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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 animal does Antony jokingly describe for the drunken Lepidus?

2. What location is reported as being taken by Caesar in Act 3, Scene 7?

3. Whose body is borne before the triumphant victor in Parthia?

4. Whose ship hoists its sail and flies, "like a cow in June"?

5. Who brings news to Pompey that Mark Antony is returning to Rome?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. For what reason does Cleopatra send Alexas to Italy?

3. Why is it suggested by Agrippa that Mark Antony be married to Octavia?

4. For what reason does Ventidius claim he leaves some soldiering undone?

5. How does Cleopatra expose her true self in Act 3, Scene 13?

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

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

8. What does Caesar imply by his directions regarding giving the soldiers a feast the night before the battle at Alexandria?

9. What does the sight of Thyreus kissing Cleopatra's hand provoke in Mark Antony?

10. Under what condition would Caesar grant lands in Sicily to Mark Antony?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In the third act of the play, the fortunes of the two sides of the external conflict are reversed by the machinations of free will. Examine in a thoroughly-developed analytical essay this reversal of fortune. How had the fortunes of Antony and his companions been positively progressing throughout the first few acts of the play? In what way do they regress in the second half? How is this affected in the third act of the play? What particular actions, and of whom, are responsible for the inception of the downfall of the triumvir Antony and in what do they consist?

Essay Topic 2

An essential element of the tragic play is the evocation of pity from the audience. In order to evoke pity, the audience must be enabled to relate with the characters caught up in the tragedy. In a broad-minded and considerate essay, analyze the means by which the play makes those involved in the tragedy, principally Antony and Cleopatra, but also Enobarbus and Eros, as well as any others caught in the struggles between mightier characters, sympathetic to the audience or reader. What scenes demonstrate the unfortunate nature of these characters' sufferings? How do they portray the characters as pitiable? What is the fundamental root of relation between the audience and the pitiable characters in these scenes? What does this reveal about dramatic tragedy and its relationship to human nature?

Essay Topic 3

A dominant means of exposition and plot movement in the play is through the unseen but contextually described battles. Being careful to read out from the play and not into the play, explicate the significance of the battles at Actium and Alexandria, analyzing in what ways the various victories and defeats occur and what the significance of each is. Who wins the battle? How does he win the battle? What are the consequences of the battle being won? What is revealed about the various involved characters through their reactions to the conclusions of the various battles?

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