Antony and Cleopatra Critical Essay | Carol Thomas Neely

Carol Thomas Neely

SOURCE: "Gender and Genre in Antony and Cleopatra" in Broken Nuptials In Shakespeare's Plays, University of Illinois Press, 1994, pp. 136-65.

In the following essay originally published in 1985, Neely argues that in Antony and Cleopatra "genre boundaries are . . . enlarged" to include "motifs, themes, and characterization "from Shakespeare's comedies, tragicomedies, and tragedies. Likewise, she contends that "gender distinctions . . . are expanded, magnified, and ratified" in this work as in no other Shakespearean play.

Here I am Antony
Yet cannot hold this visible shape.

No more but e'en a woman . . .

It is shaped, sir, like itself.

Critics have long found Antony and Cleopatra a peculiar play whose genre is problematic. It has been viewed as an anomaly among the tragedies, a Roman play, a problem play, a precursor of the romances, and, most commonly, a blend of comedy and tragedy.¹ Recently, psychoanalytic and...
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