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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What, according to Enobarbus, ails Lepidus after the meeting with Pompey?

2. To whom does the triumphant victor in the first scene of Act 3 speak?

3. What does Antony, in Act 4, Scene 2's terminal line, say he and his fellows ought to drown?

4. According to Canidius, where did Caesar fight Pompey?

5. Who does Canidius say he will follow now that the battle of Actium is over?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Enobarbus tell Menas that that which has caused amity between Caesar and Antony will likewise "prove the immediate author of their variance"?

2. For what reason does Antony spurn the news that has come from Rome at the play's beginning?

3. For what reasons are tensions brewing between Antony and Caesar in Act 3, Scene 4?

4. How do his companions react to Antony's speeches in Act 4, Scene 2?

5. What characterizes the reports that the messenger gives to Cleopatra of Octavia?

6. What is the significance of the discussion between Enobarbus and Agrippa in the first part of Act 3, Scene 2?

7. How does Cleopatra act in Antony's absence?

8. For what reason does Mecaenas imply that striking Antony while the beleaguered triumvir is in his rage is strategically sound

9. In what way does Antony compose himself in Act 4, Scene 2?

10. What is the meaning and significance of "a Lethe'd dulness" as Pompey uses the phrase in line 27 of Act 2, Scene 1?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Of all Cleopatra's many unique character traits, none is perhaps as efficacious on the action and plot of the story as her vanity. In a well-written essay, analyze the cataclysm that is caused by her vain pursuits. In what instances does she show her vanity? How does it affect characters and their actions? What sparks her vain tendencies? What is the evident moral consequence of indulging one's own vanity, as demonstrated by Cleopatra?

Essay Topic 2

A seldom explicitly mentioned theme throughout the play is the fidelity and infidelity of minor characters despite maltreatment and disregard for their more fundamental rights. Thoughtfully explicate this theme in a well-developed essay. How do the various minor characters demonstrate their fidelity and to whom? For what reasons do the characters evidently remain loyal? Contrariwise, which characters forsake their obligations to fidelity, and for what reasons are they motivated to do so? What do these various relationships of disparate levels of fidelity indicate about the fundamental human tendencies regarding loyalty?

Essay Topic 3

Keeping in mind that a tragedy is a story of human action which, by the means of free will and fate, results in exceptional calamity and the death or disintegration of the life of an extraordinary man, analyze the relationship between the story of Antony and Cleopatra with the archetypal indications of tragedy in a well-thought-out essay. What indicates the story to be a tragedy? What is the significance of all the central elements of the story insofar as they relate to tragedy? In what does the play's tragedy specifically consist?

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