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eColor:\u003c\/b\u003e White\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eEdition:\u003c\/b\u003e Revised, Reissue\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding:\u003c\/b\u003e Mass Market Paperback\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eNumber Of Pages:\u003c\/b\u003e 352\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eRelease Date:\u003c\/b\u003e 01-10-1998\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePart Number:\u003c\/b\u003e new18-20150817-b020226\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eDetails:\u003c\/b\u003e Product Description      \u003cbr\u003e\nThe Signet Classics edition of the tragedy that features one of Shakespeare's greatest female characters.\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\nA magnificent drama of passion and war, this riveting play presents the complicated relationship between the seductive, cunning Egyptian queen Cleopatra and the Roman leader Mark Antony, a man torn between an empire and love.\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\nThis revised Signet Classics edition includes unique features such as:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n • An overview of Shakespeare's life, world, and theater\u003cbr\u003e\n • A special introduction to the play by the editor, Sylvan Barnet\u003cbr\u003e\n• A selection from Plutarch's\u003cbr\u003e\nLives of Noble Grecians and Romans, the source from which Shakespeare derived\u003cbr\u003e\nAntony and Cleopatra\u003cbr\u003e\n • Dramatic criticism from Samuel Johnson, A. C. Bradley, John F. Danby, and others\u003cbr\u003e\n • A comprehensive stage and screen history of notable actors, directors, and productions\u003cbr\u003e\n • Text, notes, and commentaries printed in the clearest, most readable text\u003cbr\u003e\n • And more...\u003cbr\u003e\n      About the Author      \u003cbr\u003e\nWilliam Shakespeare (1564–1616) was a poet, playwright, and actor who is widely regarded as one of the most influential writers in the history of the English language. Often referred to as the Bard of Avon, Shakespeare's vast body of work includes comedic, tragic, and historical plays; poems; and 154 sonnets. His dramatic works have been translated into every major language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.\u003cbr\u003e\n      Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.      \u003cbr\u003e\nIntroduction\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\nShakespeare probably wrote\u003cbr\u003e\nAntony and Cleopatra in 1606 or 1607; it was registered for publication on May 20, 1608, and apparently influenced a revision of Samuel Daniel’s\u003cbr\u003e\nCleopatra that was published “newly altered” in 1607. Antony and Cleopatra was thus roughly contemporary with\u003cbr\u003e\nKing Lear and\u003cbr\u003e\nMacbeth. Yet the contrast between those two tragedies and Antony and Cleopatra is immense. Unlike\u003cbr\u003e\nMacbeth, with its taut focus on a murderer and his wife,\u003cbr\u003e\nAntony and Cleopatra moves back and forth across the Mediterranean in its epic survey of characters and events, bringing together the fates of Pompey, Octavius Caesar, Octavia, and Lepidus with those of the protagonists.\u003cbr\u003e\nKing Lear gives proper names to fourteen characters, Macbeth to eighteen,\u003cbr\u003e\nAntony and Cleopatra to thirty-four. The Roman play requires no fewer than forty-two separate scenes, of which most occur in what modern editors label Acts 3 and 4, although no play is less suited to the classical rigors of five-act structure, and these divisions are not found in the reliable Folio text of 1623. Indeed, it is as though Shakespeare resolved at the height of his career to show that he could dispense entirely with the classical “rules,” which had never taken serious hold of the English popular stage in any case. The flouting of the unities is so extreme that John Dryden, in his\u003cbr\u003e\nAll for Love, or The World Well Lost (1678), undertook not so much to revise Shakespeare as to start afresh on the same subject. Dryden’s play is restricted to the last few hours of the protagonists’ lives, at Cleopatra’s tomb in Alexandria, with a severely limited cast of characters and much of the narrative revealed through recollection. Although a substantial achievement in its own right,\u003cbr\u003e\nAll for Love surely demonstrates that Shakespeare knew what he was doing, for Dryden has excised a good deal of the panorama, the excitement, and the “infinite variety” (2.2.246).\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\nShakespeare departs also from the somber tone of his tragedies of evil. He creates, instead, a world that bears affinities to the ambiguous conflicts of the other Roman plays, to the varying humorous perspectives of the comedies, and to the imaginative reconstructions of the late romances. As protagonists,\u003cbr\u003e\nAntony and Cleopatra lack tragic stature, or so it first appears: she is a tawny gypsy temptress and he a “strumpet’s fool,” a once-great general now bound in “strong Egyptian fetters” and lost in “dotage” (1.1.13; 1.2.122—3). Several scenes, especially those set in\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eEAN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780451527134\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePackage Dimensions:\u003c\/b\u003e 6.7 x 4.3 x 1.1 inches\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguages:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Signet","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49110694428976,"sku":"Prakash_9780451527134","price":239.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/9968\/4144\/files\/signet-book-default-title-antony-and-cleopatra-signet-classic-shakespeare-38847300469040.jpg?v=1753014049","url":"https:\/\/www.retailmaharaj.com\/products\/antony-and-cleopatra-signet-classic-shakespeare","provider":"Retail Maharaj","version":"1.0","type":"link"}