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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. How many lines are there in Act 4, Scene 11?

2. What does Enobarbus throw against the "flint and hardness" of his fault, figuratively speaking?

3. Whom does Caesar send to Antony to implore him to surrender in the first scene of the final act?

4. To whose "prepared nails" does Antony refer?

5. With whom has Antony's most recent deserter been discovered in Act 4, Scene 5?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Antony behave towards his servants before the battle at Alexandria?

2. What does Antony say will happen to Cleopatra if she does not vanish after his fleet has betrayed him?

3. For what reason does Caesar seek to preserve the life of Cleopatra after hearing that Antony has died?

4. What characterizes Enobarbus' speech which he calls upon the moon to witness?

5. What does the sudden music expose within the soldiers of Antony before the battle at Alexandria?

6. How does Caesar gain an advantage by holding his land forces still?

7. What is revealed by Antony's immediate blame of Cleopatra for the surrender of his fleet?

8. How does Antony react to the desertion by Enobarbus?

9. Why does Caesar insist upon being still with his land forces on the second day of Battle at Alexandria?

10. What does Enobarbus reveal about Caesar in Act 4, Scene 6?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Throughout Antony and Cleopatra's stormy relationship in the play, it is shown that their love is always a hair's-breadth away from becoming hate, and vice-versa. In a well-developed analytical essay, examine the nature of Antony and Cleopatra's relationship insofar as it alternates from one extreme to another. What propels the characters to launch from one condition to another? How is hate assuaged and love incited? In what way are the two conditions similarly portrayed?

Essay Topic 2

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 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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This section contains 822 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample