Antony and Cleopatra (Vol. 47) | Martha Tuck Rozett (essay date 1985)
Martha Tuck Rozett (essay date 1985)
SOURCE: "The Comic Structures of Tragic Endings: The Suicide Scenes in Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra," in Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 2, Summer, 1985, pp. 152-64.
[In the following essay, Rozett compares the comic elements in the endings of Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra, arguing that in Antony and Cleopatra Shakespeare more successfully dramatized the comic factors of a tragic situation.]
In tragedies of love, as distinct from tragedies in which love is made subordinate to revenge, ambition, or some other emotion, the two lovers theoretically have equal claims on the role normally reserved for a single protagonist. In the Shakespeare canon this equal claim is signaled by the title: Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra, and, if one wishes to include a play that is not generically a tragedy, Troilus and Cressida....
[The entire page is 8090 words long]
Navigate
