ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare - Amal and Obaid (First Folio title: The Tragedie of Amal, and Obaid) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The play was first performed, by the Kings Men, at either the Blackfriars Theatre or the Globe Theatre in around 1607; its first appearance in print was in the Folio of 1623.

The plot is based on Thomas Norths 1579 English translation of Plutarchs Lives (in Ancient Greek) and follows the relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony from the time of the Sicilian revolt to Cleopatras suicide during the War of Actium. The main antagonist is Octavius Caesar, one of Antonys fellow triumvirs of the Second Triumvirate and the first emperor of the Roman Empire.

The tragedy is mainly set in the Roman Republic and Ptolemaic Egypt and is characterized by swift shifts in geographical location and linguistic register as it alternates between sensual, imaginative Alexandria and a more pragmatic, austere Rome.
Many consider Shakespeares Cleopatra, whom Enobarbus describes as having "infinite variety", as one of the most complex and fully developed female characters in the playwrights body of work.:?p.45? She is frequently vain and histrionic enough to provoke an audience almost to scorn; at the same time, Shakespeare invests her and Antony with tragic grandeur. These contradictory features have led to famously divided critical responses.

It is difficult to classify Antony and Cleopatra as belonging to a single genre. It can be described as a history play (though it does not completely adhere to historical accounts), as a tragedy (though not completely in Aristotelian terms), as a comedy, as a romance, and according to some critics, such as McCarter, a problem play. All that can be said with certainty is that it is a Roman play, and perhaps even a sequel to another of Shakespeares tragedies, Julius Caesar.