For example, the play-within-the-play, "Pyramus and Thisbe," presents a story of misguided lovers, continuing the overall drama's obsession with love and, in particular, with the often crooked course of love, which, as Lysander proclaimed in the previous scene, never runs true. While this scene seems to provide a complete contrast with the previous scene, there is also some continuity in the action. With the entry of the players into the action, Shakespeare introduces the notion of class difference and provides a reflection on the position and character of actors within society. From the palace of the Duke, we move to the home of Quince, a working-class man. The tone and atmosphere of the play change in this scene along with the setting. When the casting is finally finished, Quince sends the players off to learn their lines and tells them to meet for a rehearsal the following evening at the Duke's oak. Bottom agrees to temper his roar, making it gentle as a "sucking dove," but Quince flatters him by insisting that Snug must keep the part of the lion because only Bottom can play the leading role of Pyramus. They worry that if the lion is too authentic, the women in the audience will be frightened, literally, to death: They fear that Theseus might have them hanged for scaring the ladies. Snug, the joiner, is cast in the role of the lion.īottom wants to appropriate this role (as he wanted to appropriate the others), claiming his roar could make the ladies shriek. Not happy to play a female role because he wants to let his beard grow, Flute is pleased to learn that he can wear a mask for the performance so he won't need to shave. Flute, the bellows mender, is assigned the role of the heroine, Thisbe. Nick Bottom, the weaver who is an entertaining but foolish man, usurps Quince's authority as director and claims he would like to play all of the roles in the drama. Quince is in the process of assigning roles to the various players but meets with many objections to his casting efforts. The play enacts the tragic story of Pyramus and Thisbe, two young lovers who die during a clandestine meeting. Without that power, and the honor implied by it, their relationship means nothing.In this scene, the action shifts to the cottage of Peter Quince, the director of a band of amateur actors who are planning a play to perform for Theseus and Hippolyta's wedding. The lovers could have stayed together in disgrace, or run off, but the real basis of their love for each other is the power each of them holds. The love between Antony and Cleopatra is based on power. This is why he can betray Cleopatra so easily for Octavia, and why, at one point, he decides he hates Cleopatra, thinking she’s wronged him politically by joining Caesar. How can Antony so quickly decide to marry Octavia when his wife Fulvia has just died and he claims to love Cleopatra? Is love just a political consideration for him or does it mean anything greater? What does it mean that Antony never formally marries Cleopatra?įor Antony, politics is his first love.What is the basis of their loyalty -love or duty? What other kinds of love exist in the play besides the love between Antony and Cleopatra? Enobarbus, Charmian, and Iras all die for their masters, out of some kind of heartbreak.
Did Antony and Cleopatra’s love for each other have to be doomed? Was it ultimately their love, or political necessities, that drove them apart from each other?.Is this tragedy also a love story? Which elements of it are more romantic, and which more tragic? Does the power of the play come from the combination of those two tropes?.The characters’ actions and reactions to one another are all informed by love’s effect on decision-making-specifically, love’s ability to blind people to reason where love is concerned, and the constant fear of losing love. Though love ultimately fails in the end (because the lovers can’t be together), it is upheld and honored by the lovers’ suicidal loyalty to each other. Unlike Shakespeare's more romantic plays- A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing-the foundation of this play is tragedy. Love is a central theme of Antony and Cleopatra because it’s always in question. Love can be a many splendored thing, but it certainly isn't here.
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