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The Struggle Between Reason and Emotion
In the play’s opening lines, Philo complains to Demetrius that Antony has abandoned the military endeavors on which his reputation is based for Cleopatra’s sake. His criticism of Antony’s “dotage,” or stupidity, introduces a tension between reason and emotion that runs throughout the play (1.1.1). 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 Octavius and others believe him to be, then he seems to have happily abandoned his reason in favor of passion. He declares: “Let Rome in Tiber melt and the wide arch / Of the ranged empire fall” (1.1.38–39). 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 struggles with the competing forces of reason and emotion, which are linked to Rome and Egypt, respectively.
Antony begins the play with some concern that he might “lose [him]self in dotage” (1.2.129). As the play progresses, his struggle to remain committed to reason over emotion grows increasingly intense. At one moment, he is the vengeful war hero whom Octavius praises and fears. Soon thereafter, he sacrifices his military position by unwisely allowing Cleopatra to determine his course of action. As his Roman allies—even the ever-faithful Enobarbus—abandon him, Antony feels that he has, indeed, lost himself in dotage, and he determines to rescue his noble identity by taking his own life. At first, this course of action may appear to be a triumph of reason over passion. Although Antony dies believing himself a man of honor, discipline, and reason, our understanding of him is not nearly as straightforward. To come to terms with Antony’s character, we must analyze the aspects of his identity that he ignores. He is, in the end, a man ruled by passion as much as by reason. Likewise, the play offers us a worldview in which one sensibility cannot easily dominate another. Reason cannot ever fully conquer the passions, nor can passion wholly undo reason.
Read about the related theme of the complexity of action in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
The Clash of Civilizations
Antony and Cleopatra dramatizes a key historical moment in the conflict between two great civilizations: Rome and Egypt, which may be construed in terms of “West” and “East,” respectively. This conflict is a matter of military might, but it is also an ideological conflict wrapped up in competing values and sensibilities. Significantly, the values Shakespeare attributes to each civilization must be understood as historically linked to Elizabethan England. It is from that particular historical vantage that, for example, Rome becomes the civilization defined by a preoccupation with law, order, and conquest. Meanwhile, Egypt is a land associated with aesthetic and sensual pleasure. In contrast to the Roman obsession with duty, Egypt is a land ruled by appetite and passion. Whereas the Romans pride themselves on sobriety and self-control, the Egyptians enjoy lavish feasts, music, and unbridled sexuality. Finally, in opposition to Rome’s obsession with masculinity, Egypt is a feminized place where gender boundaries aren’t rigorously policed. The chief emblem of Rome is the geographical breadth of the empire itself, expanding in ways that consolidate more and more power in the hands of a ruling elite. By contrast, the chief emblem of Egypt is the Nile River, whose seasonal flooding symbolizes excess and fertility.
In the play, the opposition between Rome and Egypt is represented by the differences between Octavius and Cleopatra. Octavius embodies all the traditionally Roman virtues, including both a sense of duty to the empire and an ambitious drive to accrue more power to himself through military prowess. Octavius’s concerns throughout the play are certainly imperial: he means to invade foreign lands to invest them with traditions and sensibilities of his own. By contrast, Cleopatra is as excessive in her passions as the Nile itself. Emotionally mercurial and prone to theatrics, her allegiance seems always to align with the pursuit of excitement and pleasure. Though the clash between Octavian Rome and Cleopatran Egypt plays out in physical conflicts, Shakespeare depicts the clash most powerfully through Antony. Indeed, his internal conflict represents, in miniature, the conflict between two civilizations with diametrically opposed values. It is thus through Antony’s psyche that West meets East. In the end, though, and despite Octavius’s military triumph and Antony’s suicide, West cannot decisively conquer East. Cleopatra’s suicide flouts Octavius’s desire to possess her, suggesting that the East will persevere as a visible and unconquerable counterpoint to the West.
Read a later English depiction of this cultural clash in E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India.
The Definition of Honor
The concept of honor arises again and again throughout Antony and Cleopatra, often with competing values attached. Thus, just as the play dramatizes a clash between civilizations, it also represents a conflict over the definition of honor. The predominant notion of honor that appears in the play is associated with the Romans. Early in the play, for instance, Octavius laments Antony’s decline from his former glory, explicitly framing this decline as a loss of honor: “It wounds thine honor that I speak it now” (1.5.79). For Octavius, the wound to Antony’s honor is a matter of his decline from a great hero to an abased lover. Antony’s dishonor is therefore about his passion for Cleopatra, which Octavius sees as a form of emasculation. Antony implicitly affirms this link between honor and masculinity when he decides to go to war with Octavius. As he tells his new wife, Octavia: “If I lose mine honor, / I lose myself” (3.4.23–25). Octavius has insulted Antony by not consulting with him before going to war with Pompey and imprisoning Lepidus. These acts have wounded Antony’s honor, and the only way to heal the wound and restore his honor is to assert himself in battle.
The Romans’ masculine ideal of honor comes under scrutiny at several moments in the play. For example, consider the scene where Pompey rejects Menas’s idea about assassinating the triumvirs while they are celebrating a new peace deal on board Pompey’s ship. Pompey tells Menas: “Thou must know / ‘Tis not my profit that does lead mine honor; / Mine honor it” (2.7.88–90). Pompey claims to privilege his honor over the profit he would gain by assassinating the triumvirs and assuming ultimate power for himself. But though he frames his decision as an abstract matter of honor, it’s clear that he isn’t expressly against the act of assassination. As Pompey tells Menas, he would have approved of the killing had his servant executed the plan without telling him in advance. In this way, Shakespeare suggests that Pompey’s notion of honor is about plausible deniability, which means it’s ultimately about optics. Elsewhere, Cleopatra makes the same point with more explicit force: “Good now, play one scene / Of excellent dissembling, and let it look / Like perfect honor” (1.3.94–96). Ever the actress, Cleopatra makes the cheeky implication that honor is ultimately little more than a convincing performance.
Read about how Shakespeare uses honor as a theme in Julius Caesar.
