All for Love Essay Questions

How does Dryden’s insistence upon adhering to the conventions of neoclassical drama diverge from Shakespeare’s approach to the same material?

Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra is essentially a historical drama firmly rooted in the conventions of Elizabethan tragedy. As a result, in the Bard's version, spectacle and emotion trump formalist rules for decorum. Shakespeare makes the Queen of Egypt and her Roman lover larger than life and the expansiveness of the narrative gives it an epic quality distinctly missing from Dryden. By rigidly observing the fundamental neoclassical ideal of ensuring that characters maintained a realistic sense of decorum coincident with their station in life, Dryden writes a subtler and more unassuming version of the story. This is the primary reason why the Queen’s eunuch Alexas is the engine driving the story and not Cleopatra herself. Another convention of neoclassical dramatic ideals strongly suggests that the playwright confine the action to a very limited time period; usually, as in this case, just twenty-four hours. Obeying this convention further serves to limit the epic potential for the story.

Although Dryden is writing about the same characters that Shakespeare portrayed earlier, what other tragedy by the Bard rings more familiar by the conclusion of All for Love?

Antony and Cleopatra is a grand tragic romance underpinned by monumental history in Shakespeare’s hands. The limitations imposed by neoclassicism force Dryden’s hand and the result is a much more claustrophobic psychological romance. Antony and Cleopatra spend most of the play acting like teenagers in love instead of complex adults steering the course of history for millions. These two almost inevitably bring to mind Romeo and Juliet rather than Mark Antony and Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile. The end is eerily similar to the end of Shakespeare’s most oft-performed tragedy. When one thinks the other dead, they commit suicide. Upon discovery of this, the other joins their partner in their own suicidal act.

What is the conflict in the play and who is the antagonist?

In many ways, it is difficult to identify just one conflict and one central antagonist. If one were to take the play at face value, Antony is the play's protagonist, and Octavius, his military rival, the antagonist. The conflict, then, is the military threat to Egypt, as well as the threat to Antony's love affair with Cleopatra. However, looking at it a different way, Antony's unwavering love for Cleopatra is its own conflict, in that it is this affair that is causing the military conflict to begin with. In this light, we might see Antony as both protagonist and antagonist, a self-sabotaging tragic hero who cannot objectively determine what is best for himself and his country. Also, Alexas might be viewed as an antagonist, in that it is he who continually manipulates the situation to bring Cleopatra and Antony back together time and again.

What do we know about Antony's temperament from the way he describes himself and the way other characters describe him?

We learn that Antony is defined by his transparency and his earnest and strong feelings. Several times, characters allude to the fact that when Antony does something, he does it with his whole self. This can be beneficial to the state and his country if he is leading the military, but damaging in the case of his affair with Cleopatra. Additionally, he is not able to conceal his emotions, and regularly gets into more and more trouble because of his earnest expressivity.

Describe Alexas' role in the conflict.

Alexas is a complicated and fascinating character. A eunuch, he has literally been castrated in the Egyptian court and as such serves as a sort of liminal body, someone who acts as a messenger between the feminine and the masculine world. As one of Cleopatra's closest advisors, he is often encouraging her to do whatever it takes to keep Antony by her side, which often involves a certain amount of manipulation and scheming. At the end of the play, he devises the lie that Cleopatra has killed herself, in order to distract Antony from killing him.