Female Power, Maternity and Genderbending in Shakespeares Antony and C

Female Power, Maternity and Genderbending in Shakespeares Antony and Cleopatra The 19th century essayist and literary critic William Hazlitt wrote of Cleopatra, She is voluptuous, ostentatious, conscious, boastful of her charms, haughty, tyrannical, and fickle, which are great and inexcusable faults (Hazlitt 2-3). Much of the criticism of Antony and Cleopatra has recycled this judgement, depicting Cleopatra as a villainess uses her eroticism and sexual urge to motivate Antony to seek business leader. Cleopatra is memorable for her propensity for violence as well. date Antony and Cleopatra was written after the death of a violent English queen, Elizabeth I, Shakespeare whitethorn have been faced with a dramatic dilemma how to make a woman come out believably violent and intimidating on the stage. Copplia Kahn notes that Cleopatra was capital of Italys roughly dangerous enemy (111),i but how does one make the Queen of the Nile seem like such a threat during a time when women had petty(a) social and political power. Shakespeare does several things to accomplish this task 1) he locates Cleopatras power in a foreign or supernatural realm 2) he inverts her gender role with that of Antony 3) he suppresses her maternal qualities and 4) he allows her to be save only in death. Indeed, it is the only way to handle a rough woman on the Jacobean stage.Locating Codes of Female Power In Antony and Cleopatra, the Roman values of honor and bravery embody masculinity, while Egypt and the manoeuvre symbolize feminine weakness and fragility. Caesar and Agrippa are depicted as reasonable, logical, and practical, peculiarly in matters of strategy and war. Cleopatra and her servants and eunuchs are consistently referred to in terms of laziness, let... ...ication of her top-hole intelligence. She understands that, should she live, she will be taken to Rome and will suffer the mortification of seeing some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness / I th posture of a wh ore (V, ii, 216-217). iv In addition, Cleopatra has demonstrated her readiness in the outgoing to ruin Egypt for Antonys sake. Without blinking, she considers unpeopling her country in order to send a smart messenger to Antony in Rome every day. To mirror Antonys Let Rome in Tiber sink, Cleopatra says, Let Egypt in Nile melt. v Of course, her actions indicate that, as a Roman wife, her entire existence must center on Antony only, which nub a rejection of anything else, including her earthly children (What should I stay--). The point is to emphasize her selfishness and her absolute concentrate on Antony, a constant of the queens personality.