SOURCE: “Antony and Cleopatra: The Limits of Mythology,” in Shakespeare Survey, Vol. 23, 1970, pp. 59-67.

In the following essay, Fisch considers archetypal patterns of love/war and fertility/death associated with Roman and Egyptian mythological allusions in Antony and Cleopatra. The critic concludes by explaining the ways in which these mythological patterns are transcended at the close of the drama.

I

When critics speak of myth and ritual in Shakespeare they have in mind chiefly the symbolic structure of the plays. Thus The Winter's Tale which begins in winter (‘a sad tale's best for winter’, I, i, 25) and ends in high summer (‘not yet on summer's death nor on the birth of trembling winter’, IV, iv, 80) perfectly corresponds to the fertility rhythm. The accent on fertility in the sheep-shearing in Act IV gives to the structural form its emotional and spiritual content, whilst the symbolic revival of Hermione at...