Antony And Cleopatra (Paperback-2024)

Antony and Cleopatra is a well-known tragedy by William Shakespeare. Its first known appearance in print came in the First Folio of 1623. The plot is based on Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives, and follows the relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony—from the time of the Sicilian revolt—to Cleopatra’s suicide during the Final War of the Roman Republic. Octavius Caesar is the major antagonist. He was Antony’s fellow triumviri of the Second Triumvirate and the first emperor of the Roman Empire, Augustus Caesar. The play is set in Rome and Egypt, and is marked by swift, panoramic shifts in geographical locations.

William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England’s national poet and the “Bard of Avon” (or simply “The Bard”). His surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language, and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1590 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century. Next he wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest examples in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime, and in 1623 two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare’s.