In what ways is the clash between Egypt and Rome in Antony and Cleopatra and Republicanism and Monarchy in Julius Caesar of interest to Shakespeare’s time and ours?
‘Shakespeare is topical to our time, he lived as we do now, in an age of transition, an age of revolution and calamities in which the old faith had been lost, and the new one had not yet appeared.” In what ways is the clash between Egypt and Rome in Antony and Cleopatra and Republicanism and Monarchy in Julius Caesar of interest to Shakespeare’s time and ours?
The 16th and early 17th century was an era fraught with uncertainty for England as it was unclear as to who would succeed an ageing Elizabeth. The Succession was a constant issue throughout the Tudor and Jacobean ages as was the fear of civil war and discontent with monarchs. Shakespeare manages to catch these political and religious worries very well with Antony and Cleopatra and Julius Caesar as he uses the internal political crises in the two plays as forums and devices to showcase Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Such confrontations between opposing forces and ideologies can also be seen like those in the 20th and 21st centuries in the form of to the Cold War, a period of consistent tension between the USA and the USSR, defending their beliefs in Capitalism and Communism. A modern audience would be interested in the move away from monarchy in modern times and a society dominated by Parliament as this was the complete reverse of Elizabethan England.
Antony and Cleopatra was written sometime between 1606-07, a time when “according to Bishop Goodman that although people were ‘generally weary of an old woman’s government’ by the end of the Elizabeth’s reign, experience of James soon prompted a revival of her reputation” (1). Therefore it is possible to say that Antony and Cleopatra was used as political exploration in dramatizing the difference between Rome and Egypt, a contemporary audience would take this to represent division in the reigns of Elizabeth and James. This contrast is evident straight away in the very first scene.
It presents a vivid dramatic contrast between the Roman military,
The 16th and early 17th century was an era fraught with uncertainty for England as it was unclear as to who would succeed an ageing Elizabeth. The Succession was a constant issue throughout the Tudor and Jacobean ages as was the fear of civil war and discontent with monarchs. Shakespeare manages to catch these political and religious worries very well with Antony and Cleopatra and Julius Caesar as he uses the internal political crises in the two plays as forums and devices to showcase Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Such confrontations between opposing forces and ideologies can also be seen like those in the 20th and 21st centuries in the form of to the Cold War, a period of consistent tension between the USA and the USSR, defending their beliefs in Capitalism and Communism. A modern audience would be interested in the move away from monarchy in modern times and a society dominated by Parliament as this was the complete reverse of Elizabethan England.
Antony and Cleopatra was written sometime between 1606-07, a time when “according to Bishop Goodman that although people were ‘generally weary of an old woman’s government’ by the end of the Elizabeth’s reign, experience of James soon prompted a revival of her reputation” (1). Therefore it is possible to say that Antony and Cleopatra was used as political exploration in dramatizing the difference between Rome and Egypt, a contemporary audience would take this to represent division in the reigns of Elizabeth and James. This contrast is evident straight away in the very first scene.
It presents a vivid dramatic contrast between the Roman military,