View a FREE sample

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

Short Answer Questions

1. When asked by Cleopatra "what shall we do?" in Act 3, Scene 13, what does Enobarbus reply?

2. For what reason does Caesar claim he arrested Lepidus?

3. To whom is it proposed that Antony be married?

4. Of what is Antony told concerning his wife in the play's second scene?

5. Upon whose trencher does Antony say he found Cleopatra as a "cold morsel"?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Menas propose to make Pompey the ruler of the world?

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

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

4. How does Caesar instruct Thyreus to win Cleopatra from Antony?

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

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

7. For what reason does Antony insist upon assailing Caesar by sea at Actium, despite the protestations of his loyal men?

8. What characterizes the responses by Antony's subordinates to his announcement that he will fight Caesar by sea at Actium?

9. What causes Antony to experience a dramatic change at the play's beginning?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Compose a carefully crafted and well-planned analytical essay on the character of Mark Antony. As the story's protagonist, he is regarded as an extraordinary man whose life ends in exceptional calamity and disintegration. What are his principal character traits? In what ways does Antony stand out from the rest of the characters in the story? How do these contribute to his being an extraordinary man? What affects his downfall? What characterizes the disintegration of Antony's life? How does Antony's life drive the lives of others and the plot of the story? What way of life does Antony represent?

Essay Topic 2

In contrast to the more nuanced influences of the play, the direct cause of the play's tragic outcome is quite obviously the external conflict between Mark Antony and Octavius Caesar. However, the drastic importance of this conflict, its political and historical implications, have a drastic influence on the overall significance of the play. Why is the conflict important to the whole world? How is this indicated in the play? What is at stake in the conflict between the two triumvirs? What is the relationship between the greater significance of this conflict and the significance of the play as a tragedy?

Essay Topic 3

The tragic conclusion of Antony and Cleopatra is somewhat mitigated by the portrayal and evident Roman perception of the nobility of suicide. By carefully developing a well-structured essay, analyze the reasons behind the Roman view of suicide and explicate how this effects the conclusion of the play. What is significant about the various characters ending their own lives? How does such action alter the ending of the play? What is the fundamental correlation between death and nobility? Upon what principles is the Roman conception of suicide in the face of being conquered as noble founded? Be sure to explicate through examples from the text.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 890 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample