Antony

Antony is the hero of the play, All For love, typically tragic in character. He is a great general,

beloved by his men. He is middle-aged. He is a Roman triumvirate who in his role of a leader is

caught between concern for his people and his love for a woman. He is an ally of Julius Caesar

and the main rival of his successor Octavian (later Augustus). He is also a lover of pleasure, far

less single-minded than Octavius. Antony's romantic and political alliance with Egyptian queen

Cleopatra became his downfall. He is a complicated and fatally divided man, failing to rise to the

task of generalship at key points. Plutarch represents his love for Cleopatra as the cause of his

doom, and Shakespeare shares this view, but the play also shows their love as a kind of triumph,

beautiful and wonderful on its own terms.

The story of Anthony and Cleopatra is one that is incredibly famous in literature. Anthony

sacrificed everything he had, sending the Roman Empire into complete turmoil, for love of

Cleopatra, who herself committed suicide because she was not able to contemplate life without

Anthony. Dryden's play, as its title suggests, focuses on the love between these two characters,

and in particular the dignity that this love gives them. The title All For Love clearly shows the

importance and significance of theme of love in this play. The hero here is a warrior whose

nobility and generosity are combined with a strong passion and a contemptuous disregard for the

moral code of society. When portraying the hero, Dryden concurs with the 18th century theme of

duty. It is essential and warranted of Marc Antony to take responsibility for his duties as a

general, husband, father, and his greater duty to Rome, but In All For Love he ultimately does all

for the sake of his love to Cleopatra.

Antony at the beginning displays introspection and self-reproach. The first expression we get of

Antony is from Alexas, the eunuch and close adviser of Cleopatra. Alexas tells the two priest that

how Octavia , the legitimate wife of Antony is turned away by Antony from his house and that

Dollabella ,who was once Antonys friend , now seeks Antonys ruin because of some private

grudge against him .one of the priest, she is seeking revenge on him . One of the priests,

Serapion, says that Antony for the past many days has avoided seeing Cleopatra, and has been

living in a state of retirement in the temple of Isis. According to Serapion, Antony is feeling

overwhelmed by Cleopatra black despair. Alexas says that Antony is trying, through his

advocate of Cleopatra, to cure his mind of his love for her. Thus at the outset we are informed

of Antonys state of mind, in which he is trying to drive out the thoughts of Cleopatra from his

mind. Antonys state of mind is further conveyed to us by one of Antonys followers who says

that Antony is neither eating nor drinking nor sleeping, and that Antony in all the time lost in

thoughts. If at all he talks, he talks to himself, and then he almost like a madman. This

description of Antonys state of mind by a follower of Antony shows that Antony has become

perfectly cynical with regard to his position as a ruler of half of the Roman Empire.

Antony was once fierce and feared soldier who rules the Roman Empire along with Octavius

Caesar and Lepidus. Dryden makes the war like qualities of Antony clear right from the

beginning of the play. We hear Ventidius telling . . . twelve legions wait you, /And long to call

you chief (Dryden Act I, scene I, line 337-8). Surely he was a great general once and the solders

remember him as such. His launching of a surprise attack on Octavius and giving him a thrashing

shows his skill in war-tactics. Alexas also expresses the view that their country (Egypt) has

remained safe and independent only because of Antonys fitness to defend it against invading

roman forces. The capital city of Egypt has stood proudly on the same footing as the capital city
of Rome only because Antony has stood firm. But now, Antonys character of very much

blackened by the way in which he treats his legally wedded a wife Octavia. he deserts her and his

lovely children because of his passion for Cleopatra. Antonys passionate nature becomes

evident to us during Ventidius interview with him in Act I. Here Antony confesses that he had

fled from the battle of Actium because of his passion for Cleopatra, and behaved like a coward.

This is what he says to Ventidius in the course of this interview: But I have lost my reason ,have

disgraced / the name of soldier with inglorious ease ( Dryden Act 3, Scene 2, line 393-4 ).Thus

Antony is conscious of the fact that, in fleeting from the Battle of Actium, he had acted under the

stress of his passion for Cleopatra and had ignored the demands of reason . In a later scene,

Antony tells Cleopatra that he had fled from the Battle of Actium only in order to follow her and

that by acting in this manner, he had brought only shame to himself and had stained his honor.

And Antonys passion for Cleopatra has in no way dismissed. Even when he has made up his

mind to leave Alexandria and go with Ventidius to fight against Octavius, he has no means

ceased loving Cleopatra.

We find Antonys vacillation between Octavia and Cleopatra rather a sign of his fickle

mindedness. He reconciles with Octavia, telling, I am vanquished: taken me, / Octavia; take me,

children; share me all (Dryden Act 3 scene I Line 366-7) .When the play opens, Antony has

neglected his duties as a ruler in order to live in Egypt, where he carries on a highly visible love

affair with Cleopatra. His loyalty is divided between the Western and Eastern worlds; he is torn

between the sense of duty and the desire to seek pleasure, between reason and passion. While he

feels the need to reaffirm the honor that has made him a celebrated Roman hero, he is also madly

in love with Cleopatra. In this play, Dryden has portrayed him as a pessimistic philosopher,

merely delightful, fickle minded and basically jealous, who is not a pattern of perfect virtues.
Antony seems to have acquired a new interest in the pleasures of living because of his residing in

Egypt and because of his love for Cleopatra. Finally, however, he becomes a very troubled man

because he found himself torn between a desire to be with Cleopatra and an equally strong desire

to seek and maintain power in Rome.

Antony appears a little egoistic when he expresses his disparaging remarks about Octavius. He

tells that Octavius is the minion of blind chance and that the young man has no virtuous

qualities in him. He adds that Octavius has just enough courage to avoid being called a coward

Antony has reason to consider so. Once he challenged him to a dual, but Octavius declined to

accept the challenge. He adds, He would live, like a lamp, to the last wink, / And crawl the

utmost verge of life. /O Hercules! Why should a man like this, /who dares not trust his fate for

one great action, / Be all the care of Heaven?(Dryden Act 2, Scene 1, Line 155-59) . This low

opinion Antony has for Octavius is not a balanced one and is far from a realistic to evaluate an

enemy with prejudice. It appears that Antonys sense of judgment disappeared under his

infatuation for Cleopatra. He seriously underestimates his youthful opponent, Octavius Caesar;

he believes that his own vast experience and courage on the field can make up for Octavius'

inexperienced determination. He appears to be boasting of that victory a little too much . He

imagines himself to be Mars coming from Phlegraen plains after the victory, when Cleopatra

calls him O my greater Mars. He tells boastingly to Ventidius, we can conquer/You see,

without your aid, /We have dislodged their troops (Dryden Act 3, Scene 1, line 58-61) . And

that five thousand of the solders of Octavius were killed .Ventidius who has a balance view of it

says that the loss was affordable to Octavius and that backed by the present victory Antony seek

peace with Rome. But that sage advice doesnt have any effect on Antonys ego, the boy

pursues my ruin, /hell no peace (Dryden Act 3 Scene 2 line 112-3 ). We find here Antonys
ego and infatuation for Cleopatra getting the better of him. The qualities of the great general

appear to have left him. The valor of the old may still be with him. During the battle ,as Serapion

reports, His fury cannot be expressed by words / Thrice he attempted headlong to have

fallen/Full on his foes, and aimed at Cesars galley / Withheld, he raves on you; cries,Hes

betrayed (Dryden Act 5, scene I , line 117-21) . It is valor, true, but valor without brain is

suicidal. His attempt to jump into Octavius galley, alone, is nothing more than foolhardiness.

The way Dryden presented in the All For Love, we find that Antony is not a man of single mind.

He has frequently seen to alter from his own decisions. When Antony is driven to make a choice

between his allegiance to Egypt and Cleopatra or to Rome; he must declare his allegiance to

one world or the other. He cannot have both, and it becomes clear early in the play that Rome's

problems demand his full loyalty, rather than half. Antony's failure to see the nature of his

problem causes him to endlessly vacillate, avoiding mailing a final decision until it is too late.

Much of Antony's apparent impulsiveness, first deciding to give up all for Cleopatra, then

deciding to return to Rome, etc., is a direct result of his basic underlying indecision. Because he

cannot come to a conclusion about what values take precedence in his life, he loses everything.

Again Once Cleopatra has put forward her defense; Antony melts and becomes a changed man.

On seeing the letter from Octavius, tempting Cleopatra to hand over Antony, he is convinced of

Cleopatras loyalty to him. He embraces her saying my eyes, my soul, and my all. And he tells

Ventidius that Cleopatras love, in balance, outweighs his fortune, honor and fame. Again the

departure and certainly the whole later tragedy of Antony are caused by Antonys tactlessness.

Tact need not be dishonesty or complexity .Whatever it may be, great generals, statesmen and

rulers like Antony should have tact to be successful rulers and leaders of men. Antony appears to

have lost his tact and his balance under his passion. But in Act iv we find that his heart is still
with Cleopatra ; for he mentions her as My Cleopatra a little later Octavia notices to her

discomfiture that Antony shows o his passion . . . for an abandoned faithless prostitute.

Still later enraged by the thought of Dollabella possessing Cleopatra, he calls Octavia a fury. All

these are sure signs of the fickle mindedness of Antony, which we are likely to condemn.

Antony, who is the hero in All for Love, is a man of an essentiality noble character, though his

nobility is flawed by an element of vice. IN this connection Ventidius s assessment of Antony

s character early in the play is perfectly relevantAccording to Vinditius , virtue is the true

path which is Antonys vast soul , and then deviates from this path and leaps into a vice which

carries him far away from his original course and plunges him into dissipation. Ventidius adds

that, soon after having plunged into evil courses, Antony begins to realize his blunder and is

filled with remorse. In this mood of remorse Antony then censures his own misdeeds, judging

himself impartially. In many ways a man of almost supernatural virtues, but great drawback for

him is that he sometimes forsakes the path dictated by those virtues. A little later , Ventidius

supplement his account of Antonys character by saying that Antony is at one time the bravest

of soldiers and the best of friends , that he was bounteous as Nature , and that he had given

evidence of divine qualities .However ,now Antony does not seem to Ventidius to be what he

used to be in the past. Thus Antony is depicted by Ventidius as a man of a noble characters with

a marked tendency to stray into vice. This vice, which is also the tragic flaw in his, consists in his

unlawful or illicit passion for Cleopatra. For the sake of Cleopatra, Antony leaves his empire,

forsakes his wife, and abandons both his public and private duties and responsibilities. It is

because of his love affair that Antony has been living Alexandria for a number of years , cut off

from his empire , family and friends.

Despite all his mistakes, Antony is a heroic figure, drawn larger than life by Dryden. His ever-

increasing indecision is the mirror of his inner struggle to find a balance between two worlds and

two sets of values. If he fails, it isn't because he doesn't try to achieve all that he can. His

adventurous attitude suggests that he attempts to enlarge his awareness of what life can be. By

contrast, Octavius is not heroic simply because he never questions his ideals nor deeply weighs

his loyalties. Audiences, readers, and critics have always disagreed as to whether or not Antony

made the right choice. Perceptions of the meaning of his actions will differ, but the end result is

the same: All for love is a powerful play because it has powerful character who is so grant in his

passion. They are lovers who are more mature than Romeo and Juliet and, for that reason, they

are not easily forgotten.

Mark Antony: after the death of Caesar, Antony developed ambitions of his own. Immersed in this
ambition is his attraction to Cleopatra, female pharoah of Egypt. After being defeated by his enemy
Octavian, Antony retreats to Egypt, thinking on his situation.

Antony

The final words state that "No lovers lived so great, or died so well." This suggests that the
theme of love in this play is that true love is beyond all value and Anthony and Cleopatra have
made themselves great and famous through their love for each other. The description of the two
dead lovers in the above quote is not condemnatory, but rather seems to bestow them with an
authority that allows them to "give laws to half mankind." The way in which Serapion says that
they are "secure from human chance" suggests that they are now able to be united in their love in
a way that they were never able to during their lives because of fate. The theme of this play
therefore suggests that love is so valuable as to be worth whatever the price.
The reason Dryden chose to recast the story of Antony and Cleopatra after Shakespeare and
others had done so is explained in his own words in the Dedication to his drama. The reasons he
gives are three. (1) Since many had done so already and had done so so "variously," he was
given "confidence to try" his own effort. (2) His motive was what he believed the motives of his
predecessors had been: to give a good and important moral. (3) He drew Antony and Cleopatra
"favorably" so they might elicit pity even while their lack of virtue is revealed, the end goal
being demonstrating that "our passions ... ought to be within our power." In short, Dryden
wanted to present a time honored tale of the "unfortunate" results of failing to live a virtuous life.

Dryden thus significantly introduced a new tone and style into English drama. In addition, All for
Love is significantly counted as one of Dryden's greatest dramatic works.

Marc Antony as unfocused, self-destructive, and irresponsible in love it is clear that one develops a more
noble vision of the soldier, husband, father, and friend: Marc Antony. Dryden's Antony is more noble
than the cross dresser we see in Shakespeare's original. Dryden concurs with the 18th century theme of
duty. It is essential and warranted of Marc Antony to take responsibility for his duties as a general,
husband, father, and his greater duty to Rome. In All For Love he ultimately does all of the above as a
noble man should; yet in the...
ANTONIO:

Antonio is noble in character, if not by birth, but appears weak in

contrast to Bosola, the Duchess, and her brothers. In the course of
the play he will initiate only one action, pursuing a truce with the
Cardinal (V.i), a foolhardy plan which ends in disaster.

Antonio's opening comments about the virtues of the French court set
up a contrast with that of the rulers in Italy. Many political
tragedies during this period were set in countries other than England,
where "the corruption of the times" could be criticized without fear
of the public censor.