SOURCE: Turner, John. Introduction to The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra, by William Shakespeare, edited by John Turner, pp. 13-29. New York: Prentice Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1995.

In the following essay, Turner examines Shakespeare's treatment of Rome in Antony and Cleopatra, suggesting that his view of the empire was fueled by an imaginative return to the “honour culture” of late medieval aristocrats. Turner also comments on the major relationships within the play, and on the love poetry of Antony and Cleopatra.

The stage upon which The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra is enacted is a site upon which competitors meet. …

I am using the word ‘competitor’ in that precise but ambiguous sense which it enjoys throughout the play, and which, according to the OED, it enjoyed for the century between 1579 and 1681: a sense fluctuating between ‘rival’ and ‘associate’, and implying both the competition and collaboration that today—though we...