SOURCE: "The Public and Private Worlds of Antony and Cleopatra," in The Pillar of the World: Antony and Cleopatra in Shakespeare's Development, Ohio State University Press, 1968, pp. 17-49.

In the following excerpt, Markels examines the opposition between private and public values symbolized by the conflict between Rome and Egypt in Antony and Cleopatra.

Up through the end of Act III, scene v [in Antony and Cleopatra], (Eros' choric scene), Shakespeare has located in Rome and its various adjuncts a total of eleven scenes comprising 863 lines, and in Egypt a total of six scenes comprising 606 lines. After Antony's departure from Egypt in I.iii, Shakespeare locates his remaining Egyptian scenes (I.v, II.vi, and III.iii) in places along the sequence that dramatize the contrast in tone, texture, and values between a Roman world whose ideal of rational, disinterested politics is uniquely capable of degenerating into the cynical...