SOURCE: Wilders, John. Introduction to The Arden Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra, edited by John Wilders, pp. 1-84. London: Routledge, 1995.

In the following excerpt, Wilders surveys the structure, characters, themes, and language of Antony and Cleopatra.

The Question of Structure

Shifts of Location

The dramatic construction of Antony and Cleopatra, with its constant shifts of location, is one which Shakespeare had already used in the two parts of Henry IV with their oscillations between the court, the tavern and the battlefield and their excursions into Wales and Gloucestershire. This in turn grew out of the mode he had used in the comedies, where one location is set off against another: the house of Baptista against that of Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew, the city and the wood in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Venice and Belmont in The Merchant of Venice. It had, in fact, been Shakespeare's way...