Northrop Frye on Shakespeare is an essential companion to anyone reading Shakespeare. My only complaint is that it doesn't cover every play that we are talking about in class. At any rate, I spent part of my spring break catching up on reading (unfortunately not blogging) and considering just what I think about our man, Billy Shakes.
Albeit late, a few morsels of goodness that Frye writes about Antony and Cleopatra are worth sharing. Generally speaking, Frye comments on how amazing it is that Shakespeare has vividly imagined a world much like our own. While considering mythology, Shakespeare, and our world today I can clearly see how history repeats itself and how the human condition is one that spans immortals and mortals alike. In reflection on this idea (or fact in my opinion) I am reminded of the countless times I've heard the phrase "kids these days..." or, "it just isn't like it use to be..." and in return I've been annoyed and slightly angered about the ignorance reflected in the person making the complaint. I've never been able to find the right words of defense, but always knew that people have no progressively gotten worse and loose in their morals. Authors, such as Shakespeare, have made it completely evident that people did not start out as "good" and then digressed to evil over time. This rant has gone a little further away than I expected, so let me use Cleopatra as an example.
Cleopatra...Lisette hyperboles her disgust for the character, but "love love love" for the play. I am curious as to if it is her natural disgust for the "selfish" Cleopatra that is so alluring to Lisette. Overall, I like the play, but "love" is not a word in my vocabulary that I can connect with Antony and Cleopatra. Appreciation, comprehension, an overall neutral feeling...those are words that come to mind. At any rate, let's see what Frye has to say about the play.
One world exists in A&C where the air is thick with information and news, but it is the two aspects of this one world that cause the change to happen all at once; the aspect of "law and order" which Rome represents, and the aspect of "sensual extravagance and licence" represented by Egypt. Essentially, three people control the lives and fortunes of millions. "The fact that two of them are lovers means that what is normally a private matter, the sexual relation, becomes an illuminated focus of contemporary history." Brilliant! Matt Helms suggested that A&C is much like a typical high school love story, but then it was pointed out that Antony and Cleopatra are old (gasp! "old people" can't have love affairs! -I hope my sarcasm is sensed). Although Matt was on the right track, the forbidden love of A&C is more like that of an office romance. I am not sure when society began to believe that two people could not engage in a sexual relation and have a professional relation at the same time, but it long before modern day, and obviously well before the time of A&C. Again, Shakespeare (with the help of Frye) is blowing my mind in his ability to predict how our modern day world looks and runs.
Today, when a woman uses sex to "sell" something to the public we criticize her, but when Cleopatra used sex as a political weapon the people were afraid of her. Frye points out that Queen Elizabeth also used sex as a tactic for political control, but it was her virginity that claimed the power. The Romans were afraid of Cleopatra and why wouldn't they be? The sexuality of a woman was a power that no Roman army could muster a fight against. Does this make Cleopatra a "bad" person? For me, it is not her use of sexuality that is bothersome, but her sly intelligence along with selfishness that sits uncomfortably on my mind. Frye remarks that reading A&C as a sort of romance or moral melodrama is the most elementary misreading of the play. I believe it is the idea that anyone could consider the romance of Antony and Cleopatra to be romantic at all that rests uneasily with me. Love is a shape-shifter that allows even the most dreadful of situations to be believe as blissful.
According to Plutarch, when Mark Antony first met Cleopatra, he tried to out do her extravagance, and failed miserably ( though I don’t think it bothered him much as he had found the love of his life.). Plutarch said;
ReplyDelete"On her arrival, Antony sent to invite her to supper. She thought it fitter he should come to her; so, willing to show his good humor and courtesy, he complied, and went. He found the preparations to receive him magnificent beyond expression, but nothing so admirable as the great number of lights; for on a sudden there was let down altogether so great a number of branches with lights in them so ingeniously disposed, some in squares, and some in circles, that the whole thing was a spectacle that has seldom been equaled for beauty.
The next day, Antony invited her to supper, and was very desirous to outdo her as well in magnificence as contrivance; but he found he was altogether beaten in both, and was so well convinced of it, that he was himself the first to jest and mock at his poverty of wit, and his rustic awkwardness. She, perceiving that his raillery was broad and gross, and savored more of the soldier than the courtier, rejoined in the same taste, and fell into it at once, without any sort of reluctance or reserve”.
http://www.primarysourcebook.com/ancient/antony-cleopatra-meet-41-bce