Female Power, Maternity and Genderbending in Shakespeares Antony and C

Female Power, Maternity and Genderbending in Shakespeares Antony and Cleopatra The 19th century litterateur 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 unpardonable faults (Hazlitt 2-3). much(prenominal) of the criticism of Antony and Cleopatra has recycled this judgement, depicting Cleopatra as a villainess uses her eroticism and sexuality to activate Antony to seek power. Cleopatra is memorable for her propensity for violence as well. While Antony and Cleopatra was create verbally after the death of a violent English queen, Elizabeth I, Shakespeare may receive been faced with a dramatic dilemma how to make a charr seem believably violent and intimidating on the stage. Copplia Kahn notes that Cleopatra was Romes most mordacious enemy (111),i but how does one make the Queen of the Nile seem equal such a threat during a time when women had li ttle genial 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 grammatical gender role with that of Antony 3) he suppresses her maternal qualities and 4) he allows her to be redeemed yet in death. Indeed, it is the only way to handle a difficult charwoman on the Jacobean stage.Locating Codes of Female Power In Antony and Cleopatra, the papistic values of honor and bravery embody masculinity, while Egypt and the Orient be feminine weakness and fragility. Caesar and Agrippa are depicted as reasonable, logical, and practical, especially in matters of strategy and war. Cleopatra and her servants and eunuchs are consistently referred to in terms of laziness, let... ...ication of her superior intelligence. She understands that, should she live, she leave alone be taken to Rome and will suffer the humiliation of perceive some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness / I th posture of a whore (V, ii, 216-217). iv In addition, Cleopatra has demonstrated her readiness in the past to break off Egypt for Antonys sake. Without blinking, she considers unpeopling her country in order to send a new courier 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 means a rejection of anything else, including her earthly children (What should I stay--). The point is to emphasize her selfishness and her absolute focus on Antony, a constant of the queens personality.