Antony and Cleopatra (Arden Shakespeare: Third Series)

OK, it is fictional but who buys this & doesn't already know the plot?More strange review questions from Amazon to get here but the bookis excellent, commentary top-knotch and overall condition great. I justbought this so I wouldn't have to lug my RSC Shakespeare into bedeach nite!

This is a vastly underrated play. It is excellent and terribly complex; it features Shakespeare's take on this famous relationship, one of the first power couples. It plays off Plutarch's Lives, so having background with that is helpful. Cleopatra is one of Shakespeare's best female characters.

The Arden Shakespeare are both scholarly and inviting to read. Antony and Cleopatra is an underappreciated and under-read play; it is "essential Shakespeare," among the great plays such as Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth and Othello.

It took awhile to get this item but the wait is worth it. I re-read Shakespeare plays before I see them to get all the nuance of the language. I'm attending a performance of Antony in a few weeks. The Arden Shakespeare is known for its detailed introductions and copious notes. This edition is no different. The play is probably "B" Shakespeare--- it is not juvenalia but not Hamlet or King Lear (or even Julius Caesar) either.

This is one of Shakespeare's least performed plays, but merits reading. After reading this, our Shakespeare play-reading group also read Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra and loved it

This book was very helpful with insights posted throughout for those who may have trouble with Shakespeare's writings. Would recommend it highly.

As I make my way through Shakespeare's plays, many of them for the first time, I continue to be amazed at how Shakespeare continues to outdo himself, to expand horizons. To give the full title of ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA as denominated in the 1623 Folio, it is "The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra". And among Shakespeare's creations, it follows "King Lear" and "Macbeth", two of the bleakest and most harrowing tragedies by Shakespeare or anyone else. Yet the "Tragedy" of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra is not particularly bleak, harrowing, or tragic -- certainly not like "King Lear" and "Macbeth". To be sure, the title characters both die at the end of the play. But their deaths partake of a certain staged grandeur. Indeed, both deaths are self-choreographed. It is part of a general exuberance that marks the entire play. Perhaps Shakespeare is suggesting that the over-the-top gusto and vitality that Antony and Cleopatra display is another way for humans to live -- an alternative to the intense introspection of Hamlet, or the nihilistic madness of Lear, or the vaulting ambition and bloodlust of Macbeth.The play has a brisk pace, even for Shakespeare. In part, the sense of propulsion fueled by the numerous scenes (forty-three spread over five acts), with two as short as three or four spoken lines. Overall, the play is more cinematic than I recall any of Shakespeare's other plays being.I also was reminded of Verdi's opera "Aida". Perhaps that was due to the grandeur and exoticness of Egypt. Still, I wonder whether Verdi, who of course wrote three operas based directly on Shakespeare plays ("Macbeth", "Otello", and "Falstaff"), was intimately familiar with and admiring of "Antony and Cleopatra".And what can I say about Cleopatra? Other than to recommend that one be overwhelmed by her in person, either by reading the play or seeing it staged (though I suspect that few actresses are truly up to the strength, multiformity, and sheer ego of her personality).I can't say that ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA is among the absolute best of Shakespeare's plays, but I much enjoyed reading it and it is one of the five or six that I would most like to see staged.

I have the Norton's Complete Shakespeare, which is heavy, but great. I was looking for a lighter paperback edition of this one play that I was working on. This edition has an 84 page introduction. Aka a 3rd of the weight of this edition goes into the introduction. I also find the format of the footnotes harder to use and less clearly written than the Norton's. I would not recommend this edition. Keep looking.